[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. Because Finch is the only white man who has ever treatedMoss with respect, he feels betrayed by Finch s racial slur.Later, back atthe hospital, the doctor ( Jeff Corey) the Wlm s white superego tellsMoss that he can t walk because he feels guilty for his friend s death, notbecause of the racial slurs but because everyone wants the person nextto him to die in battle instead of him.Completely discounting the reality of racism or the possibilitythat racism could be debilitating, the doctor repeatedly tells Moss thathis problem has nothing to do with being a Negro and that he is justlike everyone else.For the doctor, race and racism are just displacedwar trauma that Moss suffers.Trading on the reality and signiWcance ofwar trauma, the trauma of racism becomes a form of hysteria it s allin your head. The doctor eventually cures Moss by yelling racial slursthat make Moss so angry that he walks toward the doctor and collapsesin his arms.At the same time that the doctor denies the effects of racismon Moss and insists that he is too sensitive indeed, that his sensitivity NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITE 13is pathological he uses the powerful effect of racism to incite Mossto walk.In spite of the doctor s mixed messages, the Wlm ends with Mossinternalizing the words of this white superego, repeating, I am just likeanyone else in the face of more racial slurs from T.J.(Steve Brodie),another soldier who has been insulting Moss throughout the Wlm.Mingo (Frank Lovejoy), a third soldier who accompanied the group onthe fateful mission, insists that T.J. s racial slurs are no different thanany of the other mean or insulting things that T.J.says to white people,including himself.At the end of the Wlm, then, racism is reduced toindividual temperament or meanness, and any reaction to racism is notonly a sign of individual weakness but also a sign of individual pathol-ogy.The lesson of the Wlm is that there is no such thing as institutionalor cultural racism; rather, it is just a few white bullies needling a fewoversensitive head cases.These Wlms are full of hard-boiled racial hatreds that jar modernsensibilities.But more curious than the harsh racism of the bad guys are the hard-boiled attitudes of the moral authority Wgures.The hard-boiled characters in these Wlms are the authority Wgures lawyers, doc-tors, judges, policemen who deliver the moral messages.These whitesuperegos function to circumscribe racial boundaries and racial differ-ence to contain racial ambiguity.The strength of the superego is indirect correlation to the power of the abject and its threat to properboundaries.Again recall that the abject is what is on the border, what does notrespect borders.It is ambiguous, in-between, composite (Kristeva1982, 4).Kristeva describes the in-between as a terror that dissembles,a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter insteadof inXaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you (4).The abject is not what it seems; it is neither one nor the other; it is un-decidable.The abject, then, is not a quality in itself. Rather, it is arelationship to a boundary and represents what has been jettisonedout of that boundary, its other side, a margin (69).The abject is whatthreatens identity.It is neither good nor evil, subject nor object, ego 14 NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITEnor unconscious, but something that threatens the distinctions them-selves.It is not an object that corresponds to an ego; rather, it is what isexcluded by the superego: To each ego its object, to each superego itsabject (2).Society is founded on the abject, which is to say, on con-structing boundaries and jettisoning the antisocial. The abject threat-ens the unity and identity of both society and the subject by callinginto question the boundaries on which they are constructed.The abjectis the return of the repressed ambiguity out of which proper identityis formed.Even jettisoned, the abject still threatens the social order.Socialorder is the result of constructing and maintaining borders, and theabject points to the fragility of those borders.Society is parceled intosexes, races, classes, castes, and so forth, and ambiguity is what is re-pressed so that these neat and proper categories might exist.Both socialand individual identity are formed through defensive operations thatartiWcially and arbitrarily Wx and bind the ambiguity inherent in theprocess of identiWcation.Ambiguity, then, is what has been excluded bythe superego for the sake of identity.If we apply this theory to race and race relations, it is not black-ness that threatens proper white identity; rather, racial ambiguity isthe real threat to the proper boundaries of white (and black) identity.Inthe problem Wlms, the white authority Wgures heavy-handed speechesabout racial tolerance that erase racial difference and silence the blackcharacters function to police the borders of identity.Racial differencethreatens the proper boundaries of identity by recalling racial ambigu-ity.Both the position that