Yes, Kate Moss is not black.
Jan. 9th, 2007 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusBelow, on the left, you can see an image of Kate Moss as a black woman. Nick Knight took the picture, Val Garland did the make-up, and it was commissioned by Giorgio Armani, who was guest-editing a section of the Independent newspaper dedicated to the fight against AIDS in Africa. The supplement ran on September 21st, and half of the profits went to African AIDS charities.
The reaction was swift, and almost entirely negative. "Racist" Kate Moss was "in blackface", said Visual Editors. Some commenters threatened to boycott Armani, others contented themselves with noting that real black women tend to be fatter than Kate Moss, who could, incidentally, "go back to her crack house". Most people agreed with an article that ran in the Independent's main rival, The Guardian, which asked why the model couldn't have been black.
"What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray?" asked Hannah Pool, the Guardian journalist. "I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?"
"Next time a photograph of an African woman is needed," Pool concludes, "they should call on Iman. Or me."
Since the reaction to this image was so overwhelmingly negative, I thought I'd try to put a rather different point of view, because this touches on a lot of subjects I feel quite strongly about. I actually think the condemnation of this image is quite misguided and wrongheaded, resting as it does on a series of assumptions which I'd call rockist, simplistic, incredibly literal-minded, and unsophisticated in their understanding of the nature of representation -- and especially metonymy (the kind of imagery where one thing stands for, or represents, many).
First of all, the "why didn't they go the whole hog and employ a black person instead?" argument is like saying an impressionist shouldn't play the prime minister if the prime minister is available to do it himself, or that all drag queens should be replaced by real women.
The thing is, having someone play someone else raises a whole series of interesting juxtapositions, new meanings, involves fascinating skills and telling shortfalls. It lands us in the "uncanny valley", the place where categories fail and ostranenie takes over. When categories get mixed up, we have to question our reflexive assumptions -- and that's a good thing.
I think immediately of other representations of black people by whites. Sure, the Black and White Minstrel Show is the one all the complainants mentioned, but it isn't the only possible option. There's also Tibor Kalman's classic and brilliant image of Queen Elizabeth II as a black woman, which ran on the fourth edition of Colors magazine, back in 1993, the "What If..." issue. Or I think of the brilliant production The Wooster Group made of "The Emperor Jones", in which white actors play black people -- and yet everything is estranged and confused by brilliant kabuki songs and strange poetic alienation. Or I think of Black Like Me, in which white Texan John Howard Griffin describes six weeks disguised as a black man in the then-segregated Southern states of the US. Or the project in which Pier Fichefeux made portraits of Fabrica students of all races as if they were black.
Would Pool call Kalman, the Wooster Group, Griffin and Fichefeux casual, insensitive racists who should have used real black people? Or artistic provocateurs interested in making us see an old problem (essentially the "problem" of difference itself, or rather, "the difference that makes a difference") from a new angle?
Pool quotes academic Paul Gilroy: "The threat of being labelled politically correct creates an environment where we are scared to voice our objections." Given the context, the Kate Moss picture is "empty nihilism," he says. "Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do," says Pool. "Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong."
This is simply not the case with the Armani image. The very last thing you do, if you want to make-believe that racism no longer exists, is black up. Blacking up is precisely what you do if you want to have a discussion about race. But identity politics does play a part in the misunderstanding of Nick Knight's image.
Basically, one of the problems of the identity politics movement of the 1970s is that it came out of the Me Generation. That's the "identity" part. You identify with others like yourself (gays, blacks, women) and militate for your own minority rights. Which is fine. But the politics that result are Me Politics. The idea emerges that it's only reasonable to represent your own wishes and needs, not those of people different from yourself. Not only do you not represent the needs of others (as traditional politics had done, sometimes patronizingly and pompously, but sometimes with genuine concern), you claim to be the only one able to represent yourself authentically. And here, of course, we encounter the spectre of rockism. If the image of a black person in the media is not represented by a real black person, say the rockists, it's not authentic, and therefore not acceptable.
But why would Iman be a better representative of Africa than Kate Moss? Aren't they both supermodel celebrities, their daily lives equally far removed from the experience of poor Africans with AIDS? What if, just experimentally, we said that anyone could represent Africa? Wouldn't it, in fact, be more useful, if the intention is to provoke concern for people unlike yourself, to show someone non-African declaring a solidarity with Africa?
We need to get beyond the lazy thinking which is the most negative legacy of identity politics. To represent the other, not just yourself, is a virtue, not a vice. Especially, obviously, when it's done with sympathy and compassion. The suppression of all imagery of black people played by other races is not the answer -- perhaps it even represents a wish to make black people invisible, or eternal victims, or segregated from the glitzy, celebrity-obsessed consumer culture we spoilt Northerners live in (which contributes, of course, to climate change that will impact Africa much more harshly than it does our own cold countries).
