This week we are reading Jean Genet's The Blacks: A Clown Show. The play, written by a French playwright, became a seminal work in African American Theater because of its complex themes, avant-garde structure and searing look at complex issues of power, race and corruption.
As you blog about the idea of "performing blackness," think about what examples from the play you can use in your response that challenge your perceptions of what blackness "is" or how it can be expressed in performance. The following questions may be prompts that help you develop your entry about performing blackness this week:
How do the characters perform blackness in the play? Genet is not writing about African American experiences specifically, but black experiences of colonialism.
Are Genet's thought provoking ideas about blackness different and/or similar to those expressed by African American playwrights?
Can you tell that Genet is not a black writer?
How does the author challenge what counts as a "black" play?
Avant-garde writers depart from bourgeois theater forms in order to disrupt the status quo and incite reaction from their audiences. How can a white man from France write about experiences of blackness? Is this as an avant-garde tactic used by Genet to shock and provoke audiences?
The Blacks was a confusing piece. I feel that the show was simply a mockery of what once had been minstrel shows. With the opening pages describing black actors in white masks, as white people, I can only really think that the only purpose of the play was to alienate whatever white audience does come into see the performance as they have the light shined on them so that all the audience who isn’t white may see them. This treatment mirrors Theatre of Cruelty in alienating the white members of the audience, or their effigy, in order to make them come to see their own faults in a time were in society the White power over the Blacks became a trial much like the play itself. The performance of “Blackness” on the stage came from how the black actors performed as the white characters. Though representing “white”, it was the symbol of the blacks playing whites that presented “blackness” on the stage as a force oppressed even in art.
ReplyDeleteIt’s use of the white audience as part of the story becomes avant-garde in reclaiming “blackness” and turning the accusations to the whites. It puts the audience, specifically the whites on trial for their actions against the Blacks. The play within a play becomes a sort of trial within a play, within a play as the mirror is turned on the audience, sentencing them for their cowardly actions as Mkapa points out in his reviews.
The Blacks by Jean Genet, is a very interesting play that evokes contradicting ideas of the black theatre, and of the “blackness” that is shown between the characters on stage. The most obvious contradicting idea is that the characters are black, but are wearing white masks. This idea is implying a couple ideas; that Genet is mocking the white audience, or is proving a point of racism within theatre. Using white masks on black characters is inflicting imposing racial identities to the characters; the players are no longer black, but are white. Their blackness is being molded in the shape of “whiteness”. A contradicting idea of typical black theatre, is that of the theatrical performance. “We shall even have the decency-a decency learned from you-to make communication impossible. We shall increase the distance that separates us” (12). Normally in African American theatre, the characters are engaging with the audience. The “third wall” is broken, and the audience interacts with the play itself. It is more of a call and response type of theatrical performance. This quote also makes an interesting point by saying, “a decency learned from you”; implying that this is more of a white audience play. I say this because Genet is talking about distancing people from one another, which is exactly what segregation is composed of. Genet could be making a slam at the white audience, and how they treat African Americans, even if she herself is not black. This play is a social commentary on the white audience, and why they choose to separate themselves from the African American audience.
ReplyDeleteJean Genets The Blacks was a very difficult play for me to follow. I know it was written in French and then translated, something that makes me wonder if part of whatever fluidity it might have had was lost in translation. This being said, several themes clearly stood out. I saw, in my opinion direct representation of racist acts. The grandeur of the death, with the casket seemingly at the center of the presentation, along with the delay of details of death until the ceremony, reminded me of a southern lynching, with the body often left on display for everyone in the community to view. This belief was reassured by lines such as . “Judge: Who is the culprit? you won’t answer? I’m offering you one last chance. Now listen: it doesn’t matter to us which of you committed the crime. we don’t care weather its X,Y or Z. if a man's a man, a negro is a negro and all we need is two arms, two legs to break, a neck to put into the noose, and our justice is satisfied.”(109) This sadly was often the cause in the southern legal system in America. It doesn’t matter who committed the crime if ‘it was a black man’ one will work just as well as the next, as long as they got someone. I also thought the selection of character names was very interesting, specifically Felicity and Virtue. This is interesting because in a play filled with such unpleasant acts and mindsets these words can be defined as follows, Virtue: moral excellence; goodness; righteousness and Felicity: the quality or state of being happy; something that causes happiness.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it would be easy to tell whether or not an author is black or white. While reading this week’s play, this thought came to mind a lot. If one did not read the quote at the beginning from Genet, it would be a mystery. At first I thought you could obviously tell the playwright was white because of the extremity he goes to in order to show the social and class difference of the actors the white masks and the rest of the black actors. For example, Genet’s stage directions say “When the curtain is drawn, four Negroes in evening clothes…and four Negresses in evening gowns…heavily spangled evening gowns—suggest fake elegance, the very height of bad taste.” (8) And when he describes the “white” characters he uses words such as “royal” and “sublime” (8). I thought this was too predictable for a white playwright. It was like he was setting up the play to have characters such as a rich white man or woman and a lower-class/slave black man or woman. Then as I read more, there was a speech the character Snow made that struck me. She said, “A tremendous love came here to die, to lick white ankles. Negro you were in love. Like a sergeant in the marines.” (49) This speech and many others throughout the play were so obviously written by a white person because of the racist comments. But then I thought maybe Genet was trying to sound racist or be obvious about his message. After all isn’t that what avant-garde theatre is? Radical and abrasive. (Lecture, Feb. 9). This is when I realized because it is absurd and avant-garde theatre; nothing really makes sense, so there would be no way to tell whether or not the playwright is white.
