Black Male Queerness

2019

Queerness, as defined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, is “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps …of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made… to signify monolithically.” Queerness is meant to sit outside clearly defined norms of gender and sexuality. But what art historians call “queer art” is more often than not centered around the experiences of white queer people. The queer bodies that are studied generally belong to white artists. Queerness is studied as pertaining to heterosexuality or the gender binary but rarely as it pertains to race. What does queerness mean for a black man when his racial identity is so closely tied to aggressive heterosexual masculinity? It isn’t the job of every black male artist to directly address this in their work––just as white artists aren’t expected to address their whiteness in their work––but I believe every artist displays their opinion on such politics with everything they choose to leave in or take out of a work and the subject of the works themselves.

            There is a kind of tenderness in the work and subject matter of queer photographers. This is especially prominent in the work of queer male photographers. Sentimentality and the ability to adequately express emotion is seen as inherently feminine and that which is seen as feminine, by definition, must be alienated from masculine identity. This means that any expression of emotion in conjunction with masculine desire must be erased. Jennifer Doyle states in her book Hold it Against Me, “the erasure or repression of emotion was a part of the larger repudiation of all aspects of desire and embodiment in modernism.” Photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya introduces another way of viewing desire and intimacy by using people he knows personally as subjects in his work. Robert Mapplethorpe, another queer photographer, exhibits intimacy and desire in his work as well. But when the dichotomy of the white and black races is considered, there is a shift in the type of desire that can be seen.

Generally, Mapplethorpe’s work isn’t what one would usually picture when discussing “tenderness” in queer photography. His works are intimate, though rarely tender. His photography featured a side of New York’s LGBT that was never seen in public at the time. His work would often take place in the subject’s home, scouring the person’s most intimate setting for a spectacle to photograph. And that is what his work creates; a sense of spectacle. Mapplethorpe’s desire to shock predominately straight museum and gallery goers isn’t something that is brought up when discussing his work and legacy. One could argue he was simply photographing New York’s gay BDSM scene and therefore the subject matter would naturally shock audiences that were not already familiar with the lifestyle. But this stance shifts dramatically upon viewing a work such as Self-Portrait With Whip (1978) where Mapplethorpe poses with a whip in his rectum. This work is so overtly intended to elicit a negative sense of surprise that it is undeniable. With this knowledge of Mapplethorpe’s affinity for spectacle, The Black Book becomes a spectacle of the black gay body. The spectacle he creates for this body of work is different than previous works in the sense that these bodies are not being shown partaking in BDSM. That which elicited shock in the previous works was the exposure of explicitly sexual, violent behavior. In The Black Book, the sense of spectacle is derived from the mere existence of the black male body.

In Black British Cinema: Spectatorship and Identity Formation Manthia Diawara states, “Every narration places the spectator in a position of agency; and race, class, and sexual relations influence the way in which subjecthood is filled by the spectator.” The power dynamic between the spectator, the photographer, and the black body was not lost on many a viewer. There have been works created to be in conversation with The Black Book, such as Glenn Ligon’s Notes in the Margins of the Black Book (1991-93), but conversations between artworks and perspectives often happen without an explicit intention to engage. As stated earlier, an artist can display their personal beliefs without intending to do so. The work of Paul Mpagi Sepuya engages in an implicit conversation with The Black Book. What strikes the viewer when seeing a work like Darkroom Mirror (2017) for the first time is the camera, poised in the center of the frame. As the viewer is looking, Sepuya is looking back. This act of looking invokes The Black Bookbecause it is the exact opposite of what is seen in that collection. Not only is the black subject doing the looking, but his head is center frame, just behind the camera lens––an enlarged eye. The black male subject is not only the subject of the photograph, but the photographer as well. There is no difference in gaze or intent between the photographer and the subject because they are the same person. There is no presence of spectacle because the viewer is not meant to look in awe of the exoticness of the subject. Instead, the viewer is invited to partake in an intimate moment between Sepuya and the other man in frame. The intimacy is not derived from the showing of parts of the body that are usually hidden, in Sepuya’s words, “intimacy comes from the fact that the work is grounded in real lives, friendships, and relationships.”

bell hooks says in her essay Post Modern Blackness, “racism is perpetuated when blackness is associated solely with concrete gut level experience… the idea that there is no meaningful connection between black experience and critical thinking about aesthetics or culture must be continually interrogated.” This statement extends to the way black bodies are depicted in art. Racism is also perpetuated when blackness is excluded from the tenderness and sentimentality that comes with intimacy. The idea that blackness can only be associated with sexual prowess must be continually interrogated, not just in terms of heterosexuality, but in terms of queerness as well. The relationship between white women and the exotification of black men, as well as the relationship between white men and black women, has a history dating back to American chattel slavery. But the relationship between white men and the exotification of black men has only recently begun to be unearthed. Paul Mpagi Sepuya investigates this link between the black body, spectacle, and objectification by featuring his own body and the bodies of those that he knows personally. Though Sepuya never directly addresses race in his work, he dismantles the idea that black male queerness is outside the realm of emotional tenderness by simply allowing himself to be. To be with other men, to be by himself, to be with women, to be.

