Typisch!

[imomus]

"Typisch!" grumble the Berlin bus shelters; "Typical!" It's not a response to the transport strike currently afflicting the city, but the headline on an elegant series of posters for a new exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Typical: clichés about Jews and others.

"Are black athletes better than white athletes?" asks the blurb. "Do homosexuals have a particular appreciation for art? Are pipe smokers easygoing and do Jews have long noses? The exhibition "Typical! Clichés About Jews And Others" takes visitors on a journey through the world of images which aid us in our orientation every day. The exhibition shows objects, photographs, and audiovisuals that feature people or make statements about them, and explores how popcult objects, bric-a-brac, and historical collectors' pieces spread stereotypical messages."

The tone here is admirably even-handed; stereotypes are "images which aid us in our orientation every day". The text continues:

"At the core of the exhibition is the phenomenon that stereotypes and clichés permeate all areas of life and undergo constant reaffirmation and popularization. The exhibition confronts art, which also contributes to the creation of stereotypes, with objects of trivial culture. They are positioned next to works that grapple with the themes in hand. "Typical! Clichés About Jews And Others" inspires visitors to take a closer look, also at their own thought patterns. It not only sensitizes visitors to the presence of stereotypes in their everyday environment, but also to their brutality, as they are not least a breeding ground for racism and misanthropy."

This last bit troubles me, despite (or because of) the fact that it, too, is a bit of an unexamined cliché. Stereotypes are undoubtedly present whenever racism and misanthropy are present, but it's the causal relationship implied by the eugenic metaphor "a breeding ground" that worries me. Do stereotypes, in and of themselves, "breed racism"? And what happens when you link this idea -- as the Jewish Museum does in this text -- with the idea that stereotypes are everywhere, are necessary and even "helpful in our orientation every day"? Does that mean that "racism and misanthropy are helpful in our orientation every day?"



Whatever we call them -- types, archetypes, stereotypes, isotypes -- and whether we celebrate the brilliant reductiveness of Dick Bruna and Otto Neurath or the evil reductiveness of Joseph Goebbels and Bernard Manning, it seems (this week's theme here at Click Opera!) that essentialism is essential. Someone who couldn't see how much experience consists of repetitive patterns, and couldn't map the new to the old, would be overwhelmed by fresh information all the time and unable to function. Stereotypes embody big, simple ideas about complex masses of data. They're often wrong, but always telling. That's probably why the Jewish Museum has seen fit to swamp Berlin with images of Jews with big noses this month.

"I have already noticed a number of Jewish doctor types amongst the goats," wrote Kafka from the country sanatorium where he was trying to recover from tuberculosis. I know exactly what he means -- I can see those faces now! -- but I'm glad he said it rather than me. It's the same with this Typisch! exhibition. For obvious historical reasons, in Berlin only the Jewish Museum could have mounted it, and filled the city with these stereotyped Jewish faces.



Then again, racial stereotyping is perfectly acceptable in Berlin. The Scots, for instance, can be used as a symbol of all that's "canny" and "mean". Bargain stores like Schotten Eck and Mac-Geiz use Scottishness in their names and their corporate imagery as a direct connoter of bargains; see a man in a kilt, think immediately of an enormous reluctance to spend money. This is interesting because meanness is a stereotypical feature of both Jews and Scots, but only Scots can now be used to connote it.

I haven't yet seen the Typisch! exhibition, but I wonder if those Schotten-Geiz images are in it, since it's about "clichés about Jews and others"? I also wonder if, next to the images of Jean Paul Gaultier's "Collection Juive", there are any examples of Israeli stereotyping of Palestinians, or cartoons depicting European muslims as "Islamofascists". If -- because of what happened in the 1940s -- Jewish stereotyping has been taken off the agenda in 2008 (for all but the Jewish Museum), I wonder if more valuable and relevant 21st century social work couldn't be done revealing persecutions currently taking place, including those persecutions perpetrated by people once persecuted themselves.

