alienated

just now finished Against Race, a rather long book with a lot of arguments, several of which are quite brilliant. But on the final page, Gilroy, writing on the eve of the millenium about "planetarization" and the salience of tropes of outer space, motherships, and aliens in twentieth century black popular culture, virtually lauds the films Independence Day and Men In Black, arguing that "

product placement considerations aside, it is impossible to overlook the fact
that this crop of movies expresses real and widespread hunger for a world that
is undivided by the petty differences we retain and inflate by calling them
racial. These films seek to celebrate how the desire to retain those
out-moded principles of differentiation recedes when it confronts more
substantive varieties of otherness and forms of life that are truly
other-worldy."(page 356)

This may be a valid reading of both these films, but i'm troubled by the extent to which Will Smith's "adolescent physicality," as Gilroy calls it, occupies the racialized field of visuality which Gilroy spends a great deal of time linking to fascist aesthetics. Specifically, and particularly in Independence Day, Smith's dialogue seems very much inscribed with an essentialized raciologized black(male)ness, here constructed as a blustering but fragile machismo, exacerbated rather than obviated by the threat of the inhuman. Perhaps I'm falling in ot a trap here and employing the concept of race where I should be learning to rely on other analytic frameworks, but I've always found the exaggerated stereotypes upon which all of the film's characters are constructed (see Judd Hirsch's character, for instance, or Goldblum's,) deeply troubling. If someone can make a good case for why i'm wrong, I'll be willing to listen, but the careless racialized stereotyping which frequently structures the dialogue of Smith's character throughout the film makes me very uncomfortable with Gilroy's claim. That said, I haven't seen Independence Day in about 9 years and remember it as being absolutely terrible. So i may have repressed a lot.

EDIT: I'm probably wrong. Also, in unrelated news, the baby panda's eyes are open, and he's adorable.