Difference

A rendering of Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s panels for the “I Still Believe in Our City” public art series.

                    

This week we discussed the topic of Difference. The word difference is normally given to communities or minorities. However, being labeled as “different” is not always what it means. Words can have multiple connotations. 

 

“Words manipulated at will. As you can see, “difference” is essentially “division” in the understanding of many. It is no more than a tool of self-defense and conquest. You and I might as well not walk into this semantic trap which sets us up against each other as expected by a certain ideology of separatism.” – Trinh T. Minh-ha

 

Trinh explains how difference can be viewed as division to most people. The idea of separatism would use the word difference to divide communities and minorities. She calls it a “semantic trap” because it positions two groups against each other. 

 

One topic discussed in relation to difference is authenticity. What is authenticity? To most, authenticity is the truest form of something or someone. Some examples of things that can be authentic is food, people, art, music, etc. When you hear people refer to authentic food, it is assumed that the food is what the culture is. When you hear people refer to other people as “authentic” it usually means they are the truest form of that culture. One thing to ponder is who actually determines what is authentic?

 

“They, like their anthropologists whose specialty is to detect all the layers of my falseness and truthfulness, are in a position to decide what/who is AUTHENTIC and what/who is not.” 

– Trinh T. Minh-ha

 

The term “authentic” is problematic. When using authentic to describe cultures, it derives from the fact that culture is not one singular thing. Culture is always changing. Using the term authentic essentially “freezes” culture to be the ideal culture. The people who determine what and what is not authentic are typically ones who only examine cultures, rather than being the ones who experience these cultures. With the constant change of culture, there is simply no way anything can be the “ideal truest form.”

 

Another thing I learned was about tokenism. I had heard the term “token-gay” used before to describe the one gay character in a show, book, or movie. The term “token” is given when you add a minority just to include one person to represent an entire diverse group. This could be the token-gay, token-person of color, token-disabled person, etc. The reason why tokenism is an extreme issue is because it does not actually make a change or an accurate representation. The people who implement token characters do not really make the necessary efforts to diversify the cast. The show that came to my mind was Glee. I loved Glee growing up and I hadn’t really looked too much into the cast until now. Granted, I understand that Glee was created as satire to mock stereotypical high school roles, but I still believe that the satire didn’t quite hit the mark. When you look at the cast, there is just about one of every type of high schooler there. You have the jocks, the nerds, the cheerleaders, etc. Sure, fine. Those are stereotypical cliques of high school. Then you have Artie, the only character in a wheelchair. Tina was an Asian student who never felt like she fit in, so she had multiple looks throughout the show. Mercedes was the only African American character who wore blingy outfits and spoke loudly with a lot of sass. Kurt was the main gay character who was extremely feminine and wore flamboyant outfits. Even Coach Beast was the most stereotypical “butch” lesbian. These characters who represented minorities were over-stereotyped to the max. Yes, the cast was diverse. However, when you don’t accurately portray these characters in a non-dramatized way, it isn’t really representing them positively. Another part of this is that all the minority characters were considered “geeks” or “losers” which is why the Glee club brought them together. The idea of Glee club was a place for all the rejects to get together and sing, but why were the minority characters the rejects? Rachel was Jewish, Kurt was gay, Artie was disabled, Mercedes was African American, Tina was Asian. Not to mention, Coach Sue was always trying to get rid of the Glee club. Why? Sue hated the minority students who were geeks. She had many blatantly racist or homophobic comments throughout the entire show. That in itself is problematic. Maybe using Glee as an example of tokensim is a stretch, but I consider that show as a failed attempt at satire which underrepresented minorities in a negative light. 

 

The art I chose for this week is a street art series of prints by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya. She created this series during the pandemic of Covid-19 as a response to the harassment of Asians. 

 

“From February to September, the Commission received more than 566 reports of discrimination, harassment and bias related to Covid-19 — 184 of which were anti-Asian in nature. It’s a troubling spike not just appearing in New York, but in Asian-American communities across the country.” (Messman, 2020)

 

“My goal with this art series was to turn these hurts into something beautiful and powerful,” Ms. Phingbodhipakkiya said in a phone interview. She added, “I really wanted to find a way to say, despite everything we have faced as Asian-Americans and New Yorkers, that I still believe in New York.” (Messman, 2020)

 

Amanda’s intention for creating this art was to turn a negative statistic into a positive one. She created these posters to rebuttal the accusations of Asians during the time of the pandemic. I chose this art for this week because it represents minorities in a positive light. 

          Messman, L. (2020, November 2). “I Still Believe in Our City”: A Public Art Series Takes On Racism.             The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/arts/design/public-art-covid-race-subway.html

 Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Difference: A Third World Women Issue,” in Discourse (Wayne State University, 1987), 23.