ReplyDeleteJean Genet’s The Blacks, I believe, is an honest critique of race relations within France at the time. Although Genet is not black and has not personally experienced what it is like to be black (a la Black Like Me), he can empathize with the general sentiments of Blacks in France at the time. Genet can empathize with their treatment as second-class citizens because he was openly gay and treated much the same way.
ReplyDeleteIn this way, Genet was able to create a play in which Blackness from the time period could be performed realistically. Genet wrote a play that talked about the realities of life for Blacks in France and made people uncomfortable in their own skin and with their preconceptions of racial equality. The way that the actors perform not only blackness in their language, dress, gestures, and sociocultural rituals, but also how they perform whiteness is the reason for the audience’s uneasiness. Through this play, Genet is able to portray to white society what is wrong with their actions and force them to question why they behave the way they do. This mobilizes the theme of negritude (Hodges-Persley lecture 2/9).
Jean Genet is a man who changed the way our nation is today. His play The Blacks changed the way white people viewed black people within the United States. He creates a struggle that had not been seen by an American audience ever. Many people question how a white man from France cam write about the struggle of African-Americans in the United States but Genet’s experiences in life allowed him to relate to African-American injustice. His life struggle with how others viewed his sexuality, political views and imprisonment allowed him to connect with members of the Black Panther Party as person who had been mistreated. His angle of writing would be considered avant-garde for the sole reason it challenges all common thought of African-Americans in the United States. He openly said the play was for a white audience to open their eyes. It was meant to change the train of ignorance that ran upon American. He used tactics that white people had not been exposed and did not know how to react. He is able disregard race or religion tension between he and others and connect to all people.
ReplyDeleteWhether Genet being covertly gay and exposing a bourgeois society about the ill treatment African-Americans received, could he as well covertly found a way to rectify a society he may not feel welcomed in. Who knows? Really, does Genet create a play based on bias’s and formulated opinions about African-Americans. Who knows but an excerpt from page 12 states that “we shall increase the distance that separates us.” In my opinion for Genet to mention that it concludes he knows what went on and bias still continues. The play itself is a mockery for whites put on by blacks. Is it a chance for redemption? Maybe may be not but Genet has a radical idea to use blacks to portray whites. Now let us say I did a play and pretended to be Chinese. What racial ideologies would I exemplify or embellish in a negative fashion. Why I would want to resemble a Chinese when I could possibly never be. May be Genet wanted to create a red herring of a conception to fool blacks and whites alike. If so Genet may have proving or demonstrating a point that exists and continues to exist. The days we live in all individuals have a tunnelized view of races and limited us to what we know by what we may see on TV or in alternative media. In conclusion since Genet may not have access to TV a playwright could have been the platform to expose society’s cultural ignorance of each other.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Ben Mkapa’s statement that “plays are meant to be acted, not to be read. This age-old though somewhat specious dictum applies with forceful aptitude to Genet’s The Blacks.” (Mkapa, 1) This show has the potential to be extremely effective in getting the rift between blacks and whites on stage. However it is more effective visually than looking at it on paper. Although the form of this show is slightly confusing, it parallels and helps add to the insanity of this need to classify and set apart races and what is blackness. Blackness cannot be clearly defined, and neither is this world in the show. Genet used a lot of racial stereotypes for both the blacks and the whites in this play. An example of a black stereotype in the play is anger for everything. Archibald tells Village “invent, not love, but hatred, and thereby make poetry, since that’s the only domain in which we’re allowed to operate.” (Genet, 26). An example in the play of a white stereotype would be the need for nostalgia. Archiblad states, “if all they have is their nostalgia, let them enjoy it.” (Genet, 11). He spoke about how both the ‘black man’ and the ‘black woman’ feel about the ‘white woman.’ For the ‘black man’ the ‘black woman’ states that “there was a touch of desire in your hatred of her, which means a touch of love.” (Genet, 17). However, when the ‘black woman’ speaks about her feelings toward the white woman she says, “when she was killed, we felt no awe, no fear, but no tenderness either.” (Genet 17). This lust for the other race is one of the tensions that are in many interracial interactions going on at the time. And is still a tension in some interracial relationships to this day.
