After reading both the Watts and Halter pieces regarding identity and the desire in Anglo-America to commodify and economically benefit from ethnic members of America's coolness; I think I was more surprised at the ease with which Americans consume this version of faux ethnic interaction and style. Although style may be considered limited to clothing, it's also the way that the clothing is worn in conjunction with the general overall desire for that look. The photograph that's accompanying this blog contribution is one of a white male in baggy jeans. Watts stated that "The point that we are making here is that these statements posit as prima facie evidence for the existence of a color-blind society the fact that white folks claim identification with black (mediated) experiences." Baggy jeans signify the "gangsta" lifestyle which is now a look that's considered cool and has an added adaptation of "rocker" as long as a chain is attached to it.
In the Watts article specifically, it was discussed that not only had the modification of the greeting between African-American males become atopical and was now socially acceptable, but also that it was white America's mini effort at acculturating itself to ethno-America. I am intrigued that no one considered this thievery or even a mockery of some sort, nearly consistent with media black face. The Halter article also spoke of how there seems to be a developing montage of blurring the lines between what's "black" versus things culturally "white". I feel that the dichotomy being drawn via these media actions is slowly dissipating the line between the cultural identities of black and white. Saggy pants are now socially acceptable on whites, but not formally acknowledged nor appreciated from black males. My question is what does that say about where we're going? Why are certain things okay for some and definitely not others (cliché at best, but necessary to pose).
Wow! Excellent application of Halter and Watts and Orbe. You pose an excellent questions -- why is baggy pants a socially acceptable form of performing identity for some...yet marked as "dangerous", "threatning," and not socially acceptable for others? Perhaps thinking through this question through Hall's discussion of spectacle and the other would be useful? Why commodify this style? What does it mean for white performances of identity vs. urban performances of identity vs. people of color, etc. Oh...so much here.
ReplyDeleteBaggy pants as performative identity is likely marked as "dangerous/threatening/socially unacceptable" because it is tied to blackness, a component of identity which itself is "othered" (to the standard of whiteness) and tied to these terms. Through commodification, this style attempts to capture authenticity of blackness, yet it really is capturing "authenticity" because such a notion is itself socially constructed. This idea can be extended to other markers of “blackness,” such as street talk or rap/hip hop music. In particular it makes me think of the white rapper Eminem, who seems to come as close to performing rap, marked as black, as a white man could. It is a stereotypical notion that “white people” cannot dance or rap, yet individuals like Eminem attempt to demonstrate an opposing view. Through everyday signifying practices, by whites performing blackness and blacks performing whiteness, the boundaries of “white” and “black” and their associated essentialist baggage become blurred. The style of baggy pants is a racialized marker which has been commodified as “hip” or “cool.” Having brothers, who are white, I know that baggy pants on white guys can be seen as “inappropriate/not classy,” which brings up issues of class. To a conservative white middle class individual, baggy pants can equate these labels. Yet, to a “normal” white male, baggy pants are often “cool.” Even though whiteness is still the standard in our society, markers of difference, such as racialized fashion styles, bleed through its boundaries and challenge representations/identifications of racial groups. Are we becoming a hybrid culture where authenticities are disappearing, or do such performative markers of difference merely hegemonically uphold whiteness?
ReplyDeleteSo rightly so, you are pointing out that it perhaps is as much an issue of class privilege interconnected with race -- whiteness associated with working class blackness. Great observation.
ReplyDelete"Are we becoming a hybrid culture where authenticities are disappearing, or do such performative markers of difference merely hegemonically uphold whiteness?" -- excellent question at the heart of this weeks readings and tom's discussion....
ReplyDeleteWhen a white male is performing "blackness" through his clothing style, what is he actually performing? Is there a deliberate attempt to perform blackness - or is something else at play? The question of a hybrid American culture is particularly interesting in this case, and I'm inclined to say that there is no hybrid culture. Those who can be part of any sort of hybrid culture are necessarily privileged. There is always the safety net of having the status quo to fall back on - a white man in baggy pants is not perceived nearly as threatening as a black man in baggy pants. His whiteness allows him to cross cultural boundaries safely - and ultimately commodify and consume cultural artifacts.
ReplyDelete"Are we becoming a hybrid culture where authenticities are disappearing?"
ReplyDelete"Through everyday signifying practices, by whites performing blackness and blacks performing whiteness, the boundaries of “white” and “black” and their associated essentialist baggage become blurred."
