Previous weeks

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Four Feathers / Wren

I was delighted that our conversation encompassed the idea of "blackface" in cinema, but would just note that there is a great deal more to say here.  For anyone interested, Michael Rogin has written an admirable book about the topic, and we will continue with it as we go along.

Just to note: the ultimate journey for the protagonist involves the doubling and redoubling of the stakes, so that the climax is more exciting.  In many films about white men among "natives," blackface becomes the visible emblem of his investment in this conflict: now the battle is within himself as well as outside himself.

But for general purposes, blackface recalls to us that "the natives" never seem to be able to register independent emotions, narrative, or personhood.  Many "natives" especially the leading baddies are played by whites.  Only whites underneath, so to speak, seem invested in these films with the full range of options familiar to the moviegoer.  Gunga Din was a blackface character no matter who played him: he was a parody of a soldier who only attained his apotheosis by acting more like a British soldier than most British soldiers.  Like Harry Faversham.

Lacan / Poe:

I was heartened to see how many of you actually read the short story and Lacan's admittedly difficult ideas stemming from it.

Some concluding thoughts drawn from class that I think are directly applicable to the virtual "worlds" created by every movie:

First: a message — any utterance, sign, piece of meaning — can never be read for meaning in and of itself. "It itself" is meaningless. Instead, its meaning — the meaning of any message — is created by the circumstances surrounding it.

Yet messages persist and entrain people upon them, as in Poe's story. And this meaning ("the signifier") inhabits the recesses of our selves.

People's selves, the "unconcious" mind, is inhabited and even composed of these messages. (Or rather, consists in signifiers provided by others — by "others' discourse.")

Finally: make a note that messages with unintentional effects and unintended recipients (who nonetheless complete their circuit) are a staple of cinematic narrative. And then move on to Marilyn Young's tale of the United States and Vietnam . . .