We all count the pendulum swings differently, of course. Some are still living in the historical moment defined by the pendulum swing created by the kinetic energy of the holocaust -- in fact, some say the holocaust is such a huge event that this counter-energy will never expend itself and the pendulum will never start swinging back. Others feel that Israel's disproportionate and asymmetrical assaults on the Palestinians, and the fact that stereotyping in the era of the "global policeman" and the "world's sole superpower" favours the Israelis over everyone else simply because they are the Israelis (if the Iranians really wanted carte blanche to develop nuclear weapons without threat of American-led obliteration, all they'd really have to do, in this world, would be to be the Israelis)... well, others feel that all this sets the pendulum swinging the other way.

Finally, though, it's not stereotypes, per se, which brutalize. It's -- surprise, surprise! -- brutality itself. And it's not stereotypes, in themselves, which stigmatize. It's stigma itself. If you're stigmatized, every label used to describe you and every image made of you will embody the stigma. Hence the Euphemism Treadmill.

It may be that there's a kind of time lag between the things people do and the names they're called, and it may be inevitable that museums live, largely, in this time lag. They're always, in other words, fighting old wars, old evils rather than new ones. But when we get over-sensitive to the semiological correlates of historical stigma and brutality while remaining insufficiently sensitive to actual, active stigma and brutality, we risk over-reaction. We also risk portraying all representation of the "other" as negative, and making people so nervous about saying anything about the other that they hide the other from view.



A recent exhibition at Kunstraum Kreuzberg showed German imperialist images of colonial peoples. It was rather startling to see images of black people so widely used in the commercial visual material of a century ago. A new year's card, for instance, showed a German maiden being embraced by a stereotypical negro. The verse underneath ran:

None, for you, is good enough
Elegant dreamer, curly top!
Good, so take yourself a love
Who'll gobble you right up!

Cannibalism, sexual voracity, exaggerated physical difference, all the stereotypes are in play. But look, a black man is embracing a white woman and they're both apparently enjoying it! Today's German New Year's cards wouldn't dare do anything so bold. Images of black people -- and images of Jews -- are entirely absent from them. That's because today's Germans are "more sensitive". Hurrah for progress, half a cheer for the total invisibility of the other, and two-and-a-half for Typisch for bringing the Jewish stereotypes back onto Berlin's streets.

Comments

Cannibals

[(Anonymous)]

Wasn't that verse used on 'Hippopotamomus'?

- Jsn

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

The Scots, for instance, can be used as a symbol of all that's "canny" and "mean". Bargain stores like Schotten Eck and Mc-Geiz use Scottishness in their names and their corporate imagery as a direct connoter of bargains; see a man in a kilt, think immediately of an enormous reluctance to spend money.
Not true of me, but abundantly of my dad! He's making me and my sisters pay "expense allocation" every month, and more for me to pay for the DSL I begged him for. This could be because he's an accountant though, I've never heard of Scots being reluctant to spend their money until today.

and the fact that stereotyping in the era of the "global policeman" and the "world's sole superpower" favours the Israelis over everyone else simply because they are the Israelis (if the Iranians really wanted carte blanche to develop nuclear weapons without threat of American-led obliteration, all they'd really have to do, in this world, would be to be the Israelis)
I think I've said this before, but before America declared war on Iraq (or Afghanistan, which we seem to have forgotten about? Where's bin Laden?), I was talking to my childhood friend about it, and he said that "as long as America supported Israel, America will always win wars. The Bible said so." I was against war, he was for it. Also, funny how the WMD was part of the reason for the invasion, but America is hiding some of their own in the Middle East.

Have you ever seen the Dr. Seuss drawn war propaganda, by the way?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

We Scots are mean; I can see it clearly in myself. I just call it "postmaterialism" and spin it as the future of mankind, though.

I've never seen those Dr Seuss drawings, no.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Add on to that second anecdote: So does America support Israel anymore? I don't see America winning from the support of Israel. Or from anything at all, really.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Yes, the "mean" part describes me somewhat, I got caught up in the "frugal" part and forgot to write about that. :)

Dr. Seuss Propaganda (http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/Frame.htm)

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Er, no, she's pushing him away. Only it wasn't done to portray pretty young women as looking angry back then (only old shrews get angry!), so it's kind of hard to tell.

