[img]139|left|||no_popup[/img] The so-called Carmageddon weekend was not a good thing for me. Instead of driving, I spent my time reading and watching on television what passes for entertainment these days. I hate driving, but perhaps dodging accidents on our very democratic freeways is a better way to mark one’s time.
As only an occasional consumer of entertainment, there are moments, fleeting though they may be, when I think this world has progressed. It’s not that I quite believe we’re “post racial,” but I’d like to think this is not the world of Amos ‘n’ Andy or Stepin Fetchit. Then I read a book, watch a television show, or fast forward through a movie (MTV generation attention span + baby), and I realize nothing changes. White folks get all the interesting parts, and the rest of us people of color remain the clowns.
Someone must explain to me the obsession with blue eyes. As I plod through another Ken Follett saga, I have to wonder why only the smart characters have blue eyes. Their eyes are all “keenly intelligent,” “piercing,” and just so damned smart you’d think the orbs should have their own Mensa cards. You can tell characters are going to be plodding or dull or, well, Jewish, if they have brown eyes. It’s as if I’m reading about that infamous Jane Elliot experiment, but without the lessons about stereotypes and bigotry.
So Predictable
Should I assume whenever people look at me with my brown eyes that they perceive me as none too bright? (Don’t answer that). When people look at my blue-eyed husband with his brown-eyed son, do they hang their heads in sadness assuming my child will never be as bright or full of perspicacity as his blue-eyed relatives.
Just when I had had enough of people’s perceptions of people, I switched on the horse movie with which my toddler is currently infatuated, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. With lots of animation, music and little dialogue, I figured it was a cure for my brown-eyed blues. Boy, was I wrong. As I watched the romance unfold between the mustang hero and the mare that would be his heroine, I locked eyes with her, and realized hers were blue. Along with her blonde mane, she was the perfect embodiment of an American leading lady, albeit, in equine form.
When I put down the baby, closed the book, turned off the DVD player and came upstairs, another television treated me to more of the same. Although most people on earth have brown eyes, and non-white skin, watching American television, you’d never know it. Fortunately, most programming is not directed by folks like Peter Jackson, whose Lord of the Rings movie trilogy presented seemingly endless close-ups of Elijah Wood’s guileless blue eyes, but it often comes close. And with everything in high definition, all those blue irises can be a bit much. Set design and wardrobe take a back seat in a world where the eyes have it. But that wasn’t what got to me this time.
Eyes Aren’t the Half of It
For years, I have wondered why “natural” hair on black actresses appeared to be unacceptable on television. If I had a dime for every sassy wig a black woman sports on the tube, I’d be rich. So I was thrilled when one of the featured actresses on the HBO series “True Blood” had braids. I’ve had braids, many women I know have had braids, and I felt elated that at least one natural hairstyle had been celebrated. Then I started watching an episode somewhere in the middle of season three and noticed that all the other black women on the show were wearing wigs: glossy, shiny, fake hair.
Was this any better than the Native American character from the movie downstairs, “Little Creek,” with his bare torso and feet – no matter the weather? And the directors, who in the DVD extras talk about how they spent hours attending to minute details, couldn’t even get the palm and sole color of Little Creek right? Hours spent getting withers and croups and fetlocks as accurate as possible, but not one of these animators realized that brown-skinned people don’t have brown-skinned palms? Sure, I’ve seen this thing in animation all of my life, but in today’s enlightened world I expected honesty. I should have known better. Entertainment is a world of stereotypes where white folks are smart, especially if they have blue eyes, Indians are brave, and apparently shirtless, and black folks wear wigs. Plus they are funny. What, you don’t believe me?
To keep me entertained in my kitchen this week, I clicked on the latest the Pandora app had to offer: comedy. My options, today’s comedy (white folks), urban comedy (black folks), blue-collar comedy (Jeff Foxworthy). You get the idea. When I dialed up urban comedy, I kind of expected contextual comedy about gritty neighborhoods and growing up poor, not Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby.
What about Bill Cosby screams urban? Certainly not his multi-acre compound in Western Massachusetts.
I’d forgotten about all these distinctions, especially when video browsing moved from Blockbuster to Netflix. Back when Wayne Huizenga ruled the video rental world, if I wanted to see something with black people, I’d wander over to the comedy section. Whether it was the latest from the Wayans brothers or Raisin in the Sun (a funny play if there ever was one – not), we’d all be lumped in there together.
Happily, I jumped back in my car today, steering clear of cell phone talkers and texters. It was a relief not to have to delve into the world of low-brow amusement with all its bigotry and small mindedness. I can put it all off once again until another day when freeway closures or boredom takes over. For everyone else, bring in the clowns.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