A white person playing a black person might actually represent respect for the other, a wish to become the other. Why then is a negative motive always assumed? Why must we boycott Armani? Would we boycott a straight actor who chose to play a gay man in a film? Is all travesty automatically "a travesty"?
And what if the metonymy involved in the Kate Moss image were not "Here is one (faux) black woman who stands for Africa" (as most commentators seem to assume) but something more like "Here is an image of the relationship between the North and the South"? In other words, what if the thing being portrayed here is our own bizarre position in relation to Africa's problems -- the fact that we consume and worship success and money while others fail and die?
What if the disturbing thing about the Kate Moss image were also the good thing about it -- that it collides tragedy and farce in a way that shows the full obscenity of a juxtaposition that exists in the real world? What if the shocking absurdity of this image were actually the most realistic thing you could show?
An image of a black person is an image of a clear, categorical identity. It's reassuring for that reason. We know what it is. An image of a half-black, half-white person is much more impure, confusing, alarming. It raises the spectre of deception, miscegenation, bastardy, and that disturbs us.
But above all, rather than an identity, what we see in a travesty image is a relationship -- the relationship between ourselves and the Other, the different. By refusing such images, we refuse to look at relationship -- in other words, our part in the problem. By insisting on the purity of identity and authenticity, we block out the more complex and complicit realities of race -- a difference that still makes a difference.
The reaction was swift, and almost entirely negative. "Racist" Kate Moss was "in blackface", said Visual Editors. Some commenters threatened to boycott Armani, others contented themselves with noting that real black women tend to be fatter than Kate Moss, who could, incidentally, "go back to her crack house". Most people agreed with an article that ran in the Independent's main rival, The Guardian, which asked why the model couldn't have been black.
"What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray?" asked Hannah Pool, the Guardian journalist. "I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?"
"Next time a photograph of an African woman is needed," Pool concludes, "they should call on Iman. Or me."
Since the reaction to this image was so overwhelmingly negative, I thought I'd try to put a rather different point of view, because this touches on a lot of subjects I feel quite strongly about. I actually think the condemnation of this image is quite misguided and wrongheaded, resting as it does on a series of assumptions which I'd call rockist, simplistic, incredibly literal-minded, and unsophisticated in their understanding of the nature of representation -- and especially metonymy (the kind of imagery where one thing stands for, or represents, many).
First of all, the "why didn't they go the whole hog and employ a black person instead?" argument is like saying an impressionist shouldn't play the prime minister if the prime minister is available to do it himself, or that all drag queens should be replaced by real women.
The thing is, having someone play someone else raises a whole series of interesting juxtapositions, new meanings, involves fascinating skills and telling shortfalls. It lands us in the "uncanny valley", the place where categories fail and ostranenie takes over. When categories get mixed up, we have to question our reflexive assumptions -- and that's a good thing.
I think immediately of other representations of black people by whites. Sure, the Black and White Minstrel Show is the one all the complainants mentioned, but it isn't the only possible option. There's also Tibor Kalman's classic and brilliant image of Queen Elizabeth II as a black woman, which ran on the fourth edition of Colors magazine, back in 1993, the "What If..." issue. Or I think of the brilliant production The Wooster Group made of "The Emperor Jones", in which white actors play black people -- and yet everything is estranged and confused by brilliant kabuki songs and strange poetic alienation. Or I think of Black Like Me, in which white Texan John Howard Griffin describes six weeks disguised as a black man in the then-segregated Southern states of the US. Or the project in which Pier Fichefeux made portraits of Fabrica students of all races as if they were black.
Would Pool call Kalman, the Wooster Group, Griffin and Fichefeux casual, insensitive racists who should have used real black people? Or artistic provocateurs interested in making us see an old problem (essentially the "problem" of difference itself, or rather, "the difference that makes a difference") from a new angle?
Pool quotes academic Paul Gilroy: "The threat of being labelled politically correct creates an environment where we are scared to voice our objections." Given the context, the Kate Moss picture is "empty nihilism," he says. "Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do," says Pool. "Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong."
This is simply not the case with the Armani image. The very last thing you do, if you want to make-believe that racism no longer exists, is black up. Blacking up is precisely what you do if you want to have a discussion about race. But identity politics does play a part in the misunderstanding of Nick Knight's image.
