Apr 17, 2017
Pushing Back
How ‘Bad’ Media can Provide a Positive Message in Modern Society
What is bad?
Merriam-Webster gives an expansive definition of bad, to include such meanings as ‘failing to reach an acceptable standard; morally questionable; disagreeable, unpleasant’. A random sampling of engineering students provided a consensus of ‘something that makes you uncomfortable.’
Certainly, then, one could include Act II of Young Jean Lee’s ‘The Shipment,’ a performance piece in which Douglas Scott Streater portrays a stereotypical black comedian (referred to as ‘The Comedian’) who, after cozying up to a predominately white audience with the expected presentation — loud, boisterous, shallow — delivers a hurtful and offensive diatribe filled with racially charged language and social commentary, leading to awkward silences and a palpable sense of uncomfortable felt even through the computer screen.
However, there is much good in this piece as well. The Comedian uses this brash performance to usurp the typical power held by the audience, and use it to expose the uncomfortable truth of race relations in modern day America. By appropriating and subverting the stereotype of the black comedian, and of African-Americans in general, the piece showcases the artistic merit of ‘shocking’ the audience into paying attention, as well as making the case for subversion and appropriation as a tactic for repressed populations to bring attention to otherwise unaddressed violations.
The Comedian, in this piece, is performing the trope, a ‘significant or recurring theme,’ of a stereotypical black comedy act a la Def Comedy Jam. The trope, in this context, is likened to the modern social meme, defined by Limor Shifman as bits of culture which ‘share common characteristics of content, form, and / or stance;’ that is, a repeated, familiar bit, recognized as similar across numerous players (Shifman, 341). The actor takes to the stage, urban music blaring in the background, and immediately launches into loud offensive language and sexually charged humor. The response of the audience, who loudly cheer and laugh, is precisely the follow to this act; both the Comedian and the audience are playing their respective parts in a performance piece, similar to the Shifman’s memes. Shifman explains: ‘memes are not merely future-oriented, but prospective and anticipating a future behavior based on past performances;’ the audience reacts not only to the comedian, but their expectation of the comedian, based upon the trope to which he plays, as well as their expectations of the other audience members to laugh, clap and catcall (Shifman, 354). Expectations turn to confusion, however, as the comedian jumps quickly from trope to angry social commentary; the comedian launching from raunchy jokes about black American diet and sexual preferences to pointed commentary on white appropriation of black urban ‘lingo’ and racist undertones.
By taking control of the social dynamic of the situation, the Comedian has appropriated the trope of the ‘stereotypical black comedian’ and bent it to his own devices, in a way thematically similar (if not under completely similar scenarios) to the violations of Roisin Byrne against Jochem Hendricks. Byrne is said to appropriate ‘that coveted object taken without permission … the very cultural capital possessed by the male artists she targets;’ it is not Hendricks gold she covets, but the attention and respect his art demands (Fisher, 7). I believe this can be simplified even further: the object Byrne covets is the power Hendricks possesses as a heteronomative artist in modern society. She forces Hendricks to either submit his power to her, or admit that they are both equally without merit.
Similarly, the Comedian appropriates the ‘individual capital’ of the audience members, forcing them to recognize him as an individual, rather than the role they have assigned him to play. This appropriation of power breaks down the social dynamic of the piece, with audience members unsure of how to respond; their nervous, broken laughter and scattered applause betray their shock.
One might question why the Comedian would choose to perform in this manner, this sort of ‘shock art’. In ‘Guest Stars,’ Doyle states ‘when you are shocked by art, you usually don’t think, “Wow, that’s great art!” but “what the fuck was that?”’; a fair estimation of the audiences’ reaction (Doyle, 7).
This shock is seen used to great effect during the Comedians first major break from performance, where a joke about the white community not understanding ‘black’ lingo slides into a forceful rejection of the audiences’ behavior; the audience, laughing and clapping initially, is stunned into silence (Shipment, 10:15–10:30). He continues ‘so I’m gonna say what I gotta say, and fuck it. If you don’t like it, leave! This is my show, if you don’t like it, leave!’ (Shipment, 10:30–10:46) He then rolls back into friendly comedy, and the audience responds with tittering; an uncomfortable laugh, at an uncomfortable situation.
