Exploring Race Relations and the Culture Industry's Impact
School
Humber College**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
BUS 4502
Subject
Communications
Date
Dec 10, 2024
Pages
7
Uploaded by MegaGooseMaster829
Session At A GlanceIn this module, we tackle the controversial theme of race relations in consumer society. More specifically, we trace a single concept, the fact of Blackness, across a number of events in recent mass-culture history. More specifically, you’ll be asked to consider the question, is the culture industry an agent of racial awareness, or does it mask racial tensions and cleavages from its audience?Source: maradon 333 / Shutterstock.comRationaleRace in consumer society is a fascinating topic for at least two reasons. Firstly, races, we have to remember, don’t exist in a strict or biological sense. If we believe that differences in skin colour and physiognomy represent fundamental divisions within our species, this is only because it has been culturally constructed and upheld. In which case, we have to examine the role of mass media in the maintenance of this belief with a critical eye.Secondly, White people tend to live as though racial issues don’t pertain to them because Whites, of course, are socially dominant across Europe, Australia and the Americas. Another way of saying this, Euro-American culture has traditionally construed everything about Whites (their comparative privileges, their tastes, etc.) as ‘normal,’ whereas everything about non-Whites (their comparative lack of privileges, their social problems, etc.) as ‘racial.’ In any event, the discussion of howthe mass media depict race relations inevitably touches on, in an American context at least, the depiction of Blackness. In 1952, Frantz Fanon, a Martinican-born polymath,1 coined the expression, the fact of Blackness. Fanon was one of the first to put in print a common feeling, namely that to be Black in the Western World or Global North (North America and Western Europe) isn’t at all a straightforward identity.Smith and Carlos’ Black Panther SaluteSource: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.comWith respect to mass culture, the central question we need to ask ourselves is this: does the culture industry help break down or reduce racial inequality, or does the culture industry ultimately mask and perpetuate it? Rephrased more simply, to what extent do media serve as agents of progressive change? As you’ll see below, tackling these questions isn’t at all a straightforward exercise because the answers are so thoroughly ambivalent. “Ambivalent” here doesn’t just mean theculture industry’s role is “debatable;” it means that the culture industry is both progressive and regressive, often simultaneously.
It just so happens that history provides a spectacular case study, the events of which span five decades, to help us see the culture industry’s contradicting or ‘Janus-faced’ tendencies when it comes to the fact of Blackness.Source: Angelo Cozzi (Mondadori Publishers) [Public domain]On 16 October 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics, Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze respectively in the 200m sprint. Australia’s Peter Norman overtook Carlos at the end of the race to clinch the silver medal. While the US national anthem played during the awards ceremony, Smith and Carlos took their shoes off, bowed their heads and raised a black-gloved fist in a defiant, Black-Panther-esque salute (Smith raised his right arm, Carlos his left). The athletes, Norman included (who aided and abetted the American duo), were protesting the lack of basic human rights for Blacks in the US. It must be remembered that this was no small gesture, considering the Black Panther Party (BPP), a self-defence militia founded in Oakland in the late 1960s, was considered a terrorist organization by the American government. The trio willingly accepted the risks to their reputations and careers, and as they probably expected, they paid a heavy price: the International Olympic Committee (IOC) promptly ejected Smith andCarlos from the Olympics on the grounds that political protests have no place at the Games, a decision the USOC chose not to contest. As for Norman, Aussie officials saw to it that he never again represented the ‘Land Down Under,’ neither at the 1972 Munich Olympics, nor in a ceremonial capacity at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.3The image of Smith and Carlos’ raised fists is undoubtedly among the most iconic moments of the entire 20th Century. Remembered today as heroes of the civilrights movement, Smith and Carlos have been completely vindicated in the court of popular opinion. Only the most partisan and belligerent of right-wing pundits would openly say that their protest was morally wrong.Reaction to Smith And CarlosSource: IOC / Olympic Museum Collections [Public domain]For our purposes, what was most fascinating about their protest was the initial news coverage. Here’s a three-and-a-half clip from ABC News which aired on 17 October, the day after the race, when the American public’s astonishment was still is raw. The back-half of the clip features Howard Cosell, whose distinctive voice and cadence made him the English-speaking world’s foremost sportscaster until the1990s:
Despite the journalists’ characteristic detachment and objectivity, the clip structures Smith and Carlos’ protest into a kind of consumable ‘narrative,’ almost asif the producers were trying to anticipate (and ultimately guide) how the audience would think and feel about the event. They did this by playing with cultural signs, most notably the national anthem: the clip unflinchingly shows the protest in its entirety without any voiceover, so that for one minute and 10 seconds (fully a third of the clip), the American public could register the disturbing dissonance of hearing their beloved “Star-Spangled Banner” over such a patently unpatriotic scene. The anchor goes so far to say that “some boos” could be heard in the stadium (1:55-mark [or 16:30 if you’re following the on-screen counter]), but that’s not at all evident in the audio. Quite the contrary, only cheers can be heard!The other sign which the clip plays with is the fact of Blackness, or specifically, Blackness as something to be consumed by a White audience. It comes towards the end of the clip, at the 3-minute-mark (or 17:40), when Cosell asks the burning question on the collective mind of ‘Middle America:’ “Do you think you represented all Black athletes in doing this?” This is a loaded question which simultaneously implies a fantasy and a fear. The fantasy is that Smith and Carlos are merely rogue athletes whose sentiments aren’t widely shared, and therefore dismissible by America at large. The fear, however, is that Blacks have become a truly dangerous political class: Smith and Carlos’ political claims, demanded in such a spectacular fashion on an ostensibly non-political stage, is yet further proof that Blacks are no longer accepting the power- and voicelessness accorded to them by American culture and society.4The culture industry, in other words, was content on that day to spin the signs of the civil rights movement into a regressive tale that perpetuated the fact ofBlackness at precisely the moment in history when its ‘facticity’ was finally starting to erode.Changing WindsSource: ABC Television Uploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia [Public domain]But how quickly the news cycle changes! The very next day, 18 October, the ABC Evening News aired the following editorial by Cosell, the scathing tone of whichis a 180° departure from the day before. Cosell begins by lambasting the ignorance of the IOC and USOC, continues by eloquently summarizing Smith and Carlos’ critique of the Olympic movement, and ends with a wickedly astute observation (at the 1:23-mark [or 20:40]):"And so the Olympic Games for the United States have become a kind of America in microcosm, a country thrown apart. Where will it all end? Don’t ask the
US Olympic Committee. They’ve been too busy preparing for a VIP cocktail party next Monday night at the lush, new Camino Real!"Source: ABC Television Uploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia [Public domain]Source: Thad webgert / Shutterstock.comTo add further complexity to the question of how we consume race relations in mass media, let’s move forward in time to 2016. Without a doubt, the true echo of Smith and Carlos’ protest in that year was Colin Kaepernick, an accomplished but past-his-prime quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who began kneeling on one knee during the playing of the national anthem. His reasons for taking the knee were similar to Smith and Carlos’.Yet Kaepernick wasn’t, strictly speaking, the heir to Smith and Carlos’ crown in the court of popular opinion. That distinction, bizarrely enough, went to Beyoncé.On 7 February 2016, Beyoncé performed her then latest single, “Formation,” in Santa Clara at the Super Bowl Halftime show, with also featured Bruno Mars, MarkRonson and British rockers, Coldplay.5 Unabashedly Black-Panther-themed, Beyoncé’s troupe of dancers sported identical berets, thick-framed sunglasses, hugeAfro hairdos, tight-fitting, midriff-cropped leather jackets, shorts, sheer tights with a single garter on the right leg, and ankle-high boots.6 Taken together, the dancers resembled a platoon of sexy-Halloween-costume clones of Angela Davis, the philosopher, activist and BPP associate who was once called a “dangerous terrorist” by then US President Richard Nixon.Check out the performance, which starts at the 7:04-mark, just after Mars and Ronson’s “Uptown Funk:”To be clear, at issue here is not Beyoncé per se, since for decades, pop stars have broached politically controversial topics. The video for “Formation,” for instance, refers heavily to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, whose Black citizens disproportionately bore the brunt of casualties as well as the government’s mismanaged, uncompassionate response.What’s instead at issue, just as it was with Smith and Carlos, is how the mass media received her Super Bowl performance, which, in a nutshell, was nothing shy of explosive. Whether pundits loved or hated it, everyone seemingly agreed that Beyoncé had made a bold political statement. On the side of haters, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani chimed in on Fox News to say that her glorification of the Black Panthers “attacked police officers.” But the majority of commentators, and arguably Americans too, applauded Beyoncé’s courage to embrace the twin
themes of Black dignity and power in the most prominent of sports settings. Indeed,many praised her visionary talent, like some latter-day Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, to grasp the various strands of our zeitgeist and weave them into a coherent whole. Here’s what Jenna Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, had to say:As always…Beyoncé…operates across multiple vectors, and “Formation” isn’t just about police brutality – it’s about the entirety of the black experience in America in 2016, which includes the standards of beauty, (dis)empowerment, culture and the shared parts of our history (see Caramanica, Morris and Wortham 2016).Heavy praise indeed!Yet perhaps the most eye-opening analysis of the Halftime spectacle came from the daytime talk show, The View, whose panel the next day dissected both Beyoncé’s performance and Giuliani’s condemnation of it. The key moment comes at the 