there is no difference between black andwhite (Home of the Brave s You are just like everyone else ) and the posi-tion that we need to maintain a radical separation between black andwhite (the message of Pinky and Imitation of Life) are defenses againstracial ambiguity.The extremes of sameness and difference have in com-mon the force with which they deny racial ambiguity.Even while theseWlms present us with a strong superego that acts as a defense againstabjection and ambiguity, they are full of both narrative and visual con-tradictions and ambivalence that reveal that repressed racial ambiguity. NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITE 15The superego of Wlm noir, often manifest in the detective character svoice-over, is also haunted by the return of the repressed ambiguity thatshows up in both its narrative and visual style.Two other problem Wlms of 1949 display an anxiety over racialambiguity that brings the anxiety over racial ambiguity in Wlm noir intoeven greater relief.The explicit theme of both Lost Boundaries and Pinkyis racial ambiguity and passing.The explicit threat in these problem Wlms where black characters are visibly white, and the implicit threat innoir Wlms where white characters are visibly black, is not a fear of black-ness but rather a fear of the inability to distinguish between black andwhite, a fear of lost boundaries between races.Racial ambiguity is thereal threat that lies behind both these problem Wlms and Wlm noir.Concern over racial ambiguity that motivates the narrative of Wlms suchas Pinky and Lost Boundaries is manifested in the style of noir.In Lost Boundaries, a black doctor, Scott Carter (white actor MelFerrer), passes for white in a small New Hampshire town.DuringWorld War II he joins the navy until his true race is discovered andhe is expelled from the navy and is forced to tell his children that theyare black.The Wlm opens with Carter graduating from medical schooland marrying Marcia (white actress Beatrice Pearson).Dr.CharlesHoward (Emory Richardson), a distinguished African American doctorreceiving an honorary degree, offers Carter an internship in a blackhospital in Georgia.When he arrives, Carter is denied the internshipbecause his skin is too light and the board of directors has decided togive preference to Southern applicants.Because he looks white but is black, Carter doesn t belong among whites or blacks.Marcia s father, a light-skinned African American who is living aswhite, suggests that the young couple do the same [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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. Because Finch is the only white man who has ever treatedMoss with respect, he feels betrayed by Finch s racial slur.Later, back atthe hospital, the doctor ( Jeff Corey) the Wlm s white superego tellsMoss that he can t walk because he feels guilty for his friend s death, notbecause of the racial slurs but because everyone wants the person nextto him to die in battle instead of him.Completely discounting the reality of racism or the possibilitythat racism could be debilitating, the doctor repeatedly tells Moss thathis problem has nothing to do with being a Negro and that he is justlike everyone else.For the doctor, race and racism are just displacedwar trauma that Moss suffers.Trading on the reality and signiWcance ofwar trauma, the trauma of racism becomes a form of hysteria it s allin your head. The doctor eventually cures Moss by yelling racial slursthat make Moss so angry that he walks toward the doctor and collapsesin his arms.At the same time that the doctor denies the effects of racismon Moss and insists that he is too sensitive indeed, that his sensitivity NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITE 13is pathological he uses the powerful effect of racism to incite Mossto walk.In spite of the doctor s mixed messages, the Wlm ends with Mossinternalizing the words of this white superego, repeating, I am just likeanyone else in the face of more racial slurs from T.J.(Steve Brodie),another soldier who has been insulting Moss throughout the Wlm.Mingo (Frank Lovejoy), a third soldier who accompanied the group onthe fateful mission, insists that T.J. s racial slurs are no different thanany of the other mean or insulting things that T.J.says to white people,including himself.At the end of the Wlm, then, racism is reduced toindividual temperament or meanness, and any reaction to racism is notonly a sign of individual weakness but also a sign of individual pathol-ogy.The lesson of the Wlm is that there is no such thing as institutionalor cultural racism; rather, it is just a few white bullies needling a fewoversensitive head cases.These Wlms are full of hard-boiled racial hatreds that jar modernsensibilities.But more curious than the harsh racism of the bad guys are the hard-boiled attitudes of the moral authority Wgures.The hard-boiled characters in these Wlms are the authority Wgures lawyers, doc-tors, judges, policemen who deliver the moral messages.These whitesuperegos function to circumscribe racial boundaries and racial differ-ence