Representation

Well done those of you who made it to today's lesson. I have written up a brief opening to an essay on two other reps. Feel free to add comments and improve it.

The two images reveal a significant degree of contrast in their representation of young black men. Image A, a screen shot from a television advert for a razor shows a well known black sports star, stripped to the waist holding a razor. He is smiling at some unseen person off to the left of the screen and the shot is brightly lit showing his eyes and teeth clearly. The advert offers us a warm, confident representation of a successful black man. He exudes confidence and displays a relaxed and happy persona. His clean and well toned body suggest a man at ease with his body image and sexuality. The intimacy of his semi nakedness seems to draw a cheeky smile from him almost winsome and allows us to feel comfortable in his presence. Gillette, the company behind this advert are clearly seeking, as they have done before, to reinforce their pre-eminent place in the market by choosing three world wide acknowledged sporting stars to represent them. In this case two of those stars are black and all of them are from different countries conferring on the advert a broad appeal across different sports and national boarders and feeding off the audience recognition that excellence is not nationality or race specific and can be appreciated by all. This representation, especially in the case of Tiger Woods and Thierry Henry seeks to dispel negative images of black males often encountered through printed news and television. Through the intimate portrait it plays on non-aggressive sporting images and reveals a sensitive, humourous personality. However, we must still question its use. The sporting figure has often used positively in black male representations and are we simply looking at another one all be it clothed (or not) differently? The aspirational black sports star is in itself a curious limiting representation. The fact that sporting excellence provides a familiar and recognised route from the ghetto is understood by all and the prevalence of sporting initiatives in predominantly black and often economically deprived neighbourhoods is evidence of that. Excellence in sport can give universal status for the black man and approbation from all quarters but rarely does such representation change the stereotype of the black man as essentially physical, essentially non-intellectual and therefore perhaps the reinforcement shown in this advert merely bolsters the social pigeonhole already established.

So what of the other image taken from CCTV footage and used in a Daily Mail story about the stupidity of a mugger on the underground. This extraordinary image is both mocking and disturbing at the same time. It is something to laugh at and the object of that laughter is the foolish individual in the image. But it is also disturbing as it reinforces the commonly held opinion about young black men; that they should be feared for their potential to commit crime. The ‘criminal’ caught on the camera admiring himself with his stolen booty could of course be an innocent image of a man doing what many men and women do many times a day, examining their appearance in a convenient mirror. However, by citing it as the image of a criminal with his ill gotten gains our view becomes distorted. Here instead is the loathed street mugger, a frightening, ruthless brute caught in the vice of vanity and pride and subsequently about to receive his punishment. We feel justified in laughing and happy in the knowledge that this individual at least will not be able to steal from us again. Curiously it plays on two strongly ingrained stereotypes of young black men: the clown and the physical threat. The history of black male representation has played strongly upon these two images, from the fear of violent slave rebellion, through the Black Panther movement to Gangsta Rap and Hip Hop culture typified by 50 cents on the one hand to the entertainer image revealed in movies and television with actors like Eddy Murphy reinforcing this even in cartoons like Shrek.