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Yeah, this discussion really makes me want to rewatch the film. The first time was just an experience with a crowd, will be interesting to watch it with more a little more mindful unpacking of what's going on.
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Mar 16, 2017 19:26
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Escobarbarian posted:white liberals wanting to co-opt black culture Can you clarify what you mean by co-opting black culture? I saw this opening night, so I might not be recalling well, but my recollection is that the black bodies/white brains people acted stereotypically white: Logan King walked around in old-white-guy apparel, didn't know how to fist pound, etc. What's the cultural co-opting?
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Mar 23, 2017 01:18
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Unoriginal Name posted:They can't actually do it, that's the joke. "Black is very in right now." -dresses in a straw boater, does a little dance- I just don't see where they're even trying.
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Mar 23, 2017 02:40
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Simplex posted:That superficial mimicking is exactly what's meant by co-option. A culture is a collection of artifacts. A culture has a language and a history and a deeper meaning. So Logan King looked black, and was superficially black, but lacked the other essential elements of being black. He couldn't speak the same language as Chris. He didn't dress Like Chris. He didn't have the history of someone from Brooklyn. He was just an old white man in blackface. I'm not sure how to connect your statement that culture has a language, history, and deeper meaning, with the idea that Logan is mimicking black culture, given that he doesn't attempt to mimic the language, history, or deeper meaning. You mention that culture is a collection of artifacts: what of these artifacts is being used? Escobarbarian, is this what you meant by "white liberals wanting to co-opt black culture"?
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Mar 23, 2017 07:30
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Simplex posted:A culture is a collection of things, such as language, history, values, apparrel, etc. When we talk about co-opting a culture, it's this process of picking and choosing specific elements of a culture to emulate (or mimic), but ignoring all the other elements that make up the whole. So, the only artifact of being black that Logan is using is the black skin, everything else about him is old white man. I can go along with culture being a collection of things, I suppose, but I wouldn't have thought of skin color as one of them. Note, you didn't include it in your list, and I feel like it would look weird there: "A culture is a collection of things, such as language, history, values, apparel, skin color, cranial dimensions, dick size..." A culture might include standards about skin color – the definition of whiteness is part of white culture, the paper bag test was part of black culture – but the skin color itself seems distinct. I definitely wouldn't have thought that just the skin color was such an essential element of it that you'd need nothing else to be co-opting it. It seems to do the film a disservice that you're eliminating the possibility of a film communicating a theft of black bodies but not black culture. You're making that degree of nuance impossible to convey. It also seems to do black culture a disservice to say that if you've got the skin color, you've got enough to clearly be taking the culture rather than just a black body. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 17:02
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Simplex posted:If we are talking about African-American culture specifically, then yes skin color is a pretty important component of it. With culture in general, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Germany and Ireland are both predominantly white countries, but nobody is going to confuse German or Irish cultures, or not see distinct differences because of that. Similarly, African-American culture has very little in common with Congolese culture. There's obviously a connection between black culture in the United States and physical appearance, but I'm just not seeing anything that justifies the idea that black culture is being co-opted by the dude with the old-man clothes in the movie Get Out. When everything about the guy other than the literal black body distance him from stereotypes of black culture to move him to closer to stereotypes of an old, well-off, clueless white guy, I don't see the value in reading the movie as representing "white liberals wanting to co-opt black culture because it's 'exotic' or 'cool'." Like, to use your example, if Logan was trying to sell "intellectual hip hop," and wanted to be black in order to make it seem more authentic, I'd see it. You could totally make that movie, white people stealing black bodies so that they could say the n-word. This movie is so clearly not that, that I don't know why you'd want to torture the idea of what's essential to a culture just to make the movie about cultural appropriation. I mean, I get why Escobarbarian did it, he was just making GBS threads out a quick post because someone pointed out that all he'd done in this thread is comment about the posting style of one specific other poster. But I don't see the reading of the film that's actually going somewhere with this idea.
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Mar 23, 2017 22:38
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:This is actually a quick aside in The Invisibles. I haven't read that, but it makes sense that someone would have done it. I just don't think Get Out is doing it.
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Mar 24, 2017 01:03
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Simplex posted:I'm think we are arguing past each other a little bit here. A musician in the movie would have no desire to make authentic hip-hop. They don't care for authentic hip-hop. They would just want a black body so they could go make some intellectual hip-hop about the Dow Jones or retirement pension funds, or whatever it is that old-white people theoretically would rap about. What character in the movie do you believe is interested in making hip-hop about the Dow Jones, or retirement pension funds, or whatever, and what in the movie led you to believe that? Because I don't see it at all.
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Mar 24, 2017 02:17
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Unoriginal Name posted:How about the blind art dealer who wants to see pictures with "soul" or whatever It is the case that he (Stephen Root) and the father (Bradley Whitford) appreciate the implications of using black bodies for the project. But instead of trying to engage in stereotypical black behavior, they fit into the more enlightened-liberal idea that once a black person reaches a certain level of success (e.g., Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Jordan Peele), the status of being a "successful African American" is a positive. But is that co-opting black culture, given how much those sorts of figures are accused of acting white? (Note, Peele made a whole other movie about "acting white") And further, these are the white characters. The black-body/white-brain characters don't get into this.
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Mar 24, 2017 02:50
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xeria posted:I think it's both? Like, yes, Logan/Walter/Georgina don't specifically put on ANY of even the superficial trappings of "being black" that might you might consider as old white people "co-opting black culture", but I think it's close enough to be a valid conversation and I think it still functions metaphorically on the idea of "cultural appropriation". It's just that in the literal of the movie itself, the thing being co-opted is the physical embodiment of being black without any of the cultural associations thereof. It's culture disappearing into whiteness. Maybe that needs a different term than "co-opting", since the white people in question aren't absorbing anything about black culture than the skin color, but it's along similar lines, I think. Co-opting is literally taking something for you own use. So, yeah, I think you need a different term. Since, as you say, what's being taken is without any of the cultural associations.
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Mar 29, 2017 19:14
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The truth is that his hot girlfriend is bad because she has a boring fetish What a world we live in where it's boring to want your hot young black boyfriend to meet up with an old white guy and get brain.
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Apr 7, 2017 18:44
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What do we actually see of Chris's photography? Been long enough that I don't feel quite confident in my memory, but I think we see a couple of photos. edit: HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:The neo-soul montage of his artwork at the beginning Okay, yeah, this fits with my general memory.
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Apr 12, 2017 19:20
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 06:46 |
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There's that thing that lovely posters do where their only contribution to a movie thread is commentary about the state of the discussion.
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Apr 30, 2017 17:47
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