to contain racial ambiguity.The strength of the superego is indirect correlation to the power of the abject and its threat to properboundaries.Again recall that the abject is what is on the border, what does notrespect borders.It is ambiguous, in-between, composite (Kristeva1982, 4).Kristeva describes the in-between as a terror that dissembles,a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter insteadof inXaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you (4).The abject is not what it seems; it is neither one nor the other; it is un-decidable.The abject, then, is not a quality in itself. Rather, it is arelationship to a boundary and represents what has been jettisonedout of that boundary, its other side, a margin (69).The abject is whatthreatens identity.It is neither good nor evil, subject nor object, ego 14 NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITEnor unconscious, but something that threatens the distinctions them-selves.It is not an object that corresponds to an ego; rather, it is what isexcluded by the superego: To each ego its object, to each superego itsabject (2).Society is founded on the abject, which is to say, on con-structing boundaries and jettisoning the antisocial. The abject threat-ens the unity and identity of both society and the subject by callinginto question the boundaries on which they are constructed.The abjectis the return of the repressed ambiguity out of which proper identityis formed.Even jettisoned, the abject still threatens the social order.Socialorder is the result of constructing and maintaining borders, and theabject points to the fragility of those borders.Society is parceled intosexes, races, classes, castes, and so forth, and ambiguity is what is re-pressed so that these neat and proper categories might exist.Both socialand individual identity are formed through defensive operations thatartiWcially and arbitrarily Wx and bind the ambiguity inherent in theprocess of identiWcation.Ambiguity, then, is what has been excluded bythe superego for the sake of identity.If we apply this theory to race and race relations, it is not black-ness that threatens proper white identity; rather, racial ambiguity isthe real threat to the proper boundaries of white (and black) identity.Inthe problem Wlms, the white authority Wgures heavy-handed speechesabout racial tolerance that erase racial difference and silence the blackcharacters function to police the borders of identity.Racial differencethreatens the proper boundaries of identity by recalling racial ambigu-ity.Both the position that there is no difference between black andwhite (Home of the Brave s You are just like everyone else ) and the posi-tion that we need to maintain a radical separation between black andwhite (the message of Pinky and Imitation of Life) are defenses againstracial ambiguity.The extremes of sameness and difference have in com-mon the force with which they deny racial ambiguity.Even while theseWlms present us with a strong superego that acts as a defense againstabjection and ambiguity, they are full of both narrative and visual con-tradictions and ambivalence that reveal that repressed racial ambiguity. NOIR IN BLACK AND WHITE 15The superego of Wlm noir, often manifest in the detective character svoice-over, is also haunted by the return of the repressed ambiguity thatshows up in both its narrative and visual style.Two other problem Wlms of 1949 display an anxiety over racialambiguity that brings the anxiety over racial ambiguity in Wlm noir intoeven greater relief.The explicit theme of both Lost Boundaries and Pinkyis racial ambiguity and passing.The explicit threat in these problem Wlms where black characters are visibly white, and the implicit threat innoir Wlms where white characters are visibly black, is not a fear of black-ness but rather a fear of the inability to distinguish between black andwhite, a fear of lost boundaries between races.Racial ambiguity is thereal threat that lies behind both these problem Wlms and Wlm noir.Concern over racial ambiguity that motivates the narrative of Wlms suchas Pinky and Lost Boundaries is manifested in the style of noir.In Lost Boundaries, a black doctor, Scott Carter (white actor MelFerrer), passes for white in a small New Hampshire town.DuringWorld War II he joins the navy until his true race is discovered andhe is expelled from the navy and is forced to tell his children that theyare black.The Wlm opens with Carter graduating from medical schooland marrying Marcia (white actress Beatrice Pearson).Dr.CharlesHoward (Emory Richardson), a distinguished African American doctorreceiving an honorary degree, offers Carter an internship in a blackhospital in Georgia.When he arrives, Carter is denied the internshipbecause his skin is too light and the board of directors has decided togive preference to Southern applicants.Because he looks white but is black, Carter doesn t belong among whites or blacks.Marcia s father, a light-skinned African American who is living aswhite, suggests that the young couple do the same [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]