As discussed in today's lesson, I'd like you to write a short analysis on your 13A Exam blog of the representation of race and ethnicity in the two texts we studied today: the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony and the subsequent opinion piece on the Daily Mail website the following day. The links you need:
The Olympic Opening Ceremony on the BBC website - from 56.30 (music section based around the surburban-style house). If that doesn't work, try YouTube where the section you need is a little later (around an hour in).
The Daily Mail article you have a copy of but you may find this Guardian article on it useful.
many different ideas and representations are presented in both the article and the clip from the opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony was predominantly seen as a success and a good representation of modern Britain with multicultural themes running through out the performance. however, some could argue that the whole 'ethnic guy searching for this ethnic girl' promotes a cultural segregation i.e "keep with your own kind" which is a very secondary and cynical look at the piece. however the preferred reading is still promoting multiculturalism.
in terms of the article it was overwhelmingly negative towards ethnic minorities with the writer going so far as to hint that you could not find a white middle-class woman and a black middle-class man living together happily. This could be playing on the stereotype of "black men dont stick around and look after there kids" however the more likely subtext is the fact that you would struggle to find a black middle class man in Great Britain.
Another point of view from the text is that the music and the whole feel of it was mostly english/western which arguably could play on Frants Fanon' "black skin , white mask" theory ,this is the theory where in which ethnic people must masquerade as whites to be accepted this is supported by the casting decisions is possibly as far away from fanons infantilize, primitive, decivilized and essentialised theory. however the last song 'bokers' by dizzie rascal is 'stereotypically' a song for black youths which creates a secondary argument which could be that ethnic people and native people now have a shared culture which disproves the equal but different stereotype created after the civil war in america and of course Frantz Fanon.
WWW: You've made some brilliant points here - and I really like the way you've weaved some theory in. Your discussion of possible secondary readings for the opening ceremony (which as you say was overwhelmingly positively received) is the kind of original critical response we need in both coursework and exam.
ReplyDeleteEBI: Two areas to work on - one very simple. You need to make sure your written English is good enough to communicate the complex arguments you are putting forward! Beware long sentences that make your points difficult to interpret. I also think you could go into quite a bit more detail on the Daily Mail article...
LR: In terms of the Daily Mail article, you mention the likely subtext regarding a middle class black man. Two questions: Do you think this is a deliberate ploy from the newspaper? And perhaps more importantly, how do you think the majority of the British public would respond to such a suggestion?
The ploy could be deliberate by this conservative paper as "any publicity is good publicity" however i think it was just a misguided thought proccess in to printing it.
ReplyDeleteThe publics reaction to this (if article being true) would be not many complaints as many of the readers are abc1 however as this got so many complaints it got taken down i suggest the article was proven wrong by the negative reaction