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Culture Documents
Kristen J. Warner
Hannibal Buress (left) and Jerrod Carmichael (right) in Jay Z’s Moonlight.
This music video asks, even if it does not fully answer, critical questions
about the intersections of representation and employment for black actors. How
do they balance taking jobs that seem facile all the while attempting to imbue the
parts with depth through subversive performances that may not be as easily
perceived as intended? It is Buress’s query about “who asked for this?” that strikes
me as central, because his question presumes that there is a desire and an
initiative to remake existing source material with the least amount of changes to
attract different audience demographics. Swapping in and out racial groups with
little adjustment to the parts themselves retains the original work as the primary
driver and as a result marks the changes as superficial. The original work
maintains its universality in this instance by proving that “anyone” can be a
member of the Friends cast. As a consequence, the performances feel like hollow
experiments produced in a laboratory; they feel plastic.
It stands to reason that Jay Z and Yang’s desire in Moonlight‘s meta moment
is to create this response of discomfort, amid the realization that neither playing
nor watching white characters metaphorically dipped in chocolate on screen can
deliver the progress that was implicitly promised by watchdog groups like the
NAACP who for years have sought to strategically diversify the labor force in
meaningful ways. However, in this moment, when consumers of black media
proudly state that “representation matters,” disavowing (black) Friends-like texts
may be impossible because alternatives are few.
Representational Expectations
Let me be clear: while I do not share the popular expectation for mediated
imagery to matter, its overdetermining of black images as the marker of societal
progress or regression makes any image acceptable on its face, obliterating
context and sidelining any consideration of depth. Thus have images in the era of
representation matters become hollowed, malleable signs with artificial origins.
Their artificiality connects to a condition that could be termed “plastic
representation.” Plastic, in the denotative sense of a “synthetic material…that can
be molded into different shapes,” supplies a useful starting point for unpacking
just how plastic representation operates as a place of synthetic
malleability.4 Plastic is an ever-shifting artificial material whose purpose is
shaped by its essence. There is no great depth in plastic, nor is there anything
organic.
Plastic Deliveries
My notion of plastic representation is connected to the colloquial musical
concept of “plastic soul,” originally coined by black musicians to describe white
artists singing soul music. David Bowie used the concept of plastic soul to self-
deprecatingly describe his approach to rhythm and blues music. In a 1976
interview, he asserted:
But let’s be honest; my rhythm and blues are thoroughly plastic. Young Americans,
the album “Fame” is from, is, I would say, the definitive plastic soul record. It’s the
squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written
and sung by a white limey.5
David Bowie and Luther Vandross in the recording studio. Courtesy of NBC
Archives.
An operational definition of plastic representation can be understood as a
combination of synthetic elements put together and shaped to look like
meaningful imagery, but which can only approximate depth and substance
because ultimately it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny. Utilizing this
concept, I locate two types of minority visibility that exist both in front of and
behind the camera: a plastic representation that approximates a superficial
“visual” diversity and another that supplies a culturally specific contextual
version.
What does plastic representation look like in practice? For brevity, I focus
on one of its primary functions. Plastic representation uses the wonder that
comes from seeing characters on screen who serve as visual identifiers for specific
demographics in order to flatten the expectation to desire anything more. In this
instance, then, progress is merely the increase of black actors on screen in both
leading and supporting roles. The problem with such a line of thinking is that
quantifiable difference alone often overdetermines the benchmarks of progress
and obscures the multifaceted challenges inherent in booking roles as well as
securing work on writing staffs, directing gigs, or even reaching executive
gatekeeper status—thus privileging the visible (actors) over all other cinematic
and televisual functions. Employment, while a critical factor in the lives of
minority creative laborers, becomes the only gain when plastic representation is
the failsafe. Of course, skill sets and work experience matter and are part of what
is considered for these jobs in writing, directing, and in executive suites.
However, the cultural and historical experiences of the minority labor force
should be equally important contributions to how the work is produced.
When pressured, networks and studios can and do diversify their casts, just
as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will expand their voting body
by inviting more people of color to the membership—until 2020, anyway. While
visual diversity is still not a regular occurrence, it’s not impossible to achieve. It
is always impressive to see that greater numbers of people of color are finding
employment and inclusive spaces within the film and television industry, but
greater numbers indicate, not necessarily progress, but rather a simplistic fix to a
systemic problem. For this industry, actual progress would involve crafting a
more weighted diversity, one generated by adding dimension and specificity to
roles, and achieved in tandem with diverse bodies shaping those roles at the level
of producing and writing.
