nykinora

 I was relieved after I finished the play to find that I genuinely liked and appreciated the work - which would then save me the trouble of having to trot out some generic yet disingenuous compliment to the playwright. I was relieved that I didn't have to lie and furthermore, it gave me a great deal to think about. But first a little bit about the basic structure of the play: Two Acts and five expository scenes apiece where the writer accurately pinpoints and lays bare the the fraught dynamic between black and white female interaction. My own discomfort arose from the fact that like the rather wry and weary/wary GABs (Guardian Angels of Blackness) I simply braced myself for the worst during every exchange that occurred between Anne and the protagonist, Name and I was forever anxious about where their words - Anne's in particular - would lead to...

I also found that I was only interested in Anne - or should I say, "the tulpa" - in direct accordance with Name's interest in her and the way in which Name invested so much cautious hope and desire in her. Yet, I wasn't all that interested in Anne as an independent entity or person, which probably says a fair bit about me as a reader and what I'm bringing to the text. While I found their relationship tentative, charming, funny, and at times hopeful - before it inevitably devolved into outright abuse  - Name really garnered my attention and my interest. She was substantial to me and fully real, whereas Anne was both real yet simultaneously insubstantial, present yet phantasmic. (Guess that's no great surprise when she materialises and dematerialises from a television screen no less.)

My lack of interest in Anne's dilemma (from her perspective) or her wants and desires stood in stark contrast to my specific and rather deliberate interest in Name's hopes, wishes viewpoint; all of which, is quite noteworthy to me. I think the play highlights one of the critical dilemmas that characterises binaries of self/other  - namely, the problem of not being fully 'real'  to and subsequently with the other person. Both globally and in the US these binaries of self/other binaries are more often than not played out against the symbolic important binary of black and white which is rich with cultural and psychological import for all involved. These self vs. other dramas usually tend to unfurl in rather absurd, unattractive and painful ways. In some ways this is rather funny to me, because my detached reaction to Anne as a character in her own right is almost an inverse echo of Name's complaint where she struggles against parameters of the white gaze, or against what she succinctly identifies as 'the physics of the world that you [white people] live in. Or, as she states:


We're not 'real' to them, and more critically it is simply 'natural' that this is the case, in the way that deep-seated and enduring ideology always manages to present itself as natural and 'normal', even factual. Well, funnily enough Name's plaintive observation takes me back. Or at least, as far back in May this year when there was considerable discussion  of a scientific study in Canada measuring the neural responses of white people to ordinary activities first performed whites, then by others. Unsurprisingly enough, the data compiled indicated that there was significantly less to almost zero response from participants, when the people being observed were not white, almost as if they were watching a blank screen or canvas. Or in simple terms, whites fully see, respond to and identify with other whites ( - got to have their precious 'identification fix', right?) but not to other human beings.

Make of that what you will.

What I found hilarious however, was the almost religious fervour some people have in relation to science, as if it is the sole narrative with the power to explain, to make sense of anything and of course, to substantiate. There were posters sagely nodding along to this as if it were some grand and crucial confirmation of "white-apathy-to-the-other" which they have experienced first-hand and have thus suspected or secretly known all along. Others complained about the racial bias of the study and the fact that it either invalidates the data by exclusively focusing on and thus discriminating against whites, or by exclusively focusing on whites and thus treating whites as if they were some normative standard for human response thus reinforcing good ol' white privilege. There was of course the anxious or angry denial brigade who simply didn't wish to consider the implications of the study or, worse, had considered the implications then indulged in the predictable spiral of useless, melodramatic existential panic whereby whiteness inflexibly signified some kind of innate defect of the heart, mind and soul, or was indicative of some dark, crippling and incurable 'evil' a.k.a. racism.

My response?

So what? I couldn't care less about any of  this, even as I was deeply amused at how science is so wonderful and incontrovertibly correct when it used in particular draws conclusions that we find pleasing and validating but suddenly becomes dodgy or questionable or poor' when it tells us discomforting things about our own group that we don't particularly want to hear. Be that as it may, I would never rely on the supposed 'authority' of men in lab coats or a bunch of monitors to tell me the truth of my own experience and then validate it for me. The notion that after 600 years or more of colonialism, racial categorisation, white supremacy and the perpetual maintenance of white economic, cultural, linguistic, social, material, educational and institutional bias and advantage that white *would* somehow magically transcend all of this and emerge and empathetic, equitable and psychologically healthy human beings as opposed to being cold, unjust, domineering, narcissistic and privileged beyond belief laughable to me, no matter how many of them want to pretend that the last 600 years never happened and as  if the present is some transcendent, ahistorical, post-racial utopia. White people having an almost rabid in-group response and not giving damn about anyone who falls outside the bonds of sacred whiteness is hardly "news: After all of this time POCs would have to be a hundred and twenty-seven different kinds of idiots not to have realised by now that white people in the main only care about, relate to, respect and identify with other whites and that as long as we don't get in the way of whatever it is that they feel entitled to, or clutter up their ethereal 'vision' of how they feel the world ought to run, then they don't have much reason to even acknowledge much less care about us.