And yet, in this shock, this uncomfortableness, there is value; the Comedian has subverted the expectations of the audience and uses that to reframe the lens through which the audience views him. In ‘Gender is Burning,’ Judith Butler states that similar acts ‘…might be understood as repetitions of hegemonic forms of power which fail to repeat loyally and, in that failure, open possibilities for signifying the terms of violation against their violating aims’ (Butler, 124). This can be understood to mean that by taking an expected action and performing it, but performing it with a slight perversion against the expected norm, the norm can be weakened; the trope becomes a performance, and the Comedian changes from a symbol to an individual.
An example of this from the piece would be when the Comedian, now back in his ‘familiar’ performance, repeats self-depreciating black stereotypes; ‘black people be some of the stupidest, forty drinking, hot wing eating … motha fuckas in the world’ with the audiences’ laughter growing throughout (Shipment, 11:58–12:32). The stereotype is repeated disloyally; by repeating the stereotype and juxtapositioning it against the unfairness by which the stereotypes are judged, he weakens the violation against himself.
The end game of this scenario is to expose the racist undertones of the expected performance, and with race relations between black and white Americans in general, with the Comedian using the performance as a gateway to reach the audience. Butler expands on her thesis of subversion of hegemonic values by stating ‘[t]he compulsion to repeat an injury is not necessarily the compulsion to repeat the injury the same way’ (Butler, 124); that use of the hegemonic power structure does not necessarily imply that the user and the structure have similar values, and that by performing the expected actions (‘repeating the injury’) in a different way, the performer can subtly affect how the hegemony views them. The comedian states:
‘Well listen man, I am not advocating for any great political movement…just acknowledge the systematic racism that is embedded in our country!’ (Shipment, 14:40–15:04).
The Comedian repeats the ‘injury,’ the espousing of racist thoughts and stereotypes, but he does so with the alteration of brief interludes of sincere heartfelt emotion, subverting the audience (the hegemony) and furthering his purpose.
To return to the original question: what is bad?
At the beginning of this piece, we questioned the meaning of ‘bad,’ and how ‘bad’ things affect us as an audience. By every criterion set forward, Young Jean Lee’s ‘The Shipment’ is bad; it is offensive, it is confusing, and it inspires discomfort from its audience. Even viewing through the critical lens of the classroom engendered a palpable level of discomfort amongst the other students.
However, in that discomfort, did we not find artistic merit? Regardless of the emotional response elicited by the performance, one has to see the merit in the approach. By adopting that familiar trope, the stereotypical performance, the Comedian lulls his audience into a state of openness; by being placed into the familiar, their guard is dropped, and the ‘punch’ of the Comedian is that much more effective. He then appropriates the stereotype, taking away the power capital of the audience over the performer and bending it against them, forcing the audience out of their comfort zone and into an unfamiliar, more level playing field. It is upon this more equal ground that the Comedian uses his appropriated tropes and subverts the expectations audience; repeating his injury in a disloyal way, and using that injury against the audience and accomplishing his goals.
Through this new lens, we are able to identify the ‘good’ in the ‘bad’. The Comedian has used his bad against ours; his trope plays against our stereotypes, adopting a falsely familiar visage against which his appropriation and subversion can be used effectively against our hegemony. Had he simply stated his actual positions, he would have risked being ignored or minimized; in our discomfort, we are unable to marginalize or compartmentalize his positions.
The Shipment is bad, by definition. It is unpleasant, profane, and extremely uncomfortable. It is also very good, through its artistic manipulation of expectations and stereotypes, and extremely effective in its communication and navigation of a complex racial and social issue. Perhaps from this we can glean an understanding that perhaps what makes something ‘bad’ or ‘good’ is not strictly a black and white issue, but rather a complex landscape of grays in which works of art can inhabit either or even both simultaneously. Perhaps we would all be better served by avoiding reductionism to simple right-or-wrong, us-versus-them; that if we took the time to challenge our preconceived notions that there is validity in any number of views, even if those views make us uncomfortable.
I think the Comedian would be satisfied with that, to start.
Works Cited
“bad.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2017.Web. 10 April 2017.
Butler, Judith. “Bodies that Matter: on the Discursive Limits of Sex”. New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.
Doyle, Jennifer. “Guest Stars.” Frieze Magazine 22 July 2010. Print.
Fisher, Anna. “It’s not you, It’s Me.” 2017. Draft Presented by Author, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Shifman, Limor. “The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres.” Journal of Visual Culture 13.3 (2014): 340–358. Web.
The Shipment. Directed by Young Jean Lee. 2008.
“trope.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2017.Web. 10 April 2017.
