Embedded Files
an overview
an overview
In our last unit of humcore for the winter quarter, we learned about how several marginalized groups - indigenous and disabled peoples in particular - have been robbed of their identity as human beings. This reductive process can be achieved through animalization, in which people are likened to animals in order to signify their evolutionary inferiority or primitive and uncivilized nature relative to Euro-American societies. It can also be performed through objectification and commodification, which furthers the trend of perceiving humans as non-human and converting their inherent value as human beings into monetary profit. While global history often circles back to the time of clearly demarcated imperial conquests and colonial pursuits, what was so destabilizing about this unit was realizing that the impacts and traces of these historical processes continue to ebb and flow in the present day. The processes of conjoined animalization and racialization homogenize distinct peoples, and in doing so, deprives them of their singular identity. Moreover, structural racism is an implicit and ongoing process, in virtually every facet of daily life, from pop culture to the current pandemic.
recurring motifs
recurring motifs
As a quick guide (and using the annotation skills from project #4!), here is a layout of most of the themes this unit comprises. Much of it again revolves around the conflict between the individual and society, and retaining ones identity. A great deal of the unit also has to do with societal perception, its subconscious derivation, and how these implicit biases continue to inform and reinforce one another.
go back and trace your steps
go back and trace your steps
I encourage you to watch this video on scientific racism for further elaboration on how forces in the past, and even those in the present, strive to justify animosity towards people of color. As a quick summary of scientific racism, medical authorities centuries ago sought to link indigenous peoples, and blacks in particular, closer to animals like apes than humans on the evolutionary scale. This animalization allowed society to regard blacks and other peoples of color as truly inferior, and not worthy of the prestige which accompanied and was exclusive to humanity. These threads of structural racism remain woven and even entrenched in our current belief systems. But in expanding our knowledge of its widespread presence, we can start unraveling the knotted and interconnected web of systemic racism.
dehumanization in the present day...
dehumanization in the present day...
exoticizing disability
exoticizing disability
Capitalizing off of troubling and anomalous body diversity through the absorption into into both entertainment and Western biomedicine.
animalizing indigeneity
animalizing indigeneity
Misrepresenting and commercializing indigenous culture, and appropriating it for paying American audiences.
racialized violence
racialized violence
Conflating race with disease and displacing fear and aversion of the latter onto the former.
... and their historical ancestors
... and their historical ancestors
exoticizing disability
exoticizing disability
Capitalizing off of troubling and anomalous body diversity through the absorption into into both entertainment and Western biomedicine.
animalizing indigeneity
animalizing indigeneity
Misrepresenting and commercializing indigenous culture, and appropriating it for paying American audiences.
racialized violence
racialized violence
Conflating race with disease and displacing fear and aversion of the latter onto the former.
the freak, then and today
the freak, then and today
In both medical reality TV and the freak show, individuals with disabilities were commercialized. Their abnormality both captivated and disgusted paying audiences in what quickly morphed into a highly lucrative form of public entertainment. Both cases involve the animalization of disabled individuals. Animalized names are often used in the medical field - like horns - and freaks were given hyphenated animal-gender names for the sake of simplicity and also hybridity. Further, both were turned into a clinical study. Their absorption into Western medicine held the promise of rehumanizing them by fixing, or curing what was deemed to be a disability. The diagnoses and clinical language employed by medical authorities from doctors to journals make such a transformation credible and desirable.
animalizing indigeneity
animalizing indigeneity
The Igorot people were put on display at the St. Louis World's Fair as an ethnographic exposition that mimicked the concurrent human zoos of the time. Seeking to draw out their uncivilized nature, the Igorot were force-fed dogs on a daily basis. The exhibit thus sought to conflate dogs with dog-eaters, animalizing the Igorot and justifying America's imperial conquests in the Philippines. In Twilight, the Quileute indigenous tribal identity was reduced to a shapeshifting werewolf that looked great on hoodies. This conjoined animalization and objectification reinforced the Euro-American tendency to misrepresent indigenous peoples and subvert their sovereignty for its own purposes, including monetary and ideological gain.
conflating race with disease
conflating race with disease
Fear is more contagious than disease. This theme applies to both the medical incarceration of Hawaiian natives and immigrants to the secluded settlement reserved for patients with Hansen's disease (leprosy) and the ongoing hate crime activity against Asian-Americans out of the erroneous belief that they are responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. While Hawaiians were physically incarcerated at the Molokai settlement, many modern-day Asian-Americans are imprisoned to people's misinformed animosity. To displace our fear onto people, to literally turn them into a pathogen is a particularly cruel form of stigmatization.
