source link: http://mymediacreative.com/
we are looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.
ORIENTALISM:
The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism
“The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism“
Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii
‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ (Said, 1993: xxi). Orientalism (1978) alongside Culture and Imperialism (1993) are key texts written by the respected academic Edward Said. He asked if ‘imperialism was principally economic‘ and looked to answer that question by highlighting ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’ (1997:3)
‘An economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’
V. G. Kiernan (American: The New Imperialism) (cit in Said, 1993:350)
The mode is characterised by ‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but this gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear.’ (Suleri, 1987:255)
Similarly, ‘the East becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence, laziness and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.’ (Barry, 2017:195)
Overall, POSTCOLONIALISM operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. (Said, 1978:238). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)
The emergence of Postcolonial critical thinking
Postcolonial critical thought emerged as a distinct category in the 1990’s, with an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’ (Barry, 2017: 194). In other words, postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’; questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts – book, poems, plays, films etc – much of which is institutionalised into academic syllabi.
The arguments around postcolonial critical thought ‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’ (MacLoed, 200: 16)
For an interesting and consise overview of the development of ‘literary canons’ in literature, read Chapter 1 ‘Theory before Theory’ (particulary Literary Theorising from Aristotle to Leavis) in Beginning Theory by Peter Barry link here for extracts.
THE ORIENT AS THE ‘OTHER’
In his book Orientalism, Edward Said, points out that ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (Or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience [as] . . . One of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other’. So what does this mean? What is the ‘Other’?
Often discussed by contempoary philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.
Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’
“all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject”
Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by (Algerian born) French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity. According to Althusser, ‘the category of the subject . . . is the category constitutive of all ideology’ (214:188). In other words, we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’,’
Althusser noted that individuals often believe that they are ‘outside ideology’ and suggested the notion of ‘interpellation‘ as a way to recognise the formation of ideology. In that ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way as to recruit subjects among individuals. In other words, the way in which society calls / addresses / hails you is interpellation, which is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.
” ‘Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellation or hailing.”
Althusser 2014:190
hailing=following
interpellation= of an ideology or discourse) bring into being or give identity to (an individual or category).
Frantz Fanon
In terms of postcolonialism, we can look at The Wretched of the Earth (1961), by Frantz Fanon, which for many (Barry, 2017, McLeod 2000 etc) is a key text in the development and ancestry of postcolonial criticism. Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique and appears to recognise the ‘mechanics of colonialism and its effects of those it ensnared‘ (McLeod 2000:20) when he remembers how he felt when, in France, white strangers pointed out his blackness, his difference, with derogatory phrases such as ‘dirty Nigger!’ or ‘look, a Negro!’ (ibid).
In other words, what we have in this section of The Wretched of the Earth is a black man living in France, articulating the way he was constructed as ‘other’ specifically through the way he was hailed, called, perceived and understood i.e. interpellated by other ‘subjects’ of France, who clearly saw him through the lens of Empire – racial stereotyping, derogatory abuse – as acceptable social interaction. And if you think that is something of the past, look at the tweet received by ex-England international footballer Ian Wright (just posted when I was writing this blog post) or any number of racist incidents that occur everyday in your country, town, city, community and neighborhood. To recognise these incidents is to recognise the concept of ‘interpellation’ and which in terms of POSTCOLONIALISM is through the lens of Empire.
Hegemonic struggle (Gramsci) the chance to reclaim . .
‘from America, black voices will take up the hymn with fuller unison. The ‘black world’ will see the light’
FRANTZ Fanon ‘on national culture’
As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. (Barry, 2017:195). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:
- Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
- Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
- Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.
Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony
‘It is well known that Alhussser drew part of his inspiration from Gramsci’ (Althusser, 2016: xxiv) the way in which class relations and subject is ‘exercised through a whole set of institutions . . . the place where encounters between private individuals occur.’ (ibid)
However, Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. In terms of postcolonialism Said, notes how ‘consent is gained and continuously consolidated for the distant rule of native people and territories’ (1993:59). However, this form of cultural leadership is a process of (cultural) negotiation where consent is gained through persuasion, inculcation and acceptance. Where dominant ideas, attitudes and beliefs (= ideology) are slowly, subtly woven into our very being, so that they become ‘common sense’, a ‘normal’, ‘sensible’, obvious’ way of comprehending and acting in the world.