A New Look at Comedy

2019


“Nothing in this world is easy. Except pissing in the shower,” an exhausted Ruth says in Nadia’s general direction before kissing her on the cheek, wishing her a happy birthday. Nadia immediately divulges her feelings, almost impulsively, without acknowledging Ruth’s greeting. She proceeds to wax poetic about a feeling of emptiness that replaced her desire to go home with a random partygoer. Nadia remains quiet for a beat, as if on the precipice of some great realization. Her silence breaks. “Do you know when menopause starts?”

There’s a sort of game Russian Doll plays with this scene that continues through the rest of the episode and rest of the series. A game that one can’t fully appreciate until they revisit the series after completing it.

Russian Doll’s first episode is split into two parts: Pre-Death Nadia and Post-Death Nadia. Pre-Death Nadia is someone we all want to be; decisive, laid back, confident. She leans heavily into her unusual way of relating to the world which usually garners tired reactions from her friends. She embraces it nonetheless. “It’s my bad attitude that keeps me young.” Nadia leaves her birthday party early to sleep with a random partygoer. During a condom pit-stop, she gives some bothersome men directions to an abandoned warehouse instead of a club, her personal form of divine retribution. After she’s done the deed with “random partygoer,” which we later find out is named Mike, she sends him home in an Uber before the conversation is able to get too deep. Pre-Death Nadia appreciates her solitude but doesn’t mind one night’s casual company.

Alone in her apartment, Nadia gets to work on some project for her job. She reaches for a cigarette, only to find that she’s out. Sighing, she leaves her apartment to buy more. On the way to the corner store, she spots Oatmeal, her missing cat, on the opposite side of the street. Relieved to see him, she calls his name and steps into the street without checking for oncoming traffic, gets hit by a taxi and dies.

Only after her first death do we get to meet the real Nadia. Knowing a person’s “real” personality isn’t an exact science. Many believe that we can only truly know a person when we’ve seen them at their lowest; when their sick, when a loved one dies, when misfortune befalls them. Using this logic, we don’t know who Nadia is. Pre-Death Nadia isn’t Nadia; she’s merely a construction of who she wants others to believe she is. Being resurrected only to return to the night of your death where no one else has any memory of what you just lived through is a confusing situation. It’s overwhelming, I’m sure. So, Nadia is entitled to a little leeway when it comes to her behavior. But her shock wears off pretty quickly after respawning. She attempts to talk through her confusion with Ruth, a psychologist and her childhood guardian, who suggests Nadia’s confusion stems from her problems with her mother. Nadia immediately changes the direction of the conversation, reminding Ruth that not every problem in her life revolves around her childhood trauma.

Nadia doesn’t like talking about her mother. Big deal. We all have a family member we don’t like. That doesn’t mean that Nadia is suddenly a different person, right? Well, she definitely has some hidden depths that we weren’t privy to in Pre-Death mode. Like how she dated a married man, causing his life to fall apart? We definitely didn’t know that. Nadia’s interaction with John reveals more than just a hesitance to talk about the past; it shows that she refuses to accept her role in hurting other people.

“Don’t use my kid to ease your guilt,” John says after Nadia shuts down his offer to speak candidly about how they ended. The conversation got awkward, as acknowledging your part in ending a marriage can be, so she asked about his daughter Lucy to divert attention away from herself. She does this again, following John’s counter with “I lost my cat.” So, they look for the cat. They carry on a pleasant conversation until Nadia spots Oatmeal and runs after him, almost getting hit by a taxi again. John saves her from the same fate as before which, for some reason, makes Nadia upset. They argue; John tells her that he was upset that he had to be invited to her party by Maxine. Instead of Nadia to understand why he’s hurt by this exclusion from her life, she ridicules him for being upset. It’s obvious that John has a very easily exploitable soft spot for Nadia––she tells him flat out that she doesn’t need a line to get in his pants. You can’t help feeling bad for the guy. He ruined his marriage for someone who couldn’t care less about his feelings. But Nadia leaves him in a huff, finding Oatmeal by herself before promptly dying again. This time by falling off a bridge.

And thus, we arrive at our game––our dance, really. Russian Dolldances with its audience, one step forward, two steps back. For every step Nadia takes towards self-reflection, she moves backwards two. “Nothing in This World is Easy” lays the foundation for the central theme of the show in a way that is imperceptible if you only give the show a once-through. Yeah, it’s good the first time around, but the second time around it’s great. The dance moves like this; Ruth takes a step forward, “This birthday may reveal wounds from your relationship with your mother.” Nadia steps back twice, “You’re not my shrink. Not everything is about Mom.” John takes a step forward, “I miss you.” Nadia takes two steps back, “Don’t guilt me into getting back together with you.” These aren’t big steps per se, but this is the first episode. As the series unfolds, the recurrence of her mother’s memory and her relationship with John shows that even acknowledging these events in her life can prove to be too much for her.

I remember my first time watching this episode. Seeing Pre-Death Nadia and thinking “She knows what she wants out of life. I want her confidence; I want her friends,” then seeing Post-Death Nadia and thinking “Actually, she’s kind of a bitch.” But maybe she’s not a bitch. Maybe she’s just a person that’s deeply flawed and moves through the world as if she were infallible. It’s easy to see yourself in Nadia, especially the person you want to be. Who wouldn’t want to a streetwise New Yorker with sharp, dry wit? But that person doesn’t exist. What exists is a façade hiding pain and shame. Makes you wonder what personalities you’ve constructed for yourself in order to be shielded from the nonsense of this world.

Russian Doll is a series well worth the 4-hour binge. Hell, you might even watch it twice.