Lesson 5 bell hooks
- 1. Eating the Other bell hooks
- 2. Today To know the key points of bell hook’s essay ‘Eating the Other’ To be able to apply bell hook’s theory to a range of media texts To analyse key texts in relation to bell hook’s theory
- 4. bell hooks wrote an essay called ‘Eating the Other’ Explores the relationship between race and media representation The commodification of difference Exploitation of the ‘other’ by a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy Cultural appropriation Orientalism bell hooks
- 5. you are constantly told that your hairstyles are too ethnic or too exotic, that maybe you should think about being more approachable. But as soon a white girl wears the same style they call it edgy and chic and they get to change the name and claim it as their own.
- 6. ‘Eatingthe Other’ The over-riding fear is that cultural, ethnic, and racial differences will be continually commodified and offered up as new dishes to enhance the white palate – that the Other will be eaten, consumed, and forgotten.
- 7. Orientalism Referring to the representation of Asian and African cultures in the media Link to notion of hegemony Exaggeration, distortion, imagines Arab cultures as exotic, uncivilised and sometimes dangerous
- 8. orientalism desire & food ‘anti-blackness’ in binary opposition to the desire for whiteness people of colour as exotic, ‘the other’.
- 9. fetishisation of black masculinity white people dictate the relationship with ‘the other’ fantasy out of mundane life black male performativity
- 10. minority groups become alternative playgrounds for the dominating race, who affirm their power within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.
- 11. “trying on for fun” White elitism protecting the status quo through racism towards people of colour
- 12. Narratives in the professional media are narrow and often racist
- 13. Whiteness is the standard or norm
- 17. In ancient religious practices among so called ‘primitive ‘ people the heart of a person may be ripped out and eaten so that one can embody that person’s spirit of special characteristics.
- 19. it lets some people get rewarded for things the creators never got credit for
- 20. White cultural appropriation of black culture threatens to decontextualize and thereby erase the knowledge of the specific historical and social context of black experience from which cultural productions and distinct styles emerge.
- 25. capitalism encourages white consumers to feel an imagined intimacy with racial otherness via exotic or primitive fantasies which in fact reinforce the status quo flirting with ‘the other’ problematic because the people appropriating the culture do not receive the same negative labels or have to face the same negative stereotypes
Editor's Notes
- #22: n a July article, Elle U.K. wrote that baby hair was a "new trend" that was "inspired by Givenchy and Katy Perry." The only thing new about baby hair is that its now appearing more on white celebrities. But gelling down baby hair began with the little black girls who, for decades, have had their moms slick down their edges with a brush and a jar of black gel. Zendaya is not happy after hearing Giuliana Rancic‘s comments about her choice to wear dreadlocks during the 2015 Oscars. The dreadlocks sparked the 40-year-old TV personality to say that the 18-year-old actress “smells like patchouli oil… or maybe weed” on the latest episode of E!’s Fashion Police.