The evidence is palpable in pretty much all that they do. It qualifies as one of those "Watership Down" moments, one of those great, open sores "secrets" that somehow everybody knows and yet everyone is ignorant innocent of; so we get a collective pretence somehow don't know any of this to be true, almost it as if our very lives depend on the act of 'not-knowing'. The implication of all of this of course is that no one is racist, racism isn't a reality POCs are insane and are simply imagining or hallucinating their lives away rather than living, breathing feeling and experiencing it all...which brings me back to the play.

What I find tantalising about my own rather cool reaction to Anne, is the idea that apathy and indifference is not a mono-directional process where one is perpetually positioned as the object of apathy rather than a subject who can experience it or dish it out. As I have increasingly gotten older and have less intimate contact with white people, yet am simultaneously bombarded by an intrusive white culture in the form of their billboards, magazine, media, advertising and excessive monopoly on representation as they wallpaper themselves around the world, I have developed a certain, shall we say, immunity  to them at least on the level or representation.... That is to say, they bled in front of me I'd certainly have visceral response and a desire to help. I'm not yet a sociopath. But I am worn, weary, and hardened. Their narcissistic stories and fantasies about themselves; their duller-than-death heroic formulations of identity; their fantastic and absurd notions who the and what they are, how they present themselves to the world at large; and the people that they would desperately like others to believe that they are, all fail to interest me. Or to roughly paraphrase one sage poster on Television Without Pity when discussing white representation and narrative: "I'm tired. I've think seen all the permutations and how they play out."

Just in the same way that whites complain about  experiencing 'compassion fatigue' or react with outright amusement, disdain, detached boredom or utter indifference when confronted with the real life 'spectacle' of abjection, suffering, destruction and death of 'non-white' bodies, and are insensate to those lives as if they were watching some not particularly compelling foreign film, I find that I am no longer moved or particularly interested in portrayals of their lives, their issues, their values, their problems or dilemmas. I'm over it. I don't laugh, cry, get excited, experience sadness or feel much of anything when I'm confronted with Yet Another Image of Them beyond annoyance and an exasperated 'Ugh. You again... Go away' as if I were dealing with an unwanted phantasm determined to impress themselves upon me as they bored me to death.

Much of this stems from the overriding disbelief that I can neither shake nor suspend when I even start to consider the parameters of white existence and the sheer effort that is required to uphold a 'white' identity. It stems from the fact that, the cutesy, saccharine  images or the holier-than-thou-righteous persona that they present on-screen and in all of their media are not only far removed from the reality of who they are, what they (are willing to) do and how they walk in this world, but that I know them to be false: I don't believe that they are who they say they are, and subsequently can't bring myself to believe in them. I've lived my entire life being sceptical of their supposed ignorance innocence in regards to a system that they not only invented, but renovate, uphold and cling to for dear life. Yet somehow, somehow hey don't 'know' of it's existence, have no idea of the gig that they've constructed.

Hmmm-mmmm. Let's just say that I don't see how any right-minded, intelligent person can actually believe that 'they don't know' or understand how the world is, nevermind that it is currently of their choosing and making. And so I occasionally voice my frustration and think to myself: "*They* can't face anything and don't live in any kind of reality." (And perhaps, that's precisely the place where Anne takes Name, behind the screen and into all of that vast emptiness.)

At any rate, my irritation, scepticism and borderline indifference is part of the reason why I only occasionally dally with popular culture before I retreat in boredom or out of self-preservation. And it is the reason why I honestly got Anne Heche mixed up with Anne Hathaway... That's what not paying sufficient attention or really caring will do.

...And I didn't feel much for Anne as a character, even as on some other more abstract level I *think* Anne Hathaway is 'okay'.
...And I quite like the implication of that.

I really *like* the idea that I am not obliged in anyway to take an avid, unreciprocated interest in a culture (or members of a culture) where people like myself are either non-existent, invisible or rendered visible only to occupy a role of subservience. I like the inherent dignity in the idea that you don't have to be in thrall to or run around hankering or chasing after people who have no interest in you at all which only cultivates the potential for inequity and abuse. But I digress.

So, did Anne, her struggle to communicate with and have a relationship with Name, her subsequent failure and frantic apologies 'mean anything' to me, other than how it affected Name? If not, then how jaded I am? This is not to suggest that Anne was an ornamental backdrop, a blank screen of little to no import to me as a reader, or to the play as a whole. But I cannot pretend that I was overly concerned with her dilemma, her pain, or her position even as they registered with me. I was so incredibly wary of her every move that I didn't and perhaps couldn't give her equal, due weight with Name. As a result I was unable to place their relationship, however perilous - at the centre of the text. What I chose to focus on instead was the stark contrast between their respective desires, whereby Name wants "be desirable for herself" which is countered by Anne's frank and cannibalistic admission that she wants to devour Name, and swallow her down whole as if she were an aphrodisical oyster, pearl and all. (And no, I don't think it is any accident at all that cannibalism is one of the great taboos and thus enduring obsessions of white Western culture.) One desire centred on the self, and need for self-possession; the other by contrasted on the consumption and possession of the other. Naturally, these are both incompatible aims.