ReplyDeleteTo perform blackness in the sense that Jean Genet attempted in 1958 with The Blacks , is thought provoking and uncomfortable to the point of realism. The farce nature of the piece brings to light the reality of the stereotypes and assumptions perceived by whites toward the black community. The characters in The Blacks portray blackness with stereotypical perceptions accentuated to appease the audience . Genet makes a point at the beginning of the play that it is meant to be performed for a white audience, and there are directions specifically directing the necessity for at least one white audience member be present. I believe this is due to the effect that that one person will bring the realism that is only portrayed by the actors in white face.
ReplyDeleteI found it difficult to tell that Genet was not a black playwright, primarily because of the internal connections, and familiar dialogue utilized within the play. At one point when she is represented by a doll by another cast member the queen states, “ My mother spawned me standing up.” This statement is derived from a colonial belief of African childbirth practices.
African American playwrights portrayed blackness at the time with more uprising and collectivity. Genet wrote during the Civil Rights Movement in America and African American playwrights of the time seemed to exemplify the movement at large instead of the stereotypes that preceded.
Negritude was a belief and practice that was ideally African and studied in practice in a post colonial world. As stated by Ben W. Mkapa, “ Negritude is built on the belief of the purity, richness, and poetry of African or Black feeling, thought and expression…” It is this belief and practice that circumvents performing blackness.
The Blacks can be read as an extravagant and grotesque pageant of colonialism, a drama of the colonized and colonizers. While Genet’s play is a product of the legacy of the colonial relationship between Africa and France, The Blacks resonates with American audiences (lecture 2/9) as it calls up the memory of slave shows for white masters, of public lynching, and of the general “we are being observed” (Genet 33) feeling that any minority group experiences if othered by the majority culture. The blackness performed in The Blacks transcends the locality of its genesis through its confrontation and use of racial stereotypes or as Mkapa calls it, “an endless chain of racial attitudes and stereotyped thinking” (39). Through Genet’s strategic employment of disturbing racist stereotypes (the “big black buck” on p. 124 for ex.), he reconceives the past in order to conceive of the future. Or, in more concrete terms, the blackness that is performed in the play is a performance of the stereotypes that run throughout history and today: the black house slave/servant (Valet), the entertainer/MC (Archibald), and the black yearning to be white (Diouf). I would argue that the whiteness that is performed in The Blacks also intentionally revolves around colonial assumptions of power, purity, and class (for ex. “God is white” monologue p. 23-24). Genet’s direct use of racist stereotypes makes his play both intensely uncomfortable in tone and incredibly powerful as it rips apart a false sense of harmony to reveal the sickness growing behind the masks of both groups who see, as Mkapa states, “another race in the image of what that other race should be.” Archibald ends Genet’s play with: “We are what they want us to be. We shall therefore be it to the very end, absurdly. Put you masks on again before leaving” (126). The masks are put back on and in many ways are still being worn today, but Genet’s play allows us to never see them in quite the same black and white light again.
ReplyDeleteThis play The Blacks was very confusing I felt like I had a hard time getting a full understanding of the play and what was going on. There were a lot of racial stereotypes in this play both black and white. For example when they play uses judges and a jury to solve this murder to me symbolizes the power of white people and their place in society. But I don’t understand why Genet has black actors to dress up like whites to act this out maybe to give white people and black people and chance to understand the differences. Also this play reminded me minstrel shows where whites would paint their faces like black people and act like blacks. Maybe Genet uses some of the ideas of minstrel performances to show white people how it feels for someone to dress up like you and act like you. This play was interesting and I felt it had a lot of history behind it but I just didn’t get a full understanding of the play maybe after reading it a second time I will get a chance to fully understand what is going on.
