Tag Archives: black masculinity

The Portrayal of Various Forms of Masculinity

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Golden: This reading explores the over interpreted representations and codifiable images of the Black male and Black masculinity in various forms of media that denies the truth of the black male identity.

Mercer: Kobena Mercer illustrates Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s use of erotic fantasy, ancestral spiritual values, and European elements to create cultural mixing and explains the influence that migration and separation from his Nigerian homeland had on his artistic production of photography.  

Looking for Langston: This black and white film portrays the collision of race and sexuality in the queer community.

This week’s film and readings explored the role that sexuality, gender, and race plays in reinforcing and reinventing the various types of Black masculinity, an identity that Ralph Ellison deems as “invisible and overinterpreted” in media. Considered as invisible in society, the Black male is fetishized and given visibility in art, films, and music.

Thelma Golden’s article was of particular interest to me because her exhibition serves as an umbrella to the Mercer article and the Langston film by portraying different stereotypes, cultural-defense mechanisms, and (mis)representations of the Black male as “ultra-violent [and] ultra-romanticized” (22). Golden’s project draws together artists that display the five signposts: 1) the transition from Civil Rights to the Black Power era; 2) blaxpoitation films; 3) the endangered Black male; 4) the death of rhythm and blues; and 5) real life drama. With the exception of the first signpost, the other categories signify the negative perceptions of the Black male and how they are used to create and circulate ill images of Black masculinity. Despite the artists’ attempt to negotiate identity and educate the audience of common racist assumptions, I am skeptical about the reception of outsiders, or non-Black audiences because instead of negating the negative generalizations, these images can reinforce and confirm them. With that being said, I would have liked to see positive images of Black men without the presence of stereotypes.

On a positive note, I do appreciate the diversity in the “Black Male” exhibit because it brings to light how Black culture is commodified through the portrayal of the Black experience both with and without the use of the body. For example, Mel Chin and David Hammons use objects, such as guns, sneakers, and the construction of basketball hoops to critique the commonly portrayed stereotypes of crime and sports within the Black community. Given the absence of the body in these pieces, the audience is still able to interpret the relationship between society’s ills and generalizations about Black masculinity. I wonder if the absence of the body in art offers a more critical critique of the pieces because the presence of the body can draw attention away from status detail, which is significant in identifying characteristics that are not as obvious.

(In)visibility of black masculine identities

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Golden: How have contemporary black artists navigated the constructions of black masculine identities in the quest for authenticity?

Julien: Isaac Julien’s “Looking for Langston” embodies the search for a sense of “place” for the black gay male in a heterosexist and racist world.

Mercer: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, a photographer by trade, uses the black male body in his work as the incarnation of an entre-deux, a living intersection.

After reading the first few sentences of Thelma Golden’s piece “My Brother”, I immediately thought of an exhibition I saw in DC of Hank Willis Thomas’s work, an artist we’ve encountered before in this course. In the series “Branded”, Thomas explicitly confronts contemporary black masculinity and its construction by (white) America. The piece that most struck me from this collection, Branded Head, is a lightjet print from 2003 (pictured below).

Branded Head 2003

 

Also in this series is the equally stunning (and discomfiting) Basketball and Chain, another lightjet print from the same year.

Basketball and Chain 2003

 

Both images, which can be found at Thomas’s site under “2011 – Branded”, speak to the continued white ownership, in some sense, of black masculinity. Here, Thomas uses the example of professional basketball and Nike’s (here, literal) branding tactics to make apparent the trap of contemporary black masculinity, which according to the artist seems to be a modern reconstruction of slavery. Ownership, of one’s own body and of masculinity and representation, is especially pertinent here and in the works of the other artists named by Golden, as they seek to navigate the loaded subject of the black male. These artists must, in a sense, unshackle the black masculine in order to find a liberating authenticity.

In the same vein, I’d like to challenge Golden’s claim that “hip-hop culture has become the signifier of black male heterosexuality”. Golden is right to claim that hip-hop/rap have become sites of the demonstration of “fitness” as a (heterosexual!) black male, but I do not think that this territory is so flat. Not only do queer black rappers/hip-hop artists exist, but does the overwhelmingly heterosexual music of the mainstream necessarily conform to heterosexual ideals? I think this is a claim that can be played with and disproved, especially with an examination of “acceptable” white (hetero)sexuality and the “other” sexuality. In the meantime, I’d love to share some up-and-coming queer rappers with my classmates and followers of the blog. Please recall, however, that while these artists are in a way “pioneers”, as the article claims, they are in no way the ONLY queer hip-hop artists/rappers and they are certainly not the first ones. Just thought this would be an interesting read with regards to the overwhelming heterosexism inherent to constructions of black masculinity and gender!

The Fight for the Black Male Body

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Looking for Langston depicts the “hidden” gay black male identity during the Harlem Renaissance as a verbal & visual aesthetic black and white film.

Mercer: Fani-Kayode confronts the hybridity of his identity in depicting black masculinity and gay culture.

Golden describes the use of stereotypes in art to represent the ignored diversity in black male culture.

In the essay, “My Brother”, Thelma Golden depicts the high desire to use the black male body as a canvas. In the past, western artists fetishize the body with stereotypes of savagery, overt sexuality, and defiance. Now, contemporary black artists, left to reconstruct and decolonize the body, appropriate stereotypes and various mediums in an attempt to reclaim the black male body. The canvas continues to fascinate media as pop culture consumes the black male body for its fame and infamy in sex, crimes, and sports. These multiple uses of the canvas represent a fight and struggle over the body’s representation. The contradiction that this contest produces is undeniable: the black male body is invisible yet overrepresented, an endangered presence yet a historic icon, demonized yet overinterpreted. Kobena Mercer explains it best when he describes the body as a site of “social identity in crisis” and “ideological representation.” The debate over the representation of the black male body exemplifies the crisis of the canvas.

The debate sparked by the negative imagery of the black male body, which overshadows the positive imagery, continues as the negative images are thought to represent black masculine culture. Golden emphasizes that this misinterpretation is false, as black masculinity, like other cultures, cannot be defined by stereotypes. There is “no single way to represent the black male.” Since black masculinity exists as an identity of otherness, the debate over representation and the authors of the imagery will continue to exist. Despite the privilege of masculinity, black males still face the social construct of their blackness, which defines their otherness. Jeff Koons, a Caucasian American, produced the work below, Moses. It notes the success of black men in sports, representing Moses Malone, a professional basketball player. But the contradiction of the name Moses, a hero from the Bible, and the hell-like background plays on the double consciousness of the black male, one with the privilege of masculinity yet the burden of blackness. The artist’s identity and the image’s contradiction set an example of causes for the continued debate over the image of black masculinity.

Moses by Jeff Koons, 1985

Moses by Jeff Koons, 1985