I couldn't help but  take note of Anne's playful prying and coyly kittenish curiosity in the first Act. Her supposed ignorance innocence of what the pearl represented made my stomach roil. And I couldn't help but nod in grim-lipped agreement as the GABS instructed Name to cultivate a strategic distrust of white women. My distrust and underlying sense of 'disbelief' was simply confirmed in Act II once Anne freely confessed her desire to consume Name and by extension, the pearl; and it  was telling of course, that she also able to accurately name and identify exactly what the pearl WAS, what it represented and exactly why she wanted it for herself.

But of course, pretty white girl - doesn't *know* what she's doing right?

Which of course, is precisely what the play seeks to challenge and interrogate. I appreciate the fact that "Anne&Me" neither muted nor disguised the fragility of their relationship, and that 'the moment of truth' behind the screen proved to be incredibly perilous and fear-ridden. It felt intuitively correct to me that Name would deeply fear Anne and that it would be both rational and wholly justifiable. On the odd occasion that you can get a white person to drop their benign persona and actually admit to what it is they really want - laying bare that fabled avarice, irrational insatiability, entitlement and above all emptiness; once you can get them to tell the truth about how they see the world, what they 'naturally' expect of and from it, where they see themselves in relation to it, how they truly see you, and where they see you in relation to them - any sane person would be terrified out of their wits at what whiteness demands. Despite so much literature examining or pointing to white fear of the other, there is far less examination of the how genuinely unreasonable and scary whiteness and people who are implicated in it's illogical philosophy are.  Anne in turn flirted with the idea of being stripped of all disguise, but then feared being seen, being caught in the gaze of the other, being recognised and of course, being judged. Nothing seems to incense a white person more than the idea that they are not fully in control and that they are subject to the 'other's judgement, which shocks violates their notion of the natural order as much as a cat suddenly talking or a stone getting up and walking. I honestly think that they believe that they can do all that they do and yet they can't be seen, much like a 8 month old playing peek-a-boo. 

Anne later compensates for fleeting exposure to Name's gaze and the vulnerability involved in that exchange, by punitivley donning a bewildering array guises, poses, rhetorical manouvers, flourishes and strategies later in the play.

What these scenes evoked for me (the pearl scene, the confession behind the screen, the boxing/therapy scene) was the enduring idea of one person not being fully 'real' or human to other, functioning more as a resource, a tool, or a means to an end rather than as a flesh-and-blood person.

The harrowing switch-and-bait boxing/therapy match in Act II, Scene II where Anne seeks to rule, to conquer, to "materialise her every wish, in every way" and above all, to win against Name at any cost takes the play to it's logical climax where Name finally names the emotional consequences and psychic costs of having to bear perpetual object status:

in the eyes of the world it always seems that . . . i feel like i can't be fully human. y'know? there's only – there's only so much humanity that people – especially white people but sometimes even black men too – there's only so much humanity they can see in me. almost but not quite human. female but not quite woman. we're mammies to take care of you. bitches and ho's for you to fuck and forget. magical negroes to make you into better heroes. angry black women to make you feel nice and civilized. miss celies and preciouses so you can have someone to pity. nameless faceless statistics to receive your noblesse oblige when you stoop so low as to try to help us. i don't – we don't get to be who we are. we only get to be what we do for you

Or in other words, protests against the binds of a historically pre-determined ontology that is 'fixed' in order to prop up someone else's identity and sense of self. Initially, when I started to read the line "there's only so much humanity..." I assumed that the sentence would end with: "to go around." All of which would be in accordance with the idea of human status functioning as a game of musical chairs where naturally, 'somebody' has got to miss out, and that's the way it goes. But I much prefer where the text actually headed instead. For me at least, this statement functions as the critical heart of the play. Not only is it clear and undeniably direct but it contains the beautiful echoes Du Bois, Fanon, Baldwin, Lorde, Walker, Aidoo, Morrison, and so many other others who have been concerned with the construction of whiteness, its profoundly abusive and parasitic nature and its unjust reliance on a controlled and neatly defined blackness as the shadow which lends it material substance. This of course becomes doubly complex when race and gender intersect, functioning as the proverbial rock and hard place for Name.

Throughout the play whiteness was continually revealed as a construction and a conscious choice all of which is important to me in circumventing pointless and unhelpful speculation about racism being innate and so forth which too many people love to engage with. Instead the play actually provided a framework in which to reflect on race, gender and roleplay and perceive them as stemming from volition and choice rather than the featureless landscape of Ignore/Ignorant Land in which nobody 'knows' what anything is, where they are situated, or what they are doing. Naturally, there is a great deal more to this play than the one or two passages that I've chosen to highlight and analyse. And despite my own wary pessimism, "Anne&Me" didn't seek closure, or easy solutions either way, leaving their relationship open-ended and fittingly ambiguous. I've only mentioned one or two (fairly obvious) points that I gleaned from a couple of readings. Needless to say though, I will be reading "Anne&Me" again.