Fic: Minstrel Show

[tricolora]

I’ve had pieces of this one on my computer for a while (in a much more irreverent form), but blame Dwimordene coming up with the idea of “protocols” regarding gender identity for this one finally coming to completion.

I was listening to a lot of Garth Brooks when I wrote this. Make of that what you will.

“To Canada old John was bound

Comments

[sakon76]

Oddly enough, this reminds me of a doll-making book I have, published in the mid-1940s. I bought it because it was cheap and old and looked interesting, and only later did I page through it to discover the directions for how to make a "Nigger Minstrel" doll. Little moments like that, or discovering that girls would be suspended from school as late as the '60s for wearing slacks to class, really drive it home how far American culture has come in the last few generations. And, at the same time, how far we still have to go....

[tricolora]

Yeah, I'd agree that we still have far yet to go. I think now it's even a bit more dangerous because it's so implicit and subversive; take the whole "gangsta" rap culture; to me this is extremely harmful, as it presents an ideal that is unattainable, and also extremely materialistic and misogynist, which effectively keeps impoverished urban culture all nice and impoverished while whitey laughs all the way to the bank. If that ain't a minstrel show, I don't know what is.

/rant over. Sorry! XD

[casusfere]

Mmm, thinky-fic! Very interesting and thought-provoking.

Honestly, though, I didn't have much of a problem with Jazz's voice-acting in the movie. It'd been so long since I'd seen any of G1 that I no longer associated Jazz with Scatman's voice, so there wasn't the jarring that others seemed to feel. The only thing in his dialog that I found even questionable was his introductory line; the rest was a lot more subdued, especially when he was arguing with Optimus. I think the first line was delivered for shock value, just like some of Bay's other questionable moments. What you've got Jazz saying in here is way more over-the-top than anything said in the movie.

That aside, I loved Epps and Ratchet's little talk. It's a very interesting thought, with our automatic associations, and how we're surprised and take note of when someone, even if we know intellectually that they aren't white males, takes up another dialect or set of behavior. You handled it very nicely!

Note to self: comments do NOT have to be essays. *headdesk*

[tricolora]

Yeah, you're absolutely right about that being way over-the-top; if anything it was for my own amusement. Consider my jaw pretty much on the floor when Jazz break-danced out of his alt-mode, and then proclaimed that Earth was a cool place to "kick it"! But to me, it's more on Bay than anything, because this is the sort of thing that he finds funny- Jazz is black, we, as the audience, are supposed to find that funny. And why? Apparently, we think black = funny. A deviation from the default = funny. What does this say about us?

That, to me, was the real tragedy of Jazz when you contrast him to Scatman's Jazz, who was, despite the oft-silliness of the cartoon, a character first. Bay's Jazz was black first- we didn't get much off him other than that.

And then he died. The black robot died. Come on, guys!

And we're always fond of essay comments here at tricolora!

[casusfere]

Heh... and I immediately assumed that Jazz's break-dancing was a tribute to the original Jazz and his love for music. If you watch Jazz later when he transforms, he does a hand-first dive into his alt mode, making me think of both as more showing Jazz's enthusiastic way of doing everything, rather than another black reference.

In keeping with the theme of the story, I pose a question: did you find him obnoxiously black because Bay meant him to be black, or was it because you picked up on his opening line as obviously black and thus interpreted everything as borderline (or outright) mocking? If Jazz's first line and accent hadn't been "black," would the rest of it be offensive or even out-of character for Jazz?

Sorry, can never resist a good debate. And Jazz's death... Ugh, Bay, drop the ball on that one why don't you? More shock value, methinks.

[dinogrrl]

"Heh... and I immediately assumed that Jazz's break-dancing was a tribute to the original Jazz and his love for music. If you watch Jazz later when he transforms, he does a hand-first dive into his alt mode, making me think of both as more showing Jazz's enthusiastic way of doing everything, rather than another black reference."

That's exactly the connection I made when I started watching the G1 cartoon after seeing the movie. G1 Jazz likes to dance, and he does that funny push-up transformation sequence. Taking that in light of the fact that out of all the Autobots besides Optimus, movie!Jazz looks the most like his G1 form outside of the paint job, and I concluded that Jazz's break-dancing (and transformation sequence) in the movie was just a tribute.

[cazcatharsis]

there's nothin' like giant alien robots to incite self examination of morality, culture and assumptions, huh? :D

[tricolora]

Heh, am I the weird one for that being my favorite use for them? I seem to be kind of alone on that! XD

[cazcatharsis]

nope. I've just been resisting temptation. I'd like to write a native american TF just for fun to see how people would react/percieve em, see how many angry reactions i get, and rant a little. But I won't.

yet.

lol

[sakon76]

I'd always assumed Tigatron from Beast Wars was supposed to be a Native American TF....

[clankclankboom]

Oh I like this. Very thought-provoking, including the identification as 'other'. I also like the Autobots being identified as 'white males' as that is the supposed default.
Nice.

~Boom. (always ticking the 'other' box).

[tricolora]

As irritating as it is that they seem to be all guys, as they are catered to boys demographic wise, it really does make sense for them to do so by default, purely on the basis of how we as a culture would perceive them otherwise. And really, that's not their problem, it's ours. :/

[tricolora]

Heh, in the original draft of this Jazz's little blackisms were a lot worse, borderline its own little flavor of grossly offensive. But who was racist diatribing for an hour at you?

But I do enjoy the alien-lense-to-view-humanity angle of TF (which, again, is hugely what Revelation is about), should totally be used more! Or, again, maybe I'm the weird one. ;)