Saturday, September 18, 2010

For Colored Girls

I'm really looking forward to seeing Tyler Perry's new film For Colored Girls--hope it lives up to Ntokage Shange's brilliant For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf from which it's adapted. The film has an incredible cast, including Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Macy Gray.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Privilege and Passing: Root Post Redux

So, earlier this week my first post went up at The Root, a "daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today's news from a variety of black perspectives" that I've been following for quite a while. I was thrilled to finally post there, and I hope to continue to write for them. You can find my first post, and the accompanying thriving-but-contentious comment section, here.

In the essay, I write about unintentionally passing (for white and straight) and the associated privilege(s) that passing "allows" me. What's interesting is that I specify in the post that it's usually those who are not people of color themselves that mistake me for white (or, occasionally, Latina or Israeli, the latter mostly because of my first name), and yet many commenters felt inclined to assure me that I look black to them. That's fine, and I actually appreciate that some people recognize me as black, as I have never felt particularly included by black culture (with a few exceptions). However, many people do not realize I am black when they first meet me (and they certainly don't peg me for a lesbian at first glance ). What these moments of misrecognition beget is situations of (white) (heterosexual) privilege. The questions I'm asking then is how to mitigate the privileges I'm given upon first impression and whether it is even my responsibility to do so.

Privilege is, in a way, even more insidious than outright racism because it's so easily glossed over and so often completely subconscious. For example (somewhat over-simplified but illustrative): as a biracial femme lesbian who looks white, middle class and straight, I have never been harassed by a stranger on the street due to either my race or my sexuality. The thing is that most people who might find my race or sexual orientation threatening don't recognize me as different from the rest of white, straight America. But I'm as gay as these women (who, adorably, are all look-a-likes of a male, teenage pop star) and as black as, say, Obama, regarding whom countless commentators asked if America was "ready for a black President." (I'm not saying that Obama isn't black or that biracial individuals aren't black; I'm just trying to make a point about the way visibility and privilege merge.)

In any case, despite the autobiographical format of my essay at The Root, I'm actually not overly concerned with how these factors affect me as an individual. I'm more interested in how privilege, especially privilege that relies almost entirely on visible identity markers, functions for those of us whose outward appearance doesn't match our actual identities. In what situations are you only how others perceive you rather than how you perceive yourself?

(As a postscript, it is worth noting that the question of the relationship between visibility and identity is especially trenchant today, on the anniversary of September 11. How often in the past nine years have those who appear Middle Eastern or Muslim been judged based on what they look like rather than who they are?)

Friday, September 3, 2010

Rizzoli and Isles

So I've been trying to work up the energy and find the time (classes just started and there's always a week or two adjustment period when a new semester begins where you seemingly have no time to do anything but read and prep your lectures/discussions/in-class exercises...things'll settle down, right?) to compose a post about TNT's new original series Rizzoli & Isles, which is just winding up its first short (10 episode) season. If you're interested in checking it out, I'm pretty sure TNT has all but a few of the episodes available for viewing online.

In any case, Rizzoli & Isles is a little bit like Cagney and Lacey met a G-rated version of Sex and the City and had a love child that watched a lot of Charlie's Angels growing up. A crime show boasting two female protagonists, a detective (Rizzoli, played by Angie Harmon) and a medical examiner (Isles, played by Sasha Alexander), who are close friends (so far so good) and incessantly talk about men (ay, there's the rub), Rizzoli & Isles definitely breaks The Bechdel Rule. Not to mention that the actual solving of crimes seems to take second shrift to the show's desire to create as many touching, personal moments between its two eponymous heroes as possible (suffice it to say, that while I consider many of my female friends to be near and dear to my heart, I do not go everywhere with them or find myself having sleepovers with them every other night). And yet, despite it's near absurdity, I am absolutely in love with this show.



In lieu of a post where I actually try to parse my rationally-suspect love affair with Rizzoli & Isles, I'll leave you with a list of links about the show. In the interest of selfishness, this will also be a convenient placeholder for me to come back to when I find the time to craft a real analysis, one that, I hope, will get to the heart of why recent crime shows with more than one female lead continually seem to falter (Women's Murder Club, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, and the UK's Murder in Suburbia, to name a few) and what TNT might be trying to do differently with Rizzoli & Isles.

And now, the links:

NY Times: An Unlikely Pair Bond on the Homicide Beat
LA Times: Television review: 'Rizzoli & Isles'
USA Today: 'Rizzoli & Isles' commits the ultimate crime of tedium
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: TNT, USA launch women against crime
AfterEllen: "Rizzoli & Isles" is TV's first lesbian buddy cop show (it just doesn't know it yet)