I don't want to think of my fully dimensional and culturally saturated friends, white, black or green as manifestations of their color. help? Am I doomed to always be "performing" someone else's community's behaviors?
Are WE in part to blame, by being the academics that attribute certain WHITENESS or BLACKNESS to white and black humans? Are we the culprits of "thievery", stealing agency for both black and white (or green) individuals? Is there something more dynamic that we can do that allows for the "blurring of essentialist baggage?"
(nice post, btw, to knecast2, you really made me think!)
These comments… actually this Blog it’s making me think how identity, and the performative acts that come with it are exported outside of US, and how in the process of exportation are blurred and filtered.
ReplyDeleteNot that I want to move away from the discussion of blackness and the appropriation of the baggy pants style by white hegemony. But for example in Puerto Rico the notions revolving the baggy pants dilemma are more attach to class, not race. The discourse behind, or under the baggy pants it’s an act related to an attitude of “I don’t go by the rules” “I’m not tight, I’m relax, I’m loose” “I wear my pants were I want them”… There is also a disclosure of privacy. What is supposed to be hidden and reserve for the privacy sphere of your home and yourself is now open and available for all to see.
Not to take away “authenticity” from this performative act… but I’m thinking why this specific display/style it’s been commodified by other groups: Latinos, Korean, puertorriqueños, skaters… and other communities… I don’t hear complaints… Please someone complain!!! Or is the problem direct with white appropriation and the ‘wannabe’ performance, that takes away authenticity? Really, does it take it away? I think the baggy pants are a signifier that when performed in this case, by a white guy, it is read as not authentic to him, but rather imitation of something else…The pants serve as a reference to someone else.
How the display of models in the media become standards to be copied… and copied, and copied…. But the copy is not the original… it is a copy…an attempt to be, to become the original. This way is performed, and rehearsed, and inscribed… but not accepted because is not authentic! But isn’t that the point to be rejected?!?! SO you can keep doing it… I just say this from my experience, remembering my grandma saying to my brother “Subete los pantalones muchacho” scolding my brother… and that was the motivation… to be in the limit.
What message is this young white guy sending out? Is it an imitation, an appropriation, an embrace of something else? Or an act of ‘colonization’ of the Other’s culture? What is his desire, his fetiche? The baggy pants, or the other’s identity? both?!
Kudos to the post! It was an amazing reading that I think challenged our perception of the readings along with our perception of social identity and double standards.
ReplyDeleteI do believe this is a epidemic that has began to take place amongst our society. But what does it actually mean to dress black and what does it mean to dress white? Can any one person actually give a profound, scientific, scholarly definition? Who controls the commodity of black cultural? And who benefits from it? And why is it acceptable for people who are not of the black race to indulge in the cultural of African American but why is it frowned upon for black's to embrace their own lively hood and cultural? These are all questions that I have but can never receive a definite answer to.
Baggy pants has been a big issue since I can remember. I even remember reading an article last year about a law being considered somewhere to ban baggy pants. I do believe that when a black person indulges into their cultural and style of their cultural they are profiled and prejudged. But when they, maybe more black males then women, indulge into other styles seen as preppy or "white" they then are too prejudged by their own race on who they are trying to be. So how can one win in that situation? When it comes to identity and its crisis, I believe no minority race can actually win. But for a white individual to be able to indulge in street wear and make fashion statements in certain attire without being prejudge is just contradictory and exercises America's double standard nature. But all this comes with the mobilization and conformity of society. It is just sad that transition to multiculturalism is always filled with some type of racism and prejudice.
But I as a young woman don't agree with baggy pants on any male. It is just tacky and disrespectful when done in an obnoxious way. A slight sag is okay but a major sag is just horrible! So in the words or General Larry Platts, of American Idol, "Hey, get your pants off the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground. Gold in your mouth. Hat turned sideways. Pants hit the ground.Call yourself a cool cat. Looking like a fool.
Walkin', talkin', with your pants on the ground" :)
Okay...so much here that I don't know where to begin. It seems like the post so far are asking really tough questions about authenticity. Like the glee posts, you are also asking even tougher questions about agency. I would say the Watts and Orbe readings might be particularly useful to think about authenticity. Authenticity is totally connected to power and agency -- who gets to determine what is "real" or "true"? I would challenge that class is Othered and most times racialized -- in the US, that is. Davila and Halter really draw attention to the boundaries of commodification? Who or what can be commodified under what conditions? The Watts and Orbe reading also point to issues of power -- who gets to define authentic blackness and what has to occur to make that construction of authentic blackness socially acceptable?