ReplyDeleteIn Jean Genet’s THE BLACKS, I realize it was very difficult to follow and grasp what exactly he was trying to get across specifically in this play. What I did get out of it was his intent on blasting white people by his set up of the entire scenery. With some of the black actors wearing white masks (powerful people) and literally emphasizing the fact that white people need to be in the audience to watch this play. It says to me that it’s black theatre because the cast is black but at the same time their putting on white masks for stereotypical reasons for the white audience to grasp the racisms and stereotypes that still exists. Such as in minstrel shows with the black faces, but only in this play there were white faces put on portray that image of white hierarchy and domination. The death of the white woman put me in the mindset of how blacks used to be killed, because the black people just kept prolonging telling what happened to her until they were in front of everyone so all can hear it. That reminded me of the lynchings and beatings that too place in front of the entire town; its like you can kill the person and get it over with but it was made into like a big event and that’s how the white woman’s murder was treated in THE BLACKS from my perspective.
ReplyDeleteIt’s extremely difficult to right a proper analysis of The Black. I found it difficult to follow and in addition I felt as if the different information was scattered throughout the play. From the themes from the previous plays I could not apply any concepts to this play. This is frustrating because I wanted to be able to apply what I’ve learned from class to The Blacks. But I find it nearly impossible to do so when Jean Genet’s play does not make any sense. In addition, I do not believe this play is worth studying further because there is not much one can do with it since the play is so “out there”. And by “out there” a play with absolutely no concrete concept to apply so I and other readers can understand. Genet needs to take this into consideration when he woke the play. I apologize for not knowing where to the start with The Blacks but I was lost from the start to the finish.
ReplyDeleteThe Blacks was an interesting play. There were two things that stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The first was how Genet had the black characters wearing white masks. I believe his sole purpose was to show others, who were not black, the reality of how blacks were treated by the whites. “We shall even have the decency-a decency learned from you to make communication impossible” (12), this statement alone proves the separation of the two cultures. It shows that whites have the upper hand because they have the “decency” not to communicate with blacks, otherwise they would be looked down upon. The other thing that stuck out to me was the quote “if a man’s a man, a negro is a negro and all we need is two arms, two legs to break, a neck to put in a noose, and our justice is satisfied.” (109) My intial thought when I first read this quote was if a man is a man and a negro is a negro, why is it always that the negro is always the one to get accused or lynched first? Aren’t they the same? But then I soon realized that a “negro” is not considered a “man” because he is a “black man,” which is why whites never cared about who was getting lynched for the crime, as long as a black man was dead.
ReplyDeleteAfter trying to read , The Blacks, I still did not understand what this play was about completely. I was thinking like many others said, maybe it was hard to read because it was a play inside of a play. With the picture on the homepage of the webpage, my thoughts went to the movie Tropic Thunder. This was a movie inside of a movie, and watching it made it make sense. I feel that maybe if i saw the play I would have received a better understanding of what was going on. After reading Ben Mkapa review, my thoughts were parallel to his. He says, “The Blacks then, if we trust the playwright’s word, is a play about Blacks, by Blacks, for whites.” This statement is wierd because it is written by a French man that basically wants to make the whites understand and see how they are treating blacks. I also agree with Mkapa because he says, “Every person sees every other person in the image of the man he would like that other person to be”, this is an idea that is very old and used all the time. At the end of this old segment of the review and the play I understand where Genet was trying to go with the play, I just felt it could have been done in a easier way.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I would like to know is what am I supposed to gain from trying to read and understand this? I know it exposes a lot of racial prejudice but is it really called for, for black actors to go white faced in a production, because if white actors went black face in a show in the present there would be a lot of backlash from it. And how is this play relevant today? This show seems to have reverse discrimination in it with the white people being the victim. Of course they did it to black people for so long but throwing back the same treatment is a little redundant. I wonder, because this play was done in the 50’s during a time when racial tensions was really high, if back then Jean Genet’s goal was to offend white people. I mean he clearly states that this play is for a white audience. In the handout on the second page it asked a very interesting question, what is blackness, or what do people perceive as black. I use myself as an example, I’m an African American male, I hardly if not at all listen to rap music, I love rock music from Crossfade, Nickleback, Red hot Chili Peppers and Shinedown, I rarely if not at all speak in what some call ebonics, so I ask what does that make me, less black or just different. And if some say different then what is acting black