What I hope you take away from the above juxtapositions is how disconcertingly similar the atrocities of the past are with the tendencies of the present. It's perturbing to realize that the same description can be applied to phenomena that have or are occurring in a very publicized manner. I think it's far easier to look back just a century ago (when most of the events I've included took place) and condemn them as outright evil, as reflections of how backwards and erroneous cultural perceptions were during that time period. What's far more difficult is to scrutinize the mediums and modes of our present day and find issues with them. Reality TV, movies, and everyday occurrences are so familiar to us, so ingrained within our conception of "the normal" that we tend to find no fault with them. But with a more focused analysis, we begin to recognize elements of these forms that are simply reincarnations of past atrocities. Perhaps subsequent generations will experience this divide, this dehumanization, more clearly than we do. But enacting change doesn't have to wait till then.
further explanation & examples
further explanation & examples
This unit exposed to me the dark reality of freak shows. Most of my prior knowledge stemmed from brief lessons in history class or, more notably, the hit movie The Greatest Showman, which cultivated a more whimsical conception of that American era. But realizing the advertisement and framing that was employed in order to attract paying audiences has altered my perception. "Woman with Congenital Genu Recurvatum" doesn't sell. "Camel Girl" does. This gendered animalization and hybridity is an appealing commercial technique because it separates the audience from the freak, allowing the latter to be viewed objectively, whilst leaving some gray area for a viewer to identify with the performer's supposed half-humanity. Correspondingly, they are simultaneously attracted to the freak's unique body and revulsed by its animalistic implications.
Hong, Nicole, and Jonah E. Bromwich. “Asian-Americans Are Being Attacked. Why Are Hate Crime Charges so Rare?” The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2021.
What was so disconcerting to me about these cases was how current they were. If you were to show me any of the above pictures before this unit, the only one I would immediately recognize as hostile is the attack on the Asian-American in San Francisco, and that's because of how explicitly violent the image is. However, it is also incredibly necessary to heed other, more insidious manifestations of systemic racism that our culture continues to perpetuate. Although medical reality shows like Dr. Pimple Popper and mega-franchises like Twilight are among the most visible mediums of entertainment today, they contain perhaps the most imperceptible traces of dehumanizing attitudes. I thoroughly encourage you to read the article to your left which exemplifies how hate crimes are not a phenomenon excluded to the past. Published exactly a year ago (as I write this), its content and relevance has not diminished in the slightest. Labeling COVID-19 as the "China virus" and forming other derogatory association is simply a regression into faulty logic and scientific racism. To think we have transcended such a widely held societal vice would be a mistake that will only hurt us in years to come.
final reflection
final reflection
As per usual, this website project is nightmarishly stressful at the beginning and then ultimately fulfilling at the end. Most worthwhile things are. Although there was a good chunk of work this quarter, in reflection, I'm really grateful for the content we were taught. It feels remarkably contemporary and I feel like all the lecturers did a superb job connecting historical phenomena to ongoing behaviors and attitudes. In that sense, everything we've learned has immediate implications, things we can strive to change about ourselves right now, and that was enlightening. I hope that's what I was able to get across in this quarter's webpages. I genuinely enjoyed assembling these pages (after some coaxing) because the pressing and incredibly subjective nature of the material allowed me to write in a way that felt like I was connecting with the reader. And that's what this is - a dynamic conversation. In that sense, the ethos I cultivated for this site originates from the veracity of the historical concepts I'm presenting, but the larger extent of my voice relies on how well I can elicit a response from and genuine connection with the reader. After all, issues like structural racism and the protection of an individual's identity are topics that will never fade in relevance and require a constantly ebbing and flowing discourse around them. As for the multimodality of the website, I really did have fun finding good film gifs (like 6 in the morning fun) for the surrealism site. I think the major theme of my pages for this quarter has been the juxtaposition of the past with the present and the intricately woven intertextuality between the two. I tried to use images and gifs which related historical content to modern-day activity; I think that's how we relate history to us. I also hope the videos I sparsed in were informative and intriguing. One of my favorite "multimodal" tactics is including playlists that I customize for a particular subject. I was able to do that with my prized Inception soundtrack for the surrealism site but it didn't feel right to put music over this particular job. I hope the text and the images tell a story in themselves. Thank you again so much if you've made it all the way down here. I hope you find time to look inwards and reflect on how we all inevitably contribute to the issues on this page, but also more importantly, the potential we have to mitigate them and become agents of change. Have a great day and I'll see you next quarter. :)
<3 - Rushika
works cited:
Hong, Nicole, and Jonah E. Bromwich. “Asian-Americans Are Being Attacked. Why Are Hate Crime Charges so Rare?” The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2021.
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