Erik Drews

SOS ComAlt

Week 8 Seminar response

Wordcount: 254

Triggering Passages: “The figures stand underneath japanese writing in the left-hand corner, while under each figure we get their stage names: Pitti Sing, Yum Yum, and Peep Bo. Already here we see the link between theater, racial impersonation, and commodity consumption: to buy one of the wonderfully named Freud’s corsets, the card implies, is to become a different person.” (Tompkins 2012, 154)

“Certainly from the standpoint of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the hope is that desires for the “primitive” or fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited, and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes and maintains the status quo.” (Hooks 1992, 367)

News Media Content: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/20/the-economics-of-exploitation-indigenous-peoples-and-the-impact-of-resource-extraction/

The concept of the “Other” is used by companies to market products to the majority of society. Purveyors of white culture, (being the majority in America) simultaneously practice and enforce American society’s interpretation of normality. It is from this normalcy that the concept of “Other” can be alienated and then exploited. This method from which white supremacist capitalist patriarchy employs is reliant on a standardized reference point by which difference may be observed. This standardized reference point is the American’s perception of normalcy. Only when another culture’s customs are presented as being different from this standard can they then be exploited for marketing purposes. This exploitation is manifested by the designation of difference, regardless of whether it is being presented accurately or inaccurately. This idea strikes me as being incredibly problematic, especially when considering how large of an influence marketing and advertisements have on current American society. The first passage that I chose to include from Racial Indigestion is referring to an image on a trade card that is attempting to sell corsets by presenting them as being something of an Asian custom. In my head, I definitely do not associate corsets with these cultures whatsoever, however if the creator of the advertisement can somehow convince the consumer that this garment is something unordinary to the rest of late nineteenth century society, they can then convince the consumer that to buy a corset is to “become a different person.” This strategy comes with significant costs to the cultures that are being presented as separate.    

Citations:

Kernan, M. (2016, March 30). The Economics of Exploitation: Indigenous Peoples and the Impact of Resource Extraction. Retrieved February 27, 2017, from http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/20/the-economics-of-exploitation-indigenous-peoples-and-the-impact-of-resource-extraction/

Tompkins, K. W. (2012). Racial indigestion: eating bodies in the 19th century. New York: New York University Press.

Hooks, Bell. (1992). “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press.