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Race & Representation

Henry Louis Gates: The Blackness of Blackness; A Critique of the Sing and the Signifying Monkey

In Henry Louis Gates' essay “The Blackness of Blackness; A Critique of the Sign and the Signifying Monkey,” he defines the act of Signifying, a phonetic strategy deployed within the diaspora of African American cultures. Signifying is a practice of ‘double-talk’ where the official definition and the meaning of a sign, accepted as such by the dominant social class, is circumvented by attaching a secondary inverted or unrelated definition to the sign. In Roger D. Abraham’s words, presented in Gates' essay, it is, “the trickster's ability to talk with great innuendo, to carp , cajole, needle and lie”. This practice, within black communities, arose out of necessity, during periods in which they faced repressive laws. In Stuart Hall’s “What is This Black in Black Popular Culture?" aspects of culture such as speech, hairstyles, ways of walking, standing and etc, “were often the only performative space we had left.” Using this definition of Signifying and understanding its origins within black communities, Gates explores the legend of the Lion, the Elephant, and the Signifying Monkey. While there are thousands of variations of the tale, the root story is of a Lion, representing the dominant social class as the King of the jungle, the Monkey, the Great Signifier, who uses its trickster abilities to influence the lion into action against the final character, the Elephant, by suggesting to the lion that the elephant had insulted it. It is only after the Lion is ‘trounced’ by the Elephant, and thus lost its degree of dominance, that it realizes its mistake was taking the words of the monkey at face value. 

Christina Aguilera’s, “Can’t Hold Us Down” as a music video serves as an excellent example of this legend in a postmodern setting, especially once Christina’s past and more importantly future are contextualized. To deconstruct this we can explore another segment of gates essay, “The monkey and the lion do not speak the same language; the lion is not able to interpret the monkey’s use of the language” The monkey speaks figuratively in a symbolic code; the lion interprets or reads literally and suffers the consequences of his folly, which is a reversal of his status as king of the jungle, the monkey rarely acts in these narrative poems; he simply speaks.” Throughout the music video Christina Aguilera, to the best of her abilities, is attempting to engage in the act of Signifying. Gates' essay provides an example in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” of how participating in signifying can be a powerful tool in allowing gendered stereotypes to be broken and provide a voice to those in a historically dominated class. While this is clearly the song's goal, it is undermined first by Christinas race. Christina, as a white part Ecuadorian woman, who grew up in wexford pa, (a Suburb of Pittsburgh with a median house value of $345,578–), the authenticity of her performance, or lack of, is immediately evident. The tan, the black hair (she’s blonde), the clothes she wears, and the setting are all attempts to speak the language of the Great Signifier, but as the lion, not having a full understanding of the language of signifying, her efforts are instead is ‘trounced’ and eventually ‘suffers the consequences.’ Along with other stars in this era of 2000’s hip-hop, who directly profited off of black-fishing, she received backlash from her 2002 album “stripped” which included “Can’t Hold us down”, both for aspects of black-fishing, but mostly what was for the time exceedingly explicit content. This backlash was enough to shift her musical scope, her 2006 album title, “Back to Basics'' saw her remove the smokey eye, black hair, or even dreads she had in the song “Dirty”, and return to a platinum blonde with blue eye look, that remained consistent for the rest of her career. 

Ella Shohat and Robert Stam: Unthinking Eurocentrism; Stereotype, Realism and The Struggle Over Representaiton 

In Ella Shohat’s and Robert Stam’s: “Unthinking Eurocentrism; Stereotype, Realism and The Struggle Over Representation” both authors illustrate how realism within media is constructed. Realism as a goal is effective in deconstructing hegemonic representations but realism as a style or as an illusion can be problematic because “‘Reality’ is not self-evidently given and “truth” is not immediately ‘seizable’ by the camera” Realism within literature or cinema is an extensions of extensions of reality. Conversations and social discourse are natural societal reflections of reality. Shohot and Stam explain that, The facile catch-all invocation of “stereotypes” elides a crucial distinction: stereotypes of some communities merely make the target group uncomfortable, but the community has the social power to combat and resist them; stereotypes of other communities participate in a continuum of prejudicial social policy and actual violence against disempowered people, placing the very body of the accused in jeopardy.” “Can’t Hold Us Down” and Christina Aguilera again serves as an example of the weight of this representation when viewed through the lens of race. Christina Aguilera’s character in the music video, which deploys similar techniques to the guidelines presented by “How to make an Indian Movie” serves as both the “Imported greek” (white-skinned) princess, and the white man (woman) who is “compassionate, brave, and understanding.” Even despite portraying herself in a very black-coded way, her whiteness still excludes her from the synecdochical stereotypes placed upon peoples of colonized communities. “Socially empowered groups need not be unduly concerned about ‘distortions and stereotypes, since even occasionally negative images form part of a whole spectrum of representation.”

Henry Louis Gates: The Blackness of Blackness; A Critique of the Sing and the Signifying Monkey

Iggy azaleas song, “I am the Strip Club” is similar to Christina Aguileras song through its purposeful breaking of gender norms, and a general reclaiming of sexual expression and desire. The similarities unfortunately continue in Iggy azaleas attempts to Signify. She is an artist who has already come under a lot of backlash for her artificial American black cent, as she lived in Sydney, Australia until she was 16, so its existence is already odd. But in this music video her natural blonde hair is yet again made black, and her tan is more excessive than ever. Again this attempt to mimic black culture, to speak its language, is faulty, and the lion who cannot speak the Signifying monkeys language is left to face those consequences and lose face. 

Ella Shohat and Robert Stam: Unthinking Eurocentrism; Stereotype, Realism and The Struggle Over Representation

This music video, just like Christina Aguilera’s is not all bad though. When it comes to representation they did a good job incorporating details that shift the power dynamics of gender and sexuality, allowing for not only representation, but the control of the narrative of their communities stereotypes. The Music Video incorporates erotic dancers, who would most often be played by women, as-well as a truck surrounding by bike riders who would most often be represented with men. However Iggy inverts these stereotypes by having her dancers be black and possibly male-identifying, who are themselves bending gender norm by their clothing, and breaking heteronormative expectations by dancing with eachother. The women riding the bikes at the same time don’t hold back, popping wheelings and dragging sparks it is clear they are experienced and skilled riders representing themselves in a way that challenges gendered stereotypes. 

Discussion Questions 

“Critical Spectators can thus exert pressure on distribution and exhibition, and even affect subsequent productions. While such pressure does not guarantee sympathetic representations, it does at least mean that aggressively hurtful portrayals will not go unchallenged… Latin American audiences laughed Hollywood’s know-nothing portrayals of them off the screen. What are ways in which those who feel misrepresented can change how they are represented/ has there been progress in this regard? 

Today with the internet and social media do we still see examples of attempted Signification/Black-fishing?

In the tale of the lion, the monkey, and the elephant, what does/who does the elephant represent?