Tag Archives: Barbara Thompson

The Gaze

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Summaries:

Pariah: In Pariah, Alike confronts her sexuality as she struggles with the identity of her black womanhood in the context of her family.

Black Womanhood, Barbara Thompson: Diverse artists from the diaspora disrupt and reply to the Western standard of Black females via stereotypical appropriation.

Contemporary Art, Taylor: The artists featured in Documenta 11 addresses the context of identity on an international level.

In Black Womanhood, Thompson provides examples of various artists who not only disrupt and reply to the Western European standard but also the gaze of the art world, another sphere of influence for the Western white male. This gaze acts as a form of judgment or standard from the art world which asserts the perspective of the western white male. The “other” identities depicted in traditional work are considered in relation to this “ideal” identity, demeaning the value of the “other”. The works of artists who disrupt and reply to the gaze is important because they also provide a space and canvas for reaffirmation of the other identity. In Black Womanhood, Thompson presents diverse artists from the African diaspora who redefine and reaffirm the identity of the black female as well as counter the gaze of the art world. Such artists are necessary as the traditional Western white male perspective has dominated the art world and defined the black female identity as overtly sexual, subordinate, and savage-like. I think Thompson describes the new perspective best when she states that through the work of such artists, viewers can “imagine themselves in her skin taking up negative space of her absent body with all of its cultural baggage and expectations.” This contradiction of existence and identity cannot be understood through the gaze of the art world or the western European standard, asserting the necessity for the perspective of diverse artist from the diaspora.

De-colonizing the Queer Self

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“You should wear your hair down.”

“Your father likes it up.”

Pariah, a film lauded for its representation of the black lesbian community, follows protagonist Alike as she struggles to find an authentic queer identity in a conservative, black, middle-class family. Alike is alienated by her ultra-normative parents and feminine younger sister, yet even the family itself chafes at its own normativity – the desperate attempts of the mother to seduce her own husband, his only constant the beers he swills as he becomes forever more and more absent. They all recognize their individual and collective failures at (hetero)normativity. Frantically, they attempt to retain that normativity, that perfectly organized (colonized?) family unit – the mother buys Alike pink blouses, the father asserts his patriarchal authority and supposed “untouchability”. “Why you asking so many goddamn questions, girl?” He demands of Alike. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t question me.”

 “Tell him! Tell him that you’re a nasty-ass dyke!”

To escape the crushing (hetero)normativity of her home life, Alike depends on Laura, her older, butcher, working-class friend. Laura attempts to help Alike navigate queer life, taking her to the lesbian club nearby, lending her clothing and even buying her a strap-on dildo at one point. The club represents a queer “safe space” for queer black women, an opportunity to defy heteropatriarchal impositions. Yet even within this safe queer haven, they are unable to escape the colonizing forces of normativity. The lesbian club Laura and Alike frequent is strictly butch-femme, allowing only for the coupling of an AG (aggressive) like Laura and the submissive femmes she picks up. Alike feels this pressure to adhere to this binary within the queer community, overhearing one feminine-presenting straight girl at school say that she might be attracted to her if “… maybe if she was a little bit harder…” Despite Alike’s valiant attempts at an AG presentation, it seems that she is still not quite masculine enough to be acceptable in this dichotomous world. She hates the strap-on Laura buys her, claiming it chafes, and throws it away. She feels uncomfortable at the club, seemingly uninterested in or unwilling to play the butch-femme game to pick up women. Even Laura, the model AG, appears to recognize the limits of this so-called “freedom”. When talking Alike about her (Alike’s) new love interest, she says in a melancholy tone, “I really am happy for you… Because I love you.” After uttering those words, Laura turns away, taking the acceptably femme partner she had picked up at the club with her, leaving Alike open-mouthed with her femme counterpart. Did Laura desire Alike all along, unwilling to take action because of the forbidden nature of a butch-butch coupling? Regardless of the nature of her desire, one cannot argue that Laura is not one of the most (if not the most, in my mind!) faithful, most loving characters in Alike’s life. She cares for Alike when she leaves home after her mother beats her when she is forced to come out despite the fact that she and her sister are struggling to make ends meet, stroking her arm softly to comfort her in one touching scene. Laura undoubtedly loves Alike – could it be that in another context she would express that love differently?

“I am not broken, I am free.”

After a violent and emotional confrontation with her parents, Alike leaves home, claiming that she is “not running, I’m choosing”. She knows that she can no longer bear the yoke of “acceptable” black womanhood, and that she must, as Thompson suggests, de-colonize her own queer self in order to find true freedom – outside of her oppressive household, outside of the false freedoms of the club. It must be brought to attention that Alike’s wardrobe changes towards the end of the film – something that is not at all insignificant. She is perhaps still more masculine-of-center, but no longer attempts the hyper-masculinity of Laura or other AGs. She wears hoodies and jeans, but she occasionally wears pink, she keeps her earrings in – she is no longer forced to choose between the hyper-femininity of her mother or the extreme AG masculinity of Laura. Alike introduces herself to the outskirts, a truly queer world, where she does not have to fit norms of any origin. Through extreme pain, she is able to graduate early with her perseverance, talent, and intelligence and go into an early college writing program. She forgives her mother, telling her that she loves her, though her mother is not able to repeat those words back to her. Ultimately, on the bus ride to college, despite the incredible loss she has experienced, Alike appears happy. She knows that she is not broken, she is free.

Colonial Narratives, Artistic Confrontations

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For this response, I will focus on the first half of Barbara Thompson’s “Decolonizing Black Bodies: Personal Journeys in the Contemporary Voice”. Thompson carefully explores the historical representations of black women as the venus, the odalisque, and as mothers while focusing on the ways in which black artists have confronted the colonial imaginations of black women through their own works.
Both colonial and post-colonial narratives have fixated on the body and purported sexuality of African and black women as a counter-narrative to white womanhood. Where the black woman was lustful, voluptuous, and unclad, the white woman was modest, demure, and pure. African and black artists such as Wangechi Mutu, Sokari Douglas Camp, and Emile Guebehi physically exaggerate the black female form in a variety of mediua. In doing so, they expose the colonial exaggerations of black women as “ethnographic specimen(s) and anthropological curiosities” (283) and disrupt the historical stereotypes.
In the nineteenth century, colonialism created fictionalized narratives of Africa “which reinforced racist visual and ideological landscapes” (284) through photography. This often focused on the idea of harems and the black female nude as a subject. Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi uses photography to illustrate the construction rather than reality of photography by focusing on the sexuality alluded to veiled African bodies. Photographers Carla Williams, Malick Sidibe, and Alison Saar disrupt the colonial notions of black women by reclaiming the black nude female figure.
For me, the most interesting section of this reading focused on the colonial narratives (and contemporary artistic challenges) of African and black motherhood. The African mother was the cornerstone of colonialism and imperialism, while in the post colonial context, African and black mothers continue to be defined by the colonial interpretations and representations. The figure of a black woman holding a white child was a popular method of highlighting black women’s ‘natural’ caretaker instinct that ignored the experiences of these women. Artists Joyce J. Scott and Senzeni Marasela challenge the “Mammy” figure, dismantling the notion of the nurturing caretaker and highlighting the harmful effects on black women and their children. Recalling the typical pose of a black woman posing with a child in her lap, photographer Fazal Sheikh creates powerful portraits of Somali refugee mothers with their children. By collaborating with the subjects of his portraits, Sheikh empowers them to convey the reality of their experiences.