Pinder: Pinder examines multiracial identities and representations in art, claiming that “transraciality” can be seen as a harbinger of unity and hope.
Waegner: In this piece from AfroAsian Encounters, Waegner argues that the “new” blackface/yellowface we see in art and pop culture alike constitutes a sort of polycultural borrowing and a “playful postmodernist passing”.
Though I found Waegner’s piece intellectually stimulating, I left it feeling uncomfortable and skeptical. Despite my valiant attempts to like her claims of “polycultural porousness” and of ethnicity as a Butler-esque performance, in the end I couldn’t stomach them. Even though Waegner claims that the examples she brings up are not minstrelsy, I had difficulty with some of them. She admitted that Tuff was a problematic example, but what of R. Kelly’s video? Waegner points to “an informal student survey” to claim that most students were not offended by the music video, saying, “It’s just an R. Kelly video.” But I must ask – does that make it OK? Even if these students do not find the video offensive as they view it with “a considerable amount of ironic distance”, should we simply stop there? Curious, I immediately turned to youtube to see R. Kelly’s video for Thoia Thoing, and was admittedly shocked that Waegner would defend this as “playful passing”. Despite her attempts to align this video and the other examples in her piece with postmodernist means of expression and innocent cultural swapping, I remain unconvinced. Underneath Waegner’s eloquent intellectualism, I can only see what I feel would otherwise be called cultural appropriation.
I see this not as an exemplar of ethnic porosity, but of the growing trend in contemporary pop culture towards a sometimes socially sanctioned cultural appropriation. Perhaps I simply don’t get it, but I fail to see how these examples are different from Gwen Stefani’s disturbing troupe of “Harajuku Girls” (If you are unfamiliar with Gwen Stefani’s penchant for East Asian women, you may refer refer to this video.). This piece from Racialicious entitled The Orientalism of Nicki Minaj outlines another example of what Waegner might consider “passing”. I see only the continuation of old stereotypes in these examples – Asian women as exotic, sexually available, and submissive. And while I would love to see Nikki S. Lee’s “Hip-Hop Project” as respectful porosity, it just feels like blackface to me. It makes me – along with all these other examples – feel uncomfortable and ultimately unconvinced of Waegner’s thesis. I look forward to discussing this with my classmates and perhaps deepening/changing my understanding of this work.