Jerrod Carmichael and Issa Rae in the music video for Moonlight.
My aim here is not to disparage the joyous effect and identification that arise from
seeing a version of one’s self on screen; to the contrary, I believe the desire should
be expanded, not only to see a version of one’s self on screen but for that
identification to resonate and connect with the histories and experiences of the
culture that the character’s body inhabits. Pursuing and embodying the cultural
specificity of characters of color is harder work and requires a shift away from
thinking only in positive and negative evaluative terms. Resonant characters that
are complex and nuanced may not resemble the respectable characters so often
proffered as the social cover for racial integration and as proof that black lives
matter. The true indicator of the progress that is desired lies in showcasing how
all those specifically black lives exist and thrive as themselves, not as the ones
whom they happen to be cast to represent.
Returning to Jay Z’s Moonlight video, Buress’s question “who asked for
this?” takes on greater depth when interpreted through a plastic lens. The
demand for visible difference means that even if no black audience specifically
asked for a black Friends, the legitimacy of the text and the very clear casting of
the black counterparts reinforce for that audience that some measure of progress,
no matter how hollow, has been attained.
The pathos of such a victory is that in celebrating the overdetermining of
visual diversity as a substantial gain as opposed to the overly modest concession
it is, any meaningful progress is curbed; instead, the goal posts of expectation are
moved to more comfortable places for those in power who can make those
changes. The consequences of ceding the ground where black audiences and
critics once demanded meaningful representation are that, when an inch of
progress is returned, it feels like new. The most tragic consequence of all,
however, is that all the images in the world (so-called positive or not) cannot
overwhelm the centuries of work that has already been done to sear a regime of
racist representation that casts all black difference as savage, childlike,
heathenistic, asexual/hypersexual, atavistic, angry monsters into the cultural
imaginary. The rationale for solely demanding plastic representation is
understandable as a sanity-preserving tactic that can also build esteem and
confidence, but it is not nearly enough. Meaningful, resonant diversity is a more
difficult, underdeveloped approach that requires all stakeholders to think harder
about what on-screen difference looks and feels like. But if representation truly
matters, then it is an approach worthy of pursuit. Plastic is not enough; demand
more.
Notes
1. I have written previously about the pitfalls of the positive/negative trope. See
Kristen Warner, “They Gon’ Think You Loud Regardless: Ratchetness, Reality
Television, and Black Womanhood,” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and
Media Studies 30, no. 1 88 (2015): 129-53.
2. I have written previously about the ways black female audiences labor to create
a dimensional character with whom they can identify. See Kristen Warner, “ABC’s
Scandal and Black Women’s Fandom,” in Cupcakes, Pinterest, Ladyporn:
Feminized Popular Culture in the Early 21st Century, ed. Elana Levine (Urbana-
Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015).
3. I have written about colorblind casting as an industrial strategy to enable more
physical diversity at the level of auditions and the subsequent consequences of
the practice. In my book, I argue that while the casting practice of not writing race
into the roles for which actors audition is filled with good intentions, the parts are
often written normatively, that is hegemonically white. As a consequence, when
the part is not adjusted for the person of color who is hired, they become
vulnerable to unintended stereotypes and tropes attached to the cultural and
historical experiences tethered to their bodies. See: Kristen Warner, The Cultural
Politics of Colorblind TV Casting (New York: Routledge, 2015).
4. Dictionary.com, s.v. “plastic,” http://www.dictionary.com/browse/plastic.
5. Cameron Crowe, “A Candid Conversation with the Actor, Rock Singer and
Sexual Switch-Hitter,” Playboy, September
1976, www.theuncool.com/journalism/david-bowie-playboy-magazine/.
6. “Tony Actors Roundtable: 7 Broadway Standouts on Diversity and Rude
Audiences,” The Hollywood Reporter, June 1,
2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/tonys-actor-roundtable-7-broadway-
898509.
7. Maureen Ryan, “FX CEO John Landgraf on the ‘Racially Biased’ System and
Taking Major Steps to Change His Network’s Director Rosters,” Variety, August
9, 2016, http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/fx-diversity-directors-hiring-ceo-john-
landgraf-interview-1201831409/.
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Header Image: Jay Z’s Moonlight, an eight-minute music video directed by
Alan Yang. Featuring (left to right): Jerrod Carmichael, Tessa Thompson, Lil Rel
Howery, Tiffany Haddish, and Issa Rae. ©Tidal