Basically, one of the problems of the identity politics movement of the 1970s is that it came out of the Me Generation. That's the "identity" part. You identify with others like yourself (gays, blacks, women) and militate for your own minority rights. Which is fine. But the politics that result are Me Politics. The idea emerges that it's only reasonable to represent your own wishes and needs, not those of people different from yourself. Not only do you not represent the needs of others (as traditional politics had done, sometimes patronizingly and pompously, but sometimes with genuine concern), you claim to be the only one able to represent yourself authentically. And here, of course, we encounter the spectre of rockism. If the image of a black person in the media is not represented by a real black person, say the rockists, it's not authentic, and therefore not acceptable.
But why would Iman be a better representative of Africa than Kate Moss? Aren't they both supermodel celebrities, their daily lives equally far removed from the experience of poor Africans with AIDS? What if, just experimentally, we said that anyone could represent Africa? Wouldn't it, in fact, be more useful, if the intention is to provoke concern for people unlike yourself, to show someone non-African declaring a solidarity with Africa?
We need to get beyond the lazy thinking which is the most negative legacy of identity politics. To represent the other, not just yourself, is a virtue, not a vice. Especially, obviously, when it's done with sympathy and compassion. The suppression of all imagery of black people played by other races is not the answer -- perhaps it even represents a wish to make black people invisible, or eternal victims, or segregated from the glitzy, celebrity-obsessed consumer culture we spoilt Northerners live in (which contributes, of course, to climate change that will impact Africa much more harshly than it does our own cold countries).
A white person playing a black person might actually represent respect for the other, a wish to become the other. Why then is a negative motive always assumed? Why must we boycott Armani? Would we boycott a straight actor who chose to play a gay man in a film? Is all travesty automatically "a travesty"?
And what if the metonymy involved in the Kate Moss image were not "Here is one (faux) black woman who stands for Africa" (as most commentators seem to assume) but something more like "Here is an image of the relationship between the North and the South"? In other words, what if the thing being portrayed here is our own bizarre position in relation to Africa's problems -- the fact that we consume and worship success and money while others fail and die?
What if the disturbing thing about the Kate Moss image were also the good thing about it -- that it collides tragedy and farce in a way that shows the full obscenity of a juxtaposition that exists in the real world? What if the shocking absurdity of this image were actually the most realistic thing you could show?
An image of a black person is an image of a clear, categorical identity. It's reassuring for that reason. We know what it is. An image of a half-black, half-white person is much more impure, confusing, alarming. It raises the spectre of deception, miscegenation, bastardy, and that disturbs us.
But above all, rather than an identity, what we see in a travesty image is a relationship -- the relationship between ourselves and the Other, the different. By refusing such images, we refuse to look at relationship -- in other words, our part in the problem. By insisting on the purity of identity and authenticity, we block out the more complex and complicit realities of race -- a difference that still makes a difference.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
SHOWJUMPING KATE MOSS
Date: 2007-01-08 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:33 pm (UTC)She is not seen as an "authentic" lesbian or gay person because she used to be a man.
Wondeful post!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:35 pm (UTC)It catches our minds in the kind of non-complacent confusion we secretly hold dreadful beneath the surface; our own weakness, to all sorts of diseases, to all sorts of HUMAN problems.
I think the cover was a beautiful idea. And it carried out beautifully, what's more. I think the fact that people reacted so strongly was in a funny way, sort of a proof of its power, though the claims of "racism" are fucking ridiculous and should not be as big a part of the reaction as it is; it's a tragic commentary on a time in which people are more worried about political correctness (ie. how to dance around the issue) than the issue itself.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:40 pm (UTC)But it's more complex than that, because identity politics both reinforces essences like race by seeing them as "authentic" -- and also attempts to put them beyond discussion, by making them taboo. And what's beyond discussion is clearly beyond deconstruction.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:47 pm (UTC)this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 10:49 pm (UTC)This is not true. Everyone knows race is a social construct and the margins are not clear nor should they ever be.
I don't think the objection to the Kate Moss thing was purely about identity politics. I am vehemently against identity politics and while I wouldn't stop the Guardian or anyone else from printing the image, I don't understand what the image was supposed to mean. This is not Kate Moss as a black woman. This is Kate Moss PAINTED BLACK, which is something else. I refuse to believe that this is what white people see when they look at someone and decide that they are looking at a black person and I am certain no one white would see Kate Moss walking down the street dipped in black paint and mistake her for a black woman.
The thing is, having someone play someone else raises a whole series of interesting juxtapositions, new meanings, involves fascinating skills and telling shortfalls.
If we accept the fact that she was not supposed to look like a black woman, I ask you WHO is this "someone else" she was supposed to be. At best, Moss was a caricature of a caricature; blackface of blackface. And waht is the point of that? I just don't see the point.
