How Guilty Is the Author for the Sins of the Text?

Many of the socially aware are too eager to hurl charges of racism. This time it’s indie artist Sky Ferreira’s video for “I Blame Myself” that has attracted attention.

 

The video draws upon stereotypes of black neighborhoods and features the star with a crew of black backup dancers, so criticism was only to be expected. At this point, it’s reflexive and unfolds by rote:

Aaron Parr on Facebook:

“I’m tired of seeing black people used as props.”

Alex Berg on Twitter:

“Sky Ferreira’s new video is a #racist mess. She, white woman, dances in Compton in front of #POC.”

Alison Margo on Facebook:

"Just because racism isn't intentional or blatant doesn't mean it's not racism."

This particular incident is barely a blip on the cultural radar, but such blips are becoming increasingly common. We all heard way too much about Miley Cyrus’s 2013 VMAs performance, and Lily Allen’s video for “Hard Out Here” faced similar criticism. The ideology of social consciousness and its curious lexicon have been gathering steam for decades, but now it has a bigger voice and makes regular appearances on the screens of our computers and phones. Poststructuralist concepts have filtered down into posts by average Joes on the Facebook pages of pop stars.

As previous blog posts will attest, I understand:

“In the post-modern world, most of us are aware that words and images speak more than they appear to at first glance, and this is doubly true for anyone marketing to the masses. Backup dancers are not just backup dancers--how they dance, how they are treated, how they are dressed, their race, their physique, and so on all speak an infinity of meanings.” (The Miley Cyrus Affair)

And this:

“It doesn’t matter what those involved intended (the death of the author in poststructuralism), their products speak for themselves and they speak the language of centuries of degradation, sexualization and commodification of black women. A photograph of a white woman perched glamorously atop a subjugated black woman exhibits, even if unintentionally, reprehensible symbolism.” (Sex, Chairs and Photographs)

However, I find it troubling how acceptable it has become to publicly brand as racist artists who aren’t racist on the inside and never intended anything racist. This is from Sky Ferreira’s defense on Facebook:

“Nothing upsets me more than being called racist because that is one of the most hateful things anyone can be . . . I never have and never will look at any human being as a prop. That's disgusting. It's also an idea that has never crossed my mind . . . I auditioned a bunch of dancers, all races & my dancers were the best ones . . . Comments like "rich little white girl exploiting the black people & the ghetto" . . . My brother is half black. My cousins are black. My family is Latina & Native American. Some of my family is in the video. I wasn't raised in a "white" household . . . Would you feel more at ease if I danced with a bunch [of] blonde white boys at a mall? Should I consciously only cast white dancers for now on? . . . I referenced 90s hip hop videos and Michael Jackson because both of those things inspire me.”

Many of the critics calling Ferreira racist take this defense as genuine, but call her a racist anyway because the content of the video stands on its own and they interpret it as racist. The death of the author is all very well and good, but it is a dangerous thing when the flesh and blood author is alive and well. How guilty is the author for the sins of the text?

I’m reminded of a rationale employed against certain classes of society by the Bolsheviks:

“Individual members of that class might ‘objectively’ be counterrevolutionary conspirators, even if subjectively (that is, in their own minds) they knew nothing of the conspiracy and thought themselves supporters of the revolution.” (The Russian Revolution, Sheila Fitzpatrick)

In other words, innocence was no defense against guilt. Those considered counterrevolutionaries could lose their jobs or be imprisoned or executed. The unwittingly guilty today are subjected to highly public ignominy because while subjectively innocent, they are objectively guilty. There is something insidious about this.

Perhaps the way out of this is to be thorough with application of the death of the author or to not apply it at all. Either the author has disappeared from a work of art, in which case she cannot be blamed for the sins of the work on a poststructural level, or the artist is a racist in her heart of hearts and has expressed an overtly racist opinion through her work. I have no objection to either approach, but most of these controversies involve a mixed approach: You may not be a racist, but your work sort of is, so you are too.

The critics have their point, and Ferreira has hers. I’m more interested in the argument itself than I am in taking sides. In exploring the complexity and ambiguities of this and similar issues, I suggest greater caution by the socially aware when disregarding the accused’s intentions in order to cast stones.