Plasticity in June
Superficial support for the LGBTQ+ and the BIPOC.
Words by Nichole Shaw
Narrow ranges of representation for minorities and marginalized voices have been on screen since the beginning of film. In the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, viewers see a blatantly racist and harmful stereotype of Black men as animalistic beasts who have an insatiable thirst for the virginity of white women and threatening dominance over white people in general. The cast is all-white and only permits Black people to be represented by white men in Black face. This is an extremely harmful representation of the Black community and is a case where we see representation does not matter. However, in 1927, the viewer sees a shift in Black representation on screen when James B. Lowe enters the film industry in the leading roles for Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Tom. Lowe fit the stereotype, but he also “played his role thoughtfully with a sensitivity and dignity that [made] the character human.” As a baseline starting point for Black people and Black actors alike, it is here the viewer can see that representation does matter. The pay of a Black actor, followed by their visibility on screen instead of erasure, is imperative to a community that is consistently barred from the gateways to equality.
If plastic representation is an unfamiliar term, let me enlighten you. It was popularly coined by scholar Kristen J Warner in her Film Quarterly article “In the Time of Plastic Representation.” And according to her, plastic representation is “a combination of synthetic elements put together and shaped to look like meaningful imagery, but which can only approximate depth and substance because ultimately it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny.”
Now, in layman’s terms, plastic representation essentially means a production or performance put together with superficial markers of diversity and inclusion. However, when one unpacks that production or performance, little is found to show true diversity and inclusion, as there are wage gaps or less social progress than a consumer was led to believe there was. Such representation undermines authentic and impactful structural change, because these superficial markers lessen public expectations for growth and a complacency is established with the way companies function to provide diversity and inclusion.
I recognize the pervasive and inherent racism that society engrains into the susceptible minds of the privileged, those who never have to skip meals, work 18-hour shifts to keep a roof over the heads of their children, subvert their personality to that of a submissive b*tch when pulled over by a cop (because you don’t want to upset the white officer and make him shoot). It is here Patricia Hill Collins’s theory of Black feminist thought resonates with me as I see images of Black women alienated: “From the mammies, jezebels, and breeder women of slavery to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes, ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary popular culture, negative stereotypes applied to African-American women have been fundamental to Black women’s oppression.”
The image of my mother to the white world, even the white woman, is distorted. They see her as “Other,” as the Black, lazy n***** who took advantage of the state and the federal government to feed her two mulatto children (to the white world, their fathers blessedly escaped their dirty Black hunger for money and unearned aid, abandoning them). Their assumed understanding of Ethnic Notions didn’t show my mother as the woman who worked 18+ hour shifts to ensure her two children never skipped a meal and never had a roof missing over their head. Their assumed understanding didn’t show my mother as the woman who made it work against all odds with untreated depression, crippling plantar fasciitis, and generational trauma. Despite her efforts, “all the images in the world (so-called positive or not) cannot overwhelm the centuries of work that has already been done to sear a regime of racist representation that casts all black difference as savage, childlike, heathenistic, asexual/hypersexual, atavistic, angry monsters into the cultural imaginary,” as Warner points out. And so, they saw what they wanted to see: a plastic representation of the Black female.
June is a particularly salient month to pick apart companies for their plastic representation as the rainbow flag flies high and is printed on alcohol beverages among other goods to promote sales and posit a certain sense of camaraderie with the LGBTQ+ community. What’s interesting, though, is that brands will use the rainbow flag and other symbols of queer culture for corporate profit at the expense of isolating queer people even more when the month of June is over. Come July, the LGBTQ+ are left wondering where all that so-called support went as they’re underpaid and overworked, although “celebrated,” while companies go back to their normal exploitations.
While it is true that mainstream media consistently tends to rely upon narrow and incomplete representations of minority identities, succumbing to this certain ‘plasticity’ that Warner points out, the representation still has merit. It does, because it forces a mass audience and the dominant in-group to acknowledge the existence and activity of the out-group. That representation obviously has work to do in terms of including a researched and accurately contextualized depiction of minority history and current interests in the fact that it allows someone of that marginalized identity to be paid and recognized for their work.
Reuters reported in September 2020, “The most popular movies are still largely the domain of white, straight, able-bodied men, both in front of the camera and behind.” Thus, it is clear that historically and contemporarily, the film industry does not let people who occupy minority identities tell their own stories. In the film Call Me by Your Name, two straight men played the lead character roles of gay men.
The casting of straight actors in prominent LGBTQ+ roles has become a theme, with films like Brokeback Mountain, Milk, Howl, I Love you Philip Morris, Kill Your Darlings, A Single Man, Philadelphia, and much more. These movies were oftentimes directed by, shot by, and played by straight white men who don’t fully understand the identity they’re hoping to represent on-screen. While these movies were legendry for giving the queer community a visual representation on screen, and some of them were positive for the most part, they don’t fully encompass the complexities and nuances in queer identities. It is meant to look like meaningful imagery — and it is when movies like this first started coming out to give LGBTQ+ identifying individuals a visible reference for themselves. However, a straight, white man can only approximate the depth and substance of these identities, ultimately performing as a hollow character that cannot survive close scrutiny.
Society is at a critical point right now as right-wing pundits and policymakers continue to pass legislation that hurts the marginalized and minorities — especially BIPOC people, queer indentifying individuals, and trans folx. This year has already been identified as the worst year in recent history in legislative attacks against LGBTQ+ identifying individuals and/or groups at the state level with 17 anti-LGBTQ+ bills enacted into law, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Reports and work from the ACLU and CNN corroborate this statement, too. For trans folx alone, state legislatures across the country have introduced more than 100 bills intended to restrict their rights, PBS reports.
Society needs people to step up and take accountability, to make ardent and radical changes to the way the industries they serve in function and operate, to create a more equitable and fair system that manages to uplift rather than harm and target the already disadvantaged. Black trans folx need our protection and ardently vigorous support. There needs to be authentic and meaningful representation in media, but also in the companies that profit off Pride celebrations and notoriety. We have the power to determine where our dollars go and why. It’s time to be more intentional and more transparent. It’s time to follow through with the lip service.
If we continue in the same manner we have been, ignoring the problems in our community in favor of our own comfort, there’s nothing to be prideful about at all. I am holding myself to a higher standard, to call upon the vision of Ninja in Paris is Burning to grant myself the permission to accept the Blackness and bisexuality I had been repressing and use my positionality to support, uplift, and influence others with the platform I have.
I’m not going to practice the kind of homogenous performance Kristen Warner critiques, “Swapping in and out racial groups with little adjustment to the parts themselves retains the original work as the primary driver and as a result marks the changes as superficial…As a consequence, the performances feel like hollow experiments produced in a laboratory; they feel plastic.”
I am not hollow. I am not an experiment—and so my time of plastic performance is over. And so is yours.