It reminds me of gay visibility and feminist issues: are stereotypical, socially acceptable gays and women in mainstream culture better than none at all?

Looking at that picture with its double stereotyping and disempowerment, I'm going with no.

Re: Cannibals

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Don't call us Scots cannibals! Or we'll eat you!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

So if you were designing the posters for the Typisch show at the Jewish Museum, you'd leave it blank, then? Or maybe stick a sticker on a Jewish stereotype saying "Don't try this at home, kids!"

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Also, is she "pushing him away" because she's a victim of his presumably immoderate sexual drive, or because she's a racist? Can she be both? Or perhaps she's enjoying his kiss because she's a racist and black men turn her on? We seem to be back on the treadmill: where there is stigma, every possible reading of an image will end up in it. This, however, is not the fault of the image.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Well, if they want to raise awareness of their own stereotyping or attempt to reclaim it, that's fine by me, but I wouldn't meddle in it because I am not a Jew.

By contrast, if I was putting together a show on bisexual or female stereotyping, I wouldn't have a problem in choosing a funny or striking image for a poster.

But the ones in control of the use of stereotypes in commerce such as in the postcard are (usually) not trying to reclaim a stereotype or deconstruct it, but using it and its associations uncritically.

[(Anonymous)]

Mj had the answer - "it dont matter if your black or white"

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Motivation isn't what I am arguing here. I merely pointed out a part of the image you ignored.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

And he should know, having had a go at being both.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Mj had the answer - "it dont matter if your black or white"

That solution is very wrong-headed indeed, and not just because MJ very obviously thinks it does matter, since he's erased his negroid features almost entirely.

You must win because of what you are rather than despite it, because if you win despite it somebody else is really winning.

holy cost

[(Anonymous)]

ive been called rascist sexist facist but what hurts most is being scottish....i try to persaued folks am a gypsy and proud but that makes no sense...recently the zionists were openly threatining a holly cosy holly cost, these folks are blind and shamefull ,,whats there excuse? i think it is fear today people are more afraid then ever....you have got to be carefull what your thinking..free thinking aint for free..

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

Haven't Israeli/Zionist Jews reclaimed their stereotype in a way by using it as a weapon? A large chunk of the political blogosphere seems to be devoted to discussions of Israel/Palestine & anti-semitism. In Medieval Europe, the Jewish stereotype was more than just big noses and thrift - there was that hideous urban myth about killing children and drinking their blood. Now, however, when one draws attention to the fact that the Israeli army murder Palestinian children, it's common to see references made to the blood libel by way of response. Stating a simple fact has become impossible without risking being tarred an anti-semite.

Imagine if there had been mass gassings of 'canny' Scots by less thrifty others. Would you or I now be able to scrounge off people, knowing that no one would dare accuse us of being a skinflint?

[(Anonymous)]

What exactly do you mean by 'essentialism'? You don't seem to be using the term as it is used in philosophy etc. If all you mean is that various entities recognised as belonging to a group share some perceptually similar characteristics, then that's simply tautological. If you mean that stereotypes are useful, then well and good, but that's not essentialism.

brilliant

[(Anonymous)]

stop on my peely whally friend

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia's definition works: "the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must have. This view is contrasted with non-essentialism which states that for any given kind of entity there are no specific traits which entities of that kind must have."

For some people in internet debates, essentialism is a sort of secular sin. For me, it's something absolutely inevitable, built into the definitions of language and therefore into the way we think.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I agree with that, McGazz, except that instead of "reclaimed their stereotype" I'd say something like "exploited the pindrop silence around a stereotype hushed by taboo". And I salute the Jewish Museum for breaking the taboo, although I wonder if they've gone further and looked at the atrocities that might be, at this very moment, producing the taboos of the future.

[(Anonymous)]

You truncated that Wikipedia definition, which continues: "It should be noted that essences do not simply reflect ways of grouping objects; essences must result in properties of the object. An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal; and present in every possible world."

