Monday, February 9, 2009

Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power & Respect



Just watched this in the class I'm TA-ing for. Loved it. Hope you do too.
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6 comments:

El Clyne said...

YES.

February 9, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Josh Xing said...

An Abstract for "I Like it but ..." by Josh Xing

My friend and I were debating the show Cops' influence in society. I argued that constantly showing poor, Black and Latino people being arrested stigmatizes all Black and Latino people in the greater public. Cops enables society to see Blacks and Latinos as mere criminals and any Black or Latino who doesn't fit that paradigm is an outlier, an exception to the norm. My friend countered that the show also shows White people breaking the law. I replied that my affiliation with the Black people on cops is stronger than the average White person's affiliation with the White people on Cops.
One of the perks of being in the majority is a person's actions are quarantined to the individual. A person in the majority is allowed to act as an individual, not as a constant representative of those in one's same ethnic/racial categories. This film highlights this White privilege by criticizing young, Black people attempting to find success through role-models like 50 and ironically strengthens this White privilege by working in society's racist paradigm while analyzing 50 and Obama's role among Blacks. The film thus limits successful, Black men by placing them into two categories - masculine, naturally talented person of the streets (rapper, baller, etc.) and masculine, clean-cut politician.
In addition, the analytical comparison between Obama and 50 seems natural and obvious. You can almost hear everyone say, "Why didn't I think of that?" Whereas a comparison between two White, successful figures like Eminem and George W. Bush would be outlandish or incomplete without the Obama/50 precedent.

February 9, 2009 at 2:57 PM
N.M.C. said...

That's right. Barack Obama is a fucking ninja.

February 9, 2009 at 3:35 PM
yeeknauwshamon said...

I disagree that the film only places black masculinity within two categories. What the filmmaker seeks to do by juxtaposing these two representations of black men is to disrupt the hegemonic representation of black men presented in the white supremicist capitalist patriarchal hip hop industrial complex as it is coined in the film. Particularly the aspects of black masculinity that have been hinged upon the ability to negotiate violence. By demonstrating that black masculinity can also be embodied by a man like Barack Obama who does not conform to these hegemonic conceptualizations, Byron Hurt shifts the center and demonstrates how roles prescribed by systems of power, privilege, and oppression are not based in a material reality and are purely social constructions. By opening this dialogue he is also calling for a re-imagining of black masculinity that intersectionally eliminates such systems and creates new realms of identity formation.

February 9, 2009 at 5:39 PM
yeeknauwshamon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
February 9, 2009 at 5:46 PM
yeeknauwshamon said...

Oh and one more addition, I completely agree that analysis must be done about hypermasculine representations of white men. However, as a black man Byron Hurt has chosen to focus the center of analysis upon his own identity location and then demonstrates that although systems of power, privilege, and oppression negatively affect his identity location, they are still hegemonically reproduced in the culture.

February 9, 2009 at 5:48 PM

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