For example, a way of reiterating European superiority over Oriental backwardness though image, sound, word, text, which in terms of postcolonialism, is ‘a flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without ever losing him the relative upper hand.’ (Said, 1987:228) In other words, ‘being a white man was therefore an idea and a reality.’ (ibid). However, hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT. As such, it is not total domination (not totalitarianism or explicit propoganda) but a continual exchange of power, through ideas. In this sense, postcolonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire – even if the Empire has gone. Put another way, it is the power of representation, played out in the realm of the cultural and civic, looking to make an affect on the political and economic.
Fight the Power, the struggle continues
‘According to Said , ‘Imperialism did not end, did not suddenly become ‘past’ . . . A legacy of connections still binds countries . . . a vast new population . . . from former colonial territories now resides in metropolitan Europe’ (1993:341).
Indeed, in 1982, Noam Chomsky indicated that ‘new forms of domination will have to be devised to ensure that privileged segments of Western industrial society maintain substantial control over global resources, human and material, and benefit disproportionately from this control.’ (cited Said, 1993:343). But as we have already seen, culture is both accepting and subverting, reactionary and radical. It is also an evolutionary and organic means of expression and understanding that develops out of specific historical moments of interaction.
So the idea of a MEDIA LITERACY is to equip students with knowledge and understanding that allows them to see the legacy of connections. So that rather acting as an accepting, passive consumer of media texts, they are able to actively engage in the process of meaning-making. Breaking down the layers of construction to grasp the sociological history behind the message. This can be found in any text that you may be asked to look at for your course of studies. At present in the AQA Media Studies A level, students are asked to look at music videos by Common – Letter to the Free, and The Specials- Ghost Town. So in the next section, we can apply some of the ideas that we have presented so far.
- Q1:How can you apply the concept of Orientalism to Common’s Letter to the Free?
- Q2: Can you apply Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action to this music video?
- Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellated)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation
mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
“Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack” — A proposal for a new flag for the UK and other socially engaged art work by Gil Mualem-Doron
link here
Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13)
His theme of Double Consciousness, derived from W. E. B. Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency follow this wiki link for more on this point.
As with much postcolonial criticism the aim to understand and reconcile individual and national identity. Gilroy highlights Enoch Powell’s notorious 1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’ full of the ‘terrifying prospect of a wholesale reversal of the proper ordering of colonial power . . . intensified by feelings of resentment, rejection, and fear at the prospect of open interaction with others.’ (2004:111) Put presciently, ‘it has subsequently provided the justification for many a preemptive strike
Often found by foregrounding questions of cultural difference and diversity, as well as by celebrating ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’. A unique position where ‘individuals may simultaneously belong to more than one culture – the coloniser and the colonised’. (2016:198) Even Fanon suggests an emphasis on identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’.
Ghost Town by The Specials conveys a specific moment in British social and political history while retaining a contemporary relevance. The cultural critic Dorian Lynskey has described it as ‘’a remarkable pop cultural moment’’ one that “defined an era’’. The video and song are part of a tradition of protest in popular music, in this case reflecting concern about the increased social tensions in the UK at the beginning of the 1980s. The song was number 1 in the UK charts, post-Brixton and during the Handsworth and Toxteth riots.
The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents an unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology in its eeriness, meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.
The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects its musical genre of ska, a style which could be read politically in the context of a racially divided country. This representation of Britain’s emerging multiculturalism, is reinforced through the eclectic mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video.
- Q1: Where can you identify ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’ in this music video?
- Q2: How does this text apply to Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action?
- Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellation)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation
these words are mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
paul Gilroy (british black accademic) writes about it (grab quote) maybe the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’
His theme of Double Consciousness, derived(developed the idea) from W. E. B. Dubois, <- talked about being black and american
(D.C) is the idea of being black & British or black and american being both
uses the term the vail in video w.e.b
edward cied talks about culture look more into orientalism
stuart hall