On the Couch
The use of the N word in American culture is a highly contested and potentially
explosive territory. In a country where racial divisions have been
a defining characteristic for over four hundred years, where domestic slavery
was widespread a hundred and sixty years ago, and where as recently as forty
years ago, major civil rights legislation had to be agitated for, the use
of a word that was historically disparaging and used primarily by the dominant
White culture can stir very strong emotions. There are those who believe
no one should use this word; there are those who believe that only Black
people can legitimately use this word; there are those who believe that the
word can only be used in specific contexts. So, the use of this word
in a popular prime-time drama-comedy series on major network television could
be expected to raise quite an outcry. Only it hasn't, and I find this
quite interesting, particularly since this event not only evoked the word
but also brought in a context that is racially complex and raises serious
questions of authorship and performance.
[As a White male who can be considered part of the privileged, dominant part
of the culture, I'm going to avoid using the N word, so I will substitute
the sign "N*" for the purposes of this discussion.]
The show in question is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and for those of you
who are not familiar with it, it is a serial drama about a cast of characters
who are involved in producing a weekly comedy variety show akin to Saturday
Night Live. The main reason I've been drawn to this show is that it
is written by Aaron Sorkin, who has done some extraordinary writing on shows
like The West Wing. The show has an ensemble cast and generally has
several threads going at one time relating to different relationships within
the characters as well as the status of the "show within a show". The
particular thread that I want to pick out is one relating to the relationship
between the established performer Simon Stiles (played by D.L. Hughley) and
an up-and-coming writer Darius Hawthorne (played by Columbus Short), both
of whom are Black.
In an earlier episode, Darius had been discovered in a club by Simon and
brought on to be a writer on the show. Simon was explicitly looking
to bring more Black writers/performers onto the staff and had previously
been disappointed by a performer who used a variety of stereotypes and uncritical
representations of race as the basis of his comedy. In this episode,
Simon asks Darius to help him with a sketch about a new, Black militant member
of the Fruit of the Loom guys, and Darius passes off the opportunity, ostensibly
because he doesn't want to be pigeonholed as the Black writer who works specifically
on the sketches involving race. This pisses Simon off, and he pulls
Darius aside to confront him about it. As the confrontation builds,
Simon says that he had saved Darius from obscurity, and Darius responds with:
"Well, lordy Master Simon, you sho' is good to us field N*'s, ain'tcha?"
This moment passes fairly quickly, with Simon telling Darius to back off
and both characters walking away, but it struck me as an extraordinary event.
First, you have the use of the N word itself, which isn't something
you see often in prime-time television. But that's only the surface.
This particular usage invokes the distinction between field N*'s and
house N*'s, which is a historically and racially loaded figure. One
aspect of this opposition is the implication that those who work in the house
are closer to the slave-holder and more complicit with the structure of slavery,
whereas those who work in the field are more authentically Black; the use
of "Master Simon" takes this even farther, putting Simon in the position
of the slave-holder. Darius is signifying on Simon, accusing him of
having lost his Black identity/allegiance and having become a part of the
White culture, having assimilated or passing. This brings into play
a separate but related structure of the difference between light-skinned
Blacks and dark-skinned, wherein the light-skinned Blacks are often seen
as advantaged but also alienated from "true" Black culture. The use
of the colloquialisms "lordy", "sho'", and "ain'tcha" further plays off of
this opposition by bringing education and its status differences into the
picture.
One on level, this is a masterful deployment of a constellation of figures
from Black culture. Not only does it invoke several related tropes
in a coherent way, but it plays it as an act of signifying, itself a trope
of Black American culture. Having two educated, articulate Black men
involved in this exchange in such a sophisticated way could be seen as a
remarkable use of these figures, particularly in a prime-time series that
is generally focused on comedy and character drama rather than deeper cultural
criticism (the ongoing thread about religious fundamentalism doesn't get
into any real depth).
On another level, though, what does it say that Aaron Sorkin is writing this
script? Having a White man directing two Black men to play out a scene
that relies on and explicitly invokes negative racial stereotypes and divisive
tropes of Black culture in the purpose of entertainment, isn't that akin
to minstrelsy or blackface? Sorkin, in fact, seems to be consciously
raising this questions, as this particular thread of the show revolves around
the questions of race and authorship: Darius doesn't want to be seen as the
"Black" writer, as this is limiting; Simon wants more Black writers on the
show; the scene where Simon and Darius meet is cast in the contrast between
Darius' performance and the other Black performer who relied on racial stereotypes
and cliches. Is this moment a virtuosic declaration on Sorkin's part:
"See, I can write 'authentic' Black characters!"? And if so, is it
actually something to celebrate? Doesn't it raise issues of minstrelsy
and blackface performance? Does the White man behind the curtain undercut
very possibility of authentic performance in this context?
For me, the question is so complex that I wish there were access to more
than just the show itself. In a relationship this loaded with sensitive
racial troping, I wonder what the relationship of the actors playing the
roles was to the performance of this scene. Did Sorkin just drop off
a script that included this exchange in its final form, and if so, what did
D.L. Hughley think when he read it? When Columbus Short delivered the
line, did he feel comfortable doing it? Did they discuss the wording
at the readthrough? When they filmed the scene, did they have to do
multiple takes to get the "Blackness" of it just right? Was performing
this scene just business as usual on the set, or did they need to prep specially
for it and decompress afterwards? Was the scene originally in the script
in different language and the actors brought the troping into it to make
it more authentic to their characters? How did this moment of performance
emerge?
The structures here of authorship and power, of identity and privilege, of
race and authenticity, of the personal and the performative, they are so
closely intertwined that is difficult to even begin to tease them apart.
With language like this, where the speaker matters as much as the speech,
and both the performers and the audience can be expected to have strong emotional
reactions, the contextual shifts in valence swing so wide that it impossible
to fully understand the performance without knowing more about the performers.
It is a point where the old adage that the work of art speaks for itself
completely falls apart and the collaborative nature of the performance undercuts
the authority of authorship. This is perhaps one of the most complex
and thought-provoking moments to happen in commercial television in years,
going far beyond the easy controversies of same-sex kisses and overt discrimination,
and yet it seems to have slipped completely under the radar. That in
itself is a surprising commentary on the potential of the medium and, at
the same time, the deficiencies of its critical apparatus. It is truly
a shame that the full complexity of this moment may never be recognized,
much less understood.
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