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xandromedovnaCW: discussion of blackface, racism
I love memes. I grew up with the internet and I rely heavily on social scripts to navigate the world, so the stock phrases and rules-based language/imagery of meme culture and its history are how I make sense of and communicate with the world. For example, when Annie fell to the floor in 2x9 and said “maybe I’ll blow off talking language! Blee bloo bluh bluh blah blee bloo bluh bluhhh”, that sequence of sounds instantly entered my echolalic lexicon and I say it whenever I or my brain… well… feel like blowing off talking language. Part of the reason some memes take off, like Troy walking in with pizza to find everything a hot mess in “Remedial Chaos Theory” (3x4), is that those moments perfectly encapsulate a mood, feeling, or concept in a way that traditional language doesn’t and can serve as a shorthand for that concept allowing it to be applied in any number of contexts (Jackson). They’re also often really funny.
This is both the strength and weakness of memes, because like all forms of communication they can replicate and perpetuate harmful ideologies through humour (Jackson; Wong). There’s been a lot of conversation lately about meme culture and digital blackface; Erinn Wong, among others, unpacks the connection between blackface minstrelsy and reaction images, noting how “the digital exploitation of black people in media and imagery normalizes unconscious biases that are developed in consumer behavior, attitudes, and culture, which in turn results in unintended social, economic, and political consequences for black people and all other POC”. Specifically, “in using black people as digital symbols to represent their emotional labor, consumers perpetuate racist stereotypes by condemning them to black bodies that can just be reproduced and circulated as stock images, and by thus reducing them to objects, mostly of derision, it ignores their humanity” (Wong 15). This dynamic actually shows up in-universe several times. Chang’s entire acting ‘career’ in 6x8 is based on the blaccent and neck-rolling he employs to say his new catchphrase, “haaaam, girl!” The early-2010s trend of Autotuning Black news items appears in 2x5 when the Anthropology class is scouring the internet for memes in the absence of any actual curriculum. (Not to mention the controversy around Chang's black make-up in 2x14 which strongly resembles blackface and caused Netflix to pull the episode in 2020--ironically they didn't also remove the literal performances of blackface/brownface tropes in other episodes [e.g. 1x2, 3x21].)
The racist implementation of memes isn’t only a matter of blackface and appropriation though; importantly, Lauren Michele Jackson reminds us the moments chosen for memetic circulation are often of Black people in heightened emotional states, especially Black pain or misery, such as Antoine Dodson or Kimberly “Sweet Brown” Wilkins (or images of police brutality). Because my dissertation is focusing on relational ethics in regards to fan-creator-character interactions, this concept of the Black body frozen or looped on-screen in moments of pain or embarrassment also reminds us that we have an ethical responsibility to these characters/personae themselves—not just the bodies that made them— that is animated (in every sense of the word) by their fixation in a meme. In relational ethics or an ethics of care, “the ideals of human relationship—the vision that self and other will be treated as of equal worth, that despite differences in power, things will be fair; the vision that everyone will be responded to and included, that no one will be left alone or hurt” rest on “a nonhierarchical vision of human connection” (Gilligan 63; 62). This feminist ethical framework allows for a focus on impact over intent but in a way that is emergent and intersubjective instead of universalizing (Gilligan 104-5). Thus, the answer for each meme—and each instantiation of that meme—will be different because each relationship is different.
Troy walking into chaos is funny because a) there’s a lot happening when he’s only been gone two minutes and b) the situation of minding one’s one business and suddenly being confronted by everything falling apart is eminently relatable. For example, during Destielgate, gifs of this scene were often shared with Troy being labeled along the lines of “non-SPN fans waking up on Nov 6th” and the others being labelled as Destiel going canon, Putin ‘resigning’, the 2020 election, etc., which quite accurately described the confusion, emotional complexity, suddenness, and urgency of that surreal week. But the moment captured in this meme belongs to the Darkest Timeline and is the origin story of the Evil Study Group, because it is the worst day in the study group’s life. In that timeline, Pierce dies, Jeff loses an arm, Annie is institutionalized, Troy permanently damages his vocal folds, and Shirley becomes an alcoholic again. Troy (and the others but this moment is shot from his perspective) is frozen in a moment of terror, confusion, anguish, and intense psychological distress. How ethical is it for us to demand he relive this trauma ad infinitum for our amusement?
I don’t purport to have answers at this or any point of my dissertation, because this is an extremely complicated question that I’m simply flagging as one example of the contours of debate when we consider our ethical responsibilities towards fictional characters. Should we take a linear or circular view of time when examining these moments (i.e. it’s only happening once and rippling instead of happening anew each time the gif loops)? Is it not the purpose of fictional characters to endure things so we don’t have to (and is that attitude itself ethical)? Do the benefits of its reperformance outweigh the detriments to the characters? Does the separation of our realities absolve us because they’re not even aware of our manipulations or observation, this is simply their life? Can characters or the spirits that inhabit them consent in any meaningful way, and does that matter? In this particular example, does its diegetic status as an alternate reality and not the main timeline change the ethical calculus? Or, to make a question of another Troy meme, can you disappoint a picture? (2x16)
At any rate, these questions by no means vacate the material effects of memes on people in our reality. While we can interrogate our individual relationships to a specific meme, we also need to be aware of and address the collective impact of racial disparities in how memes are used on communities of colour (and other marginalized communities that are often the subject of memes). Indeed, this is the more pressing ethical concern given our shared reality. That said, many authors discussing digital blackface also point out that in practice this needs to be interrogated on a case-by-case basis when instantiating a meme (Jackson; Wong 16). I propose that part of that interrogation should include the nature and stakes of our relationship with that character in that moment and any ethical obligations we may have to that character (or persona or recorded moment of our own spacetime) as an entity (and potentially vice versa). Abed setting his isolation meter to Björk in 2x9 is a helpful image for me as a neurodivergent person understanding and explaining the loneliness of retreating into my delusions and the resilience needed to power through to the other side (discussed in the next post). When I refer to the feeling of going ‘full-Björk’, it is intended as a gesture of neurodivergent solidarity and a recognition of his (and Björk’s for that matter) skillful negotiation of realities. Whether or not its impact, either on him or on others in my realities, matches that intent is another question entirely, one that must be answered in relationship with those impacted.
Blee bloo bluh bluh blah blee bloo bluh bluhhh.
Works Cited
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Harvard UP, 1993.
Jackson, Lauren Michele. “We Need to Talk about Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” Teen Vogue, 2 Aug. 2017. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/digital-blackface-reaction-gifs
Wong, Erinn. “Digital Blackface: How 21st Century Internet Language Reinforces Racism.” UC Berkeley Library, 2019, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/91d9k96z
