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1. Mixed Media Watch - tracking media representations of mixed people on 17 Jul 2006 at 8:36 am

   […] CVK That’s the question posed by U.K. paper The Observer. Basically, the article ponders whether we demonise the obese purely on health grounds, or whether it’s a gut reaction based on prejudice. (Thanks to T for this tip!) I’m not crazy about fact that the reporter decided to go undercover in a fatsuit, a la Tyra Banks, but the rest of the article is very interesting. Here are some excerpts: The first person I heard make a direct comparison between fat and race was Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best-selling The Tipping Point and Blink. At an event in London, a member of the audience asked him what subjects he thought were hot. Gladwell, off the top of his head, wondered aloud whether fat wasn’t the new race. The comment stuck in my mind - it sounded incendiary, and possibly mad - but I didn’t act on it until later, after I saw a programme on More4 presented by the journalist Giles Coren. This was a piece of polemic entitled Tax the Fat: Coren argued that, because treatment of obesity-related illnesses now costs the health service so much money - some 1bn GBP - there was a case for the fat, just like smokers, to be taxed. His argument wasn’t especially subtle, but it was - at the time - funny and energetic. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that it was also unkind. So, I started digging. Gladwell is certainly right that this subject is hot - it’s hot as Hades. It’s also complex and fraught; you meet lots of fine minds on the way, but you also encounter those whose position is so extreme, the experience is a bit like trying to talk to a creationist about Darwin… […]

Comments

1. Lyonside wrote:

   >Why can’t we just accept that certain groups are marginalized and experience a lot of bad things that we won’t ever have to deal with? Why do we have to don a disguise to experience it for ourselves?

   Just my opinion w/ a lot of generalizations:
   As a culture, so many Americans seem to act (even if they don’t intellectually believe it when questioned) that if it’s on TV, and claims to be fact, then it must be true. Many people seem to be living vicariously through TV and its celebrities and voices of authority. People may be curious about those marginalized people, but not so curious that they will turn off the TV and go out there themselves to meet them. People are also in denial about what groups they may belong to (everyone seems to want to be the put-upon middle class). We as a culture also reward/exploit other people willing to spill their guts and secrets (every newsmagazine), go against social norms in competition (i’m thinking Survivor and its ilk), confess and repent (every newsmagazine and celebrity hollywood TV show *E-Hollywood-Story, I’m looking at you*), but don’t tend to do that in our own lives as viewers.

   If all that is somewhat true, or the media is exploiting it as such, then the trend is because the viewers want to watch (or are influenced to watch, same thing) other people in extraodinary (manufactured) situations breaking down “barriers” that the viewers may not even know exist (or that may not exist, or that do, but in a complicated way), with a clear simplistic goal or clear cause and effect.

   Someone else does the “work,” the wheel of morality spits out a “life lesson,” viewers watch and feel both informed and superior, and NOTHING REALLY CHANGES. Except that people have something pseudo-intellectual to discuss at the water cooler..

   I dunno, sorry to rant on. I haven’t really dissected this yet and I think I’m conflating several pop-culture symptoms together. Anyone else have clearer ideas?

   Posted 24 Feb 2006 at 12:34 pm ¶

2. P. Moore wrote:

   “Why can’t we just accept that certain groups are marginalized and experience a lot of bad things that we won’t ever have to deal with? Why do we have to don a disguise to experience it for ourselves?”

   I think accepting the fact that we’ll never experience “a lot of bad things” that other groups go through shouldn’t take away from our desire to learn about those bad things. Think about it, would you rather someone be completely ignorant of the negative experiences you go through, or only half-ignorant? I agree, some things cannot simply be felt by donning a mask, but, aside from the obvious money hungry bastards at TV stations, there are those who sincerely care about the experiences of other groups, and want to know what it feels like going through their pain. Why do we have to don a disguise? Because, for better or worse, that’s all people in this world care about.

   Posted 24 Feb 2006 at 1:41 pm ¶

3. themakeupgallery wrote:

   My concern about “Black.White.” is that, especially if it is good, it will open the floodgates for a horde of exploitative, trashy investigations by tabloids and serious investigative programmes like “Entertainment Tonight” (to follow up on the fat-suit).

   Jeff

   Posted 25 Feb 2006 at 12:57 pm ¶

4. justin wrote:

   Jeff, why are there only pictures of women on your website?

   Posted 25 Feb 2006 at 9:12 pm ¶

5. themakeupgallery wrote:

   It’s a digression from the topic but since you asked: 1) (for me) women are more interesting to look at; 2) it started as a small site and i wanted to to avoid the obvious makeups that everyone had seen before.

   Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 5:40 am ¶

6. justin wrote:

   I guess I am Ok with that Jeff. I think you have a really cool site. My suspicion was that it might be a weird circumstantial phenomenon, like the internet is just full of pictures of women. In photographs elderly African Americans are almost always touching their faces (?). I don’t know why.

   Posted 28 Feb 2006 at 12:39 am ¶

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