ReplyDeleteAs many in the class would agree, I think that Genet’s “The Blacks” was a difficult read. The complexity of Genet’s writing can be related to what Mkapa brings up as the topic of the play. “It is the case of two races seeing one another in false images. The consequent isolation and absence of communication are revealed in a shocking light of arresting terms,” (Mkapa). This play may be difficult because understanding different races can be hard as well. Genet’s goal with the lack of communication in this novel was to allow the (white) audience to see what has been unconsciously going on for years. When one does not know or understand a particular group of people they tend to create stereotypes. Genet shows this ignorance through the character Snow, who by name is clearly a white character, as she expresses her feelings toward Village. Snow states that “if” Village committed the murder it was only because he is “smelly, thick-lipped…oozing with oil and sweat…,” (Genet 27). Snow is very contradictive to me here because she states that she did not know Village’s intention, but follows that by many stereotypes she claims she knows about blacks. Snow justifies what Mkapa said that “Every person sees every other person in the image of the man he would like the other person to be,” (Mkapa)
ReplyDeleteThe Blacks was a diffcult read but I did find serval quotes that worked once we renacted the scenes in class Mkapa brings up as the topic of the play. “It is the case of two races seeing one another in false images. The consequent isolation and absence of communication are revealed in a shocking light of arresting terms,” (Mkapa). This play may be difficult because understanding different races can be hard as well. Genet’s goal with the lack of communication in this novel was to allow the (white) audience to see what has been unconsciously going on for years. When one does not know or understand a particular group of people they tend to create stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteThe Black Theatre and the Avant Garde
ReplyDeleteI found that this particular play was difficult to read and follow. I know that Genet had a good point and he is very talented, I just couldn’t seem to get my mind wrapped around it to follow it. When I first read the play, I was not aware of Genet’s ethnicity or cultural background. I was surprised to find that he was white. He has challenged the idea of the ‘black play’ because this play is one about blacks, by blacks, for whites, written by a white French man (Mkapa 1). Genet uses the theme of negritude in The Blacks, not wanting his characters to seem assimilated to the French culture but instead to “order you to be black to your very veins…” (Genet 52). While the court has masked themselves with white masks, they still have moments where they reveal themselves as Blacks, showing their personalities and thoughts before realizing that they need to cover themselves and be back in character. Another example of Negritude that I saw was when it is realized that t Black man lusted after the white woman and those around him become angered at this revelation. ‘How dare he want something other than a woman of his own race’. They accuse him of straying away from his roots, from his family almost, and going to the side of the enemy. But then they are allowed to revel in the story of how he killed her and how he enjoyed it. It seem s that Genet is showing what will happen to those to who don’t embrace Negritude.
This week’s blog is about performing blackness and how that can be captured. First we have to discuss what blackness is and can be. Blackness does not always have to deal with the color of someone’s skin. Blackness can be associated with where someone comes from or where their social group is from. Blackness can mean a lot of different thing s to people. People usually put the term with the color of someone skin. The next thing I’m going to look at is the term theater. When you look up theater it means a branch of performing arts. Theater is a performing art that focuses almost exclusively on live performance. So, when we put together blackness and theater we have a drama about being black or the extreme of acting black. The play by Jean Genet titled The Blacks takes an approach that is very different than most plays. Not to mention that Jean Genet is a white man that is writing about being black is a thought just to itself. We must ask ourselves what he was trying to accomplish, because he wanted a white person at each show and to have him in the front. If a white man was not there then have a black man put on a white mask. What was he trying to accomplish? The play itself has weird plot that has a play within a play of a murder, a trial that are fueled by love and hate. This story has a very weird story that takes you through a mind of the author, his thought and takes on what would happen in a murder and a trial. What I take away from this play is a headache and question? Was he trying to mock the white or was he trying to show the extreme sides of both races? Was he putting the light on the issues of racism or was he showing the color of people’s skin in a different way?
ReplyDeleteThe Blacks brings to light racism in a very surrealistic way that challenges many to laugh through the absurdity of a horrific reality. That in our society we have throughout history used blackface makeup to allow Caucasian actors to portray the African American community in a farcical way that is both crude and insulting. This play turns the tables on this racist tradition and enables the audience to be enlightened and amazed at how insulting this practice is by putting a spotlight on a white individual in the audience and basically mocking him during the performance.
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