Which is exactly the way essentialism is more commonly used. It's not about the tautology I outlined above, which seems to be how you're using the word.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That also seems tautological to me, though. An essence must be an abstraction of some sort -- the "immutable" association between a thing and an idea, for example. It cannot merely be the material properties of the object. If we allow essences to be non-intrinsic, then we must allow them to be as easily the conceptual groupings and definitions of language as the "ideas" of Plato.

Essence-as-linguistic category results in "properties of the object" only insofar as these properties are projected by language onto objects.

Anyway, you'd probably have to call me a "structural essentialist" or something. I clearly don't think that things have timeless essences, though I do think that just because certain relationships between ideas and objects are arbitrary (that's the structuralist bit, the Saussure bit), it doesn't follow that they aren't entirely real and necessary.

[rob-kun.livejournal.com]

Aren't these stereotypes going to become less and less useful as once-distinct ethnic groups continue to intermingle in the so-called 'global village'? Hasn't this probably already happened (were there stereotypes of 'angles' and 'saxons' that have now disappeared?). Aren't the Jewish doctors a little less obvious than in Kafka's time?

I'm still getting my head around the idea of essentialism, but isn't meant to be applied to qualities that stay constant?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Do stereotypes, in and of themselves, "breed racism"? And what happens when you link this idea -- as the Jewish Museum does in this text -- with the idea that stereotypes are everywhere, are necessary and even "helpful in our orientation every day"? Does that mean that "racism and misanthropy are helpful in our orientation every day?"

I cant think of a single time where stereotypes have helped "orientate" me as such. What does that even mean exactly? I try to hold back from making snap decisions about people, not because its morally wrong but because I tend to find taking someone at face value and getting to know them as an individual is more relevant and useful to me.

That said, stereotypes are still relevant if you have enough knowledge to deconstruct them.

Take a look at this interview with Konno Asami -- in this clip shes talking about the things that surprised her most about working in the music industry:



It seems to be a world stereotype that gay men are associated with music and the arts. Speaking as a gay guy who works in graphic design, it would seem odd for me to question this stereotype, but I want to scratch the surface of this seemingly universal stereotype.

As a homosexual, it's likely you'll never have a wife and children to support. Society, jobs, housing and wages are ultimately geared around families -- mortgages, marriage, breeding... as such, Living a self-centred gay lifestyle without these constraints allows you to have more money for yourself and to do the things you love more often. This is possibly one of the reasons why there are lots of gays in the music and arts. it's not because straight people arent interested in music and art or that gay men are better at it, its because of circumstances. gay men pretty much spend their entire lives in a man-child state where they never really "grow up" and do the settling down with a wife and kid in the suburbs.

Thats one explanation.

Theres also another angle to it that the gay men who are the most visible to mainstream society are the extroverts -- the effeminates and the artists. therefore mainstream society associates gay men with art and femininity. for all I know, there could be many gay men out there who fall outside the radar because they have a job in a call centre or an office block and never do the gay scene, arent effeminate and mostly get mistaken as straight.

Stereotypes can be fascinating to deconstruct and can to a certain extent present you with truths if you have enough background knowledge to deconstruct them effectively. On an individual level, you're much better off actually getting to know the individual rather than applying labels to them as soon as you see them.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think the idea of convergence towards a "melting pot" or "global village" -- whatever you think of these scenarios -- is one the pendulum is currently swinging against.

In Measuring Citizenship: Is Japan an Outlier? (http://www.japanreview.net/essays_measuring_citizenship.htm), Japan Review's Paul J. Scalise and Yuki Allyson Honjo set out to check the claim that Japan's citizenship-by-blood, not place of birth policy on naturalization was outside international norms. They found that Japan is not an outlier at all -- most states worldwide do not offer automatic citizenship by birth. In fact, jus solis-conferring states are only prevalent among the Organization of American States. What's more, the trend in developed countries is currently (for better or worse) away from American-style jus solis and towards Japanese-style jus sanguinis.