I am continually disgusted by the fact that we need anyone or anything to "represent Afric"a in order to drum up funding for AIDS research. It's AIDS, people. We should all want to eradicate for any myriad of reasons, not just because David Bowie or Heidi Klum declare themselves to be African.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:52 pm (UTC)Regards
Thomas S.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 10:52 pm (UTC)Way to suck all the meaning out of your image, mr photographer.
focus on the other in YOU
Date: 2007-01-08 10:57 pm (UTC)Virtuous in whose eyes?
Virtue to the benefit of whom?
Especially, obviously, when it's done with sympathy and compassion.
Sympathy and compassion? Why make an impassioned plea on behalf of the creatures of this image and then hide behind sympathy and compassion? How patronizing! Who asked for your white bourgeois sympathy and compassion, Bono? What ever happened to ethical imperative?
Must the appeal always be an emotional one? why can't we make reasonable appeals to the public? Reasonable appeals that would serve ultimately to educate and fulfill the imperative to better educate those who are ill informed on the diseases.
Or are we accepting the fact that we are more and more becoming a society of people who make decisions based on our "gut feelings" (a la George Bush) and things we only claim to understand.
I--for one--am afraid.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:00 pm (UTC)Identity Politics says: "Let's talk about race!"
Political Correctness says: "Talking about race makes you a racist! Let's not talk about race!"
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:05 pm (UTC)Re: focus on the other in YOU
Date: 2007-01-08 11:06 pm (UTC)Thomas Scott.
Re: this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 11:06 pm (UTC)I say it clearly in the piece: Kate Moss is made up here to represent OUR CONSUMER SOCIETY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH AFRICA... in all its absurdity and obscenity. In that sense, this is the most realistic image you could possibly see.
Also -- and I cannot say this enough -- the fact that something is a social construct does not mean that it's not real. Race as a social construct is a difference that makes a difference. It must be treated as real for this reason.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:07 pm (UTC)This is the entire idea behind the ad. I am a little startled (though not entirely surprised, really) that so-called experts are unable to see something so obvious and make themselves look like complete idiots in their condemnation of it.
As far as authenticity goes, I'm going to take a post-modern stance and say that, in today's world, nothing is completely "authentic".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:08 pm (UTC)Re: this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 11:09 pm (UTC)identity politics is oftentimes criticized for being unintellectual (which it usually is) and ignorant of the complexities of identity, but the whole anti-pc backlash and the emerging idea of irony for irony's sake seems also strangely unintellectual and a curiously simple response. people seem to playing up the idea of inauthenticity, for instance, but at the same time think that there IS some africa, some fusion of ideas that they can pinpoint which IS real and which works! (heidi + seal = a better, globalized world coming together! kate moss can bridge the gap between africa and the western world!)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:10 pm (UTC)Re: this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 11:11 pm (UTC)As for her representing "our consumer society's relationship with Africa", I guess I am conveniently excluded from said consumer society since this image says nothing of the sort to me. It is interesting to be an observer.
the images don't line up
Date: 2007-01-08 11:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-08 11:20 pm (UTC)I don't think the NOT A FASHION STATEMENT! slogan helps, either. There's something about the supposed subversion of our viewing expectations in there that makes me want to headdesk until my skull collapses.
Re: the images don't line up
Date: 2007-01-08 11:22 pm (UTC)Would an image of a suffering African person be less objectifying?
Is what's being portrayed here a continent, or the relationship between two continents?
Re: this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 11:22 pm (UTC)Thomas S.
Re: focus on the other in YOU
Date: 2007-01-08 11:24 pm (UTC)What's so wrong about people like Bono wanting to help their fellow humans?
Oh wait, oops--you just had to go and make it all racial. Yay for you. So much for philosophical enlightenment.
Re: focus on the other in YOU
Date: 2007-01-08 11:28 pm (UTC)Look around you--that patronizing, doomy "get tested, because xxxxx number of people are dying every day all over the world, even where YOU live! OMGz" isn't exactly making the biggest dent in people's behaviour.
Since when was the public supposed to be reasonable? Emotions are among the only things that can be appealed to in the American populace these days, and I don't see that shit changing any time...er...ever.
Your getting all pouty about "white bourgeious sympathy" is about as compelling as a five year old child saying "DON'T HELP ME!" to someone who tries to tend to their skinned knee, out of an absurd desire for prideful display.
Re: this is true but this is a LIE
Date: 2007-01-08 11:30 pm (UTC)You can't make racial issues go away by saying they don't exist. Cop-outs like Whoa!.