ReplyDeleteI also think that the Marx reading is really relevant to this post. The discussion Marx has based on the weight of worth we place on particular objects carries over to the discussion we're having about imitation and cross-cultural acceptability. Baggy pants being seen as threatening when seen as an African American male practice but as the opposite when it's viewed in the realm of whiteness demonstrates the construction and fetishism of commodities and the way our culture distinguishes and discriminates the two based on imagined perceptions and connotations. Very thought provoking post.
ReplyDelete“Baggy Jeans” is not the first time we see society accept a “quote on quote” black thing just because someone white is doing it. For example if you look at music videos African American women are always referred to as video vixen’s or seductress because of the clothes they wear or the dances they perform while on in the video. However if you look at Pinks performance at the Grammys people saw that as art although she was barely clothed and performed dance moves that were sexually enticing. That is just one example of someone of lighter skin i.e. white being socially accepted for the same actions black women are criticized for. Another example someone who is white can have a body full of tattoo’s and be labeled as a rock star or free spirit. If someone of darker skin had body full of tattoos they would be considered a gangster or ghetto …someone to fear. Watts’s article does a great job of identifying this double standard.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like culture are adapting to others. When this happens problems start to come up of whether it's acceptable. Blackness is already seen as inferior, so when others where sagging pants it's acceptable, but dangerous to people who have less power in society.When a black person is wearing sagging pants stereotypically they are gang members, disrputive, and have no future ahead of them. I believe there is a hybrid culture because even language is different. The question is, "which culture brings it to commidifying?
ReplyDeleteBola just opened up another interesting line of questioning...that would connect to class and elite v. popular...often coded as upper class vs. lower class....white v. "non-white." Antoinette and others comments about hybridity are right on point...Hybridity challenges not only authenticity but the process of commodification itself as always negative.
ReplyDelete“Not to take away “authenticity” from this performative act… but I’m thinking why this specific display/style it’s been commodified by other groups: Latinos, Korean, puertorriqueños, skaters… and other communities… I don’t hear complaints… Please someone complain!!!”
ReplyDeleteIndeed! In China, guys who wear baggy jeans are always considered as cool and fashionable since some Chinese pop singers also dress like that. It’s very interesting that Chinese always see American culture as a whole, which belongs to the western culture. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s “white” culture or “black” culture. It’s just something tagged as “freedom”.
Why Americans are this eager to make a clear distinction between “white” culture and “black” culture? Why wearing baggy jeans should be a commodity of “black” culture? This is just like Americans always assume that I’m good at Maths and other science subjects (sadly, the truth is I sucks at Maths!!!) because I am a Chinese.
Human beings are all different individuals. Some people like to dress in some ways while others don’t. Some people enjoy smoky eyes and spiky hair while others view these things as “monsters’ behavior”. That’s why we should learn how to commodify differences in order to live with all kinds of individuals.
Same as Quian’s observation in China, in Hong Kong, I also found that people who wear baggy jeans are mostly young ethnic Chinese males. And this clothing style is closely related to local rap singers, hip-hop dancers, and skateboarders. We associate this style with the American/Western, the youth, and the street cultures without acknowledging or knowing the African American origin. It is just a thing cool young males do. So I think apart from the racial and class identities that we have discussed, baggy jeans also signifies an age identity. From my impression, I only saw males (in US and Hong Kong) in their teenage or early twenties wearing baggy jeans. I think it is still socially unacceptable (both in the context of US and Hong Kong) if a male in his thirties or forties dressing like this, regardless of his race.