3:19-mark, when Sunny Hostin, herself a lawyer, makes the iron-clad argument that exonerates Beyoncé in the court of public opinion, fully and completely: Hostin draws the connection to Smith and Carlos. And on that point, thecase of Beyoncé versus Giuliani (the case, that is, of whether she had the right to turn the Halftime show into a radical protest) rests!5 And while we’re (cynically!) talking about race relations, it’s interesting to note that Coldplay, who in 2016 were well past their peak of popularity and musical relevance, were accorded headliner status for the show!6 For her part, Queen Bey decked herself with dual ammunition belts, an outfit that paid homage to Michael Jackson’s 1993 Super Bowl costume. Yet one has to wonder if anyone will ever again openly give props to the ‘King of Pop,’ especiallyafter the stunning disclosures of decades’ long sexual abuse contained in the two-part HBO documentary, Leaving Neverland (2019).Breaking Down or Perpetuating the Fact of Blackness?Source: Everett collection / Shutterstock.comThere are at least three ways of interpreting or summarizing the change in the culture industry from the time of Smith, Carlos and Cosell to the time of Beyoncé, Giuliani and Hostin.1. The ‘Tanning of America’ Interpretation:Perhaps the simplest interpretation to draw is that the mass media have become more progressive since the 1960s. They’ve been doing their part, stated
differently, to expose and break down the racial hypocrisy of America. This is the argument that the media outlets would probably make, and while it’s a superficial and self-serving interpretation, we certainly shouldn’t ignore the more open, more respectful climate today for talking about race relations. Some would even say that this improved climate has helped to make Blackness less politically charged, which has correspondingly opened new crossover markets, as White consumers now consume traditionally Black cultural content (e.g. hip-hop), and Black consumers consume the markers of White privilege (e.g. Tommy Hilfiger). This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the tanning of America.2. The ‘Culture Jam’ Conspiracy:Another interpretation, also a narrative of progress, would be to say that the culture industry has become more socially responsible in spite of itself. That is, progressive change has come about because of counter-cultural jamming within the system itself, undertaken by rogue actors like Cosell or Beyoncé who succeeded in subverting the culture industry’s inherent conservativism. Ryan Coolger, the director of the blockbuster, Black Panther (2018), is credited with having accomplished the same feat: according to Adrienne McCarthy (2018), by bringing attention to the real Black Panthers still languishing in prison, Coogler “us[ed] the master’s tools [in this case Disney] to resist the master itself.” This is cultural-jamming argument borrows heavily from consumer critique.3. The Adorno Argument:The third, most nuanced interpretation (and probably the one Theodor Adornowould make, were he with us today), is that the Beyoncé-Giuliani brouhaha proves that mass culture is just as regressive and ignorance-inducing as it ever was. How so? The culture industry has profoundly degraded our understanding of what passesfor a political act, to the point where we now take it for granted that Beyoncé’s ‘stand,’ as Hostin noted, was on par with those of Smith, Carlos and Kaepernick. Butwhen you really think about it, there’s an ocean of difference between the entertainer and the athletes. Smith, Carlos and Kaepernick’s protests were political not simply because of what they said, but what they risked, which was everything. In a very concrete sense, they put their well-beings on the line. Beyoncé, by contrast, risked nothing. It’s quite likely that the performance was purposely designed a (re-) branding exercise, or a calculated ploy to generate controversy as adefinitive way for the songstress, as Adam Howard (2016) reminds us, to add some social consciousness to her “Drunk-in-Love” persona.A New Fact of Blackness?During the age of colonialism and slavery, Blackness was defined by the dominant, Euro-American culture as ‘Other’ because this cultural construction facilitated the appropriation of Black bodies and the exploitation of their labour. Thiswas precisely the historical “fact” which the civil rights movement finally began to tear down in 1960s. Today, however, it would appear that the culture industry has
re-established a new fact of Blackness, the goal of which is not to appropriate or exploit Black bodies, but to appropriate Black signs (or more specifically, the signs of political struggle) for economic gain.Photography retrieved from www.gannett-cdn.comIn the 1960s, Black power meant the right of self-determination for America’s Black communities, at least according to Malcolm X or Huey Newton, leader of the BPP. Under the culture-industrial banner, however, Black power has been transformed into a far more marketable sign, the right of individual self-expression. When all is said and done, the sad, regressive message on which Queen Bey’s brandrests is this: no one has the right to stop Black women from being cool, rebellious and sexy!It would therefore appear that the culture industry no longer fears a Black planet. They fear a planet on which they can no longer appropriate, commodify and capitalize on the malleable signs of Blackness.Takeaway PointsThe fact of Blackness, as explained by Frantz Fanon, is Euro-American culturalconstruct that stripped Black people, in the eyes of the dominant White culture, of all their complexity and humanity.Over the past 60 or so years, the culture industry has both perpetuated and strived to break down the fact of the Blackness, often simultaneously!