ReplyDeleteAwesome observations ... when you thing about baggy pants in the contexts of globalized circulations it add another level of complexity. What and how does U.S. black popular culture circulate outside of the U.S.? These last two posts are really speaking to the issue of cultural appropriation. How do cultural practices become translated and appropriated? Does the process of appropriation further trouble cultural claims to authenticity? Lets think about this further -- baggy pants linked to black popular culture, which is often linked, to racial and class resistance and markers of being hip as Orbe and Watts suggests. These markers are appropriated by youth outside of the United States as markers of "hip" outsider status or perhaps of westernization and its association with modernization.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that Tichina pointed out that when viewers would observe blacks wearing baggy jeans they would associate them with being a gangster. When viewers observe whites wearing baggy jeans they would associate them with being rockers. I just wonder how people stereotype the same form of “difference” into two different symbolization of representation, the gangster vs. the rocker. In Hall’s article he says, “Representation is a complex business and, especially when dealing with 'difference'. it engages feelings, attitudes and emotions and it mobilizes fears and anxieties in the viewer, at deeper levels than we can explain in a simple, common-sense way.” I think this quote brings light to this ideology. Due to the complexity of emotions, attitudes, feelings, and cognitive senses that go into how a person perceives another, it is quite difficult to example how black people vs. white people wearing baggy jeans can be perceived differently.
ReplyDeleteTo comment on the question that my classmates posed, in some ways I do believe that we Americans are becoming a hybrid culture more and more with each generation. Tichina’s blog is a perfect example of how the culture of American society is evolving. A thing that was once frowned upon by one generation of the whites is now deemed cool by another generation of whites. To answer Tichina’s question, our society is going through an evolution of cultural acceptance. Our culture has evolved from the pervious traditions to changes, for example, like homosexuals having the right to marry to CEO’s of companies using emoticons in their business emails. I find this blog and the comments very intriguing.
Wow this whole conversation is amazing... I think I agree with everyone(smile). I completely agree with Bola's comment i find it crazy how one cultural group can do something and it's seen as "horrible, threatening and improper" and another cultural group does it... Usually the white group and it is look at as art and just being cool. it is mindbogglingly that the same thing an be seen so differently when you just change the persons appearance. Oh i also really think Antionette brought up a very good point i was thinking about it as I was reading this. I feel like now cultures are so exposed to everyone on a every day level and people pick tings they like up from each other, which really creates this interesting mix... now as for authenticity there really is none because it becomes a sharing of cultures and practices(dress wise) so yes the authenticity is lose but I think if you look at it in a positive way cultures are being shared. Now, the way these acts are viewed by society and people in general is obviously not going to be super positive but as many people have commented everyone has their own preferences, style and comfort and that at the end is what makes them their own person despite who did it first.
ReplyDeleteOne note to the rocker/gangster binary: “rocker” is tied to whiteness and has a positive connotation, whereas “gangster” is tied to blackness and has a negative connotation. How does hegemony operate to just reinforce the “superior” standard? Just because certain behaviors are tied to the majority, they are marked as acceptable, when really they are no different than those marked unacceptable. Both are mere expressions of identity. However, as we know identity has a very deep, complex root system and never just stands alone. American culture can be considered as an increasingly hybridized culture, but I think a key point here is that meaning is always evolving. What it meant to be homosexual 30 years ago is, to some people, very different than what it means today. Yet, the term homosexuality itself is basically the same, which points to the concepts of acceptance and appropriation. This same idea can be discussed through any cultural product really. It is also interesting to think, on an individual level, of how we relate “cool” to ourselves. For instance, a woman in the 80’s might have completely digged her huge hair, but now looking back at pictures, can only say “what was I thinking!?” Again, identity is unstable, and meaning is constantly evolving. Culture is the production and circulation of meaning, a process which is constantly at play, yet often overlooked. (This is why I love cultural studies. It’s like taking a magnifying glass to the everyday and analyzing notions that seem to be taken for granted by the average person.)
ReplyDeleteYes, this is indeed a very intriguing conversation. I can definitely agree with Kortney that changes are occuring and that this is a pure example of generational changes. The question of authenticity is not the case because, to me,only opens a door for more prejudices in a case of what some might refer to as a negative representation of black male communities.This Caucasian male's apparel should not immediately attribute to the black culture. Is this to say that Blacks are not properly dressed? They are not worthy to be critiqued under the category of etiquette and classy? This makes me wonder. Quian19, you have a point h when you say that just because she is Chinese that she is good at math. These stereotypes are the same things that suggest what Nibia speaks about. Do the white people that wear these close desire the identity in which the baggy pants represent? or the pure nature of wearing the jeans? This questions brings about another form of interrogation in which we must evaluate who the majority and who the minority is based on this discourse of sagging identities. If this is a mainstream style of clothing that is promoted by black communities, does this suggest a chance within our hierarchy by racial standards? I would hate to bring up any ideas of this which just repeats a cycle of oppression but, it is often something worthy of considering.
ReplyDelete