Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece's Incognegro is different than many of the graphic narratives we've read this term. For one thing, it is a fiction--even if draws on Johnson's autobiography, as he suggests in his "Author's Note." For another, it is written by TWO people, one who composed the story and dialogue and the other who drew the images--a fact that radically changes our ideas about authorship and the control that the author has over his/ her product.
At the center of the book, however, are questions of race, visibility, violence, and passing. One of the myths at the center of American life is that race is visible--that one can tell whether someone is African American simply by looking at them. The other, related, myth--codified into law in the U.S.--was called the one drop rule, and it suggested that anyone with "one drop" of black blood would be deemed black and thus have to suffer the segregation and oppression (and prior to the end of slavery, enslavement) that black people were subject to in this country. Some African American people, whose skin color and features allowed them to be mistaken for white, chose to pass and leave the African American community for the white one. As Incognegro suggests, this decision would lead to being better treated or, as in the case of Zane Pinchback, having more mobility to go into dangerous situations and observe wrongs being done to black people throughout the U.S.
For more on passing, check out:
this piece on NPR about the history of passing (and a new book on the topic),
this link to a conversation about passing in American film
this book on passing
this reading list on racial passing
Passing has also been a recurring theme in American literature, particularly in African American literature. In James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a novel published in 1912, the unnamed narrator makes the decision to pass into whiteness after witnessing a lynching. In Nella Larsen's novella, Passing, her main character, Clare Kendry passes into whiteness while her friend Irene cannot.
In more recent American fiction, such as Danzy Senna's Caucasia and Philip Roth's The Human Stain, passing becomes a trope useful for exploring how ideas about race and individualism continue to collide in America.
How does Incognegro contribute to the literature of racial passing in America? Although it purports to depict American during its lynching epidemic in the 1930s, does it have something to say about race and racism today? What about gender and class?
Moreover, many of the images in Incognegro represent violence against African American men and women (primarily men). How do Johnson and Pleece choose to show/ not show violence? How are their choices similar to or different from the choices that Spiegelman or Satrapi make in showing violence. Lynching reached epidemic proportions in America after the civil war--from roughly the 1880s to the 1930s. It was so accepted in parts of the Southern United States that, as Incognegro suggests, people not only photographed lynchings, but they also circulated those images in the form of postcards.
For more on lynching in America, check out:
this PBS overview
these statistics and images
(NOTE: THESE IMAGES ARE VERY VIOLENT AND DISTURBING.)
Zane, discussing the power afforded to him by becoming Incognegro, explains, “That’s one thing that most of us know that most white folks don’t. That race doesn’t really exist. Culture? Ethnicity? Sure. Class too. But race is just a bunch of rules meant to keep us on the bottom” (19). Zane accepts that culture and ethnicity and class are real but that race is a useful fabrication to keep a defined group “on the bottom.” I fail to see how race operates differently from culture, ethnicity, and particularly class as a fabrication. Defining culture, ethnic, and class boundaries is as much about ordering society and denying power to certain groups as race is – so too is gender a useful but invented tool for keeping folks on the bottom.
ReplyDeleteZane tells us “the rest is just people acting. Playing roles” (19). Zane’s thought process seems to straddle 1930 and modern understandings of the constructed nature of race (I don’t think he goes far enough in recognizing what social structures are fictions) but the text seems to support a reading of what might seem natural definitions as fictional. The comic is an analysis of passing which passes as a superhero narrative. Francis passes as a man, Carl passes as British for a time, and the Sheriff passes for most of the comic as heteronormative (I can’t find the right word – he is a man sleeping with a woman who is passing as a man, whatever it’s called it wasn’t a standard 1930s romance). The wonderfully satisfying end of the comic has Mr. Huey unable to pass as white – he can’t play the role because Zane uses his media influence to convince folks that Mr. Huey is Incognegro.
The depiction of violence that begins the comic is much more explicit than other depictions of violence we’ve encountered. I think the fictive nature of this comic and its relationship to Vertigo and superhero comics means it participates in a depiction of violence which readers are more accustomed to – hyper violence. I’m thinking particularly of the castration at the beginning of the comic and the shotgun blast which leaves Michaela faceless. But calling these depictions hyper violent seems to lend them a degree of exaggeration and fantasy which removes the impact of the violence. If it’s hyper then it’s not real and if it’s not real than it’s not as effective. That line of thinking makes me uncomfortable, let’s try a different thought: Exaggerated symbols are often useful because they are highly emotive. Moreover, the violence which blacks experienced in this period and previously was hyper violent in a very real way (I’m thinking of Blake’s engravings for Stedman, Behn’s Oronoooko, some literature I’ve read on the relationship between masculinity, sex, and relations between white and black men in early modern Jamaica, and the information provided in your post). The real violence was hyper violent and its fictive depiction also participates in hyper violence but they seem to operate in two different traditions – one is fundamental to slave and black experience and the other is confined by standards and traditions of violence in media and art. That line of thinking is also flawed – it pays no attention to the particulars or nuance of a specific historical or literary moment. Perhaps I should be looking at Zane’s actions during the comic. His victory importantly comes from his ability to influence the media, to make a story out of the violence that competes with the narrative in which that violence operates. In the same way Johnson and Pleece locate violence within a larger narrative so that it might serve to disrupt and complicate rather than serve as an ordering, oppressive force.
Incognegro contributes to not only the literature of racial passing in America, but also to this idea of racial passing. It is a sad fact that racism is still alive even in the freest lands of the Earth. But this is a great idea of for a graphic novel... the art in it is difficult to predict who is darker or more "african american" features, and the coloring of black and white doesn't help. But I feel as though this book is in black and white for symbolic reasons of race, and aesthetics. This book speaks volume about racism and class.. even the lover, Michaela was the typical white woman that was comfortable with being with a black man at the time. During this time, this was a seriously sketchy thing to do and to make her character shady was a stereotypical move. I am only through part 1 of the book, but I am sure it will evolve past just gender and class into a sexism inequality as well. Even when the southern man thought he found out that Zane was a British man, he thought he was high class so he must try to strike a deal with him, or befriend him. And if he turns out a dud "he must kill him." This speaks a lot bout the mindset at the time.
ReplyDeleteEven though this graphic novel places value on the violence of the subjects, the visuals are not as gory, unpleasant, and disturbing as they could be. However, there were more violent depictions in the beginning but during the book it seemed to lighten up. When it showed the young woman dead and her body torn to shreds, they did not go into any kind of detail and it did not look as frightening as they could of made it. They was Satrapi and Spieglman depicted their violence fit the persona of their book, just as this one does. That is how they are similar, but they are different in ways as well... The violence is more blatant and in front of your face in Incognegro than I have noticed or seen before. And the fact that it was a thing to send postcards of lynchings definitely says a lot about what was going on during these terrible times in the south.
Incognegro contributes to the idea of racial passing by showing just how profoundly stupid racism was (and is). The fact that Zane could so easily pass as a white man mostly due to his actions shows that the mindset regarding race at the time was so shallow. Also the fact that he could pass as white due to his less stereotypical appearance shows that at the time, racial identity did not seem to be solely determined by physical appearance.
ReplyDeleteBecause the first few pages of the book seemed pretty violent with it's depiction of lynchings and castration, I thought that the book would be pretty gruesome throughout. However looking back I think that those more violent images were there to set the theme of the story and to give the reader some perspective in order to show what Zane was up against as he went "incognegro". As the book goes on, there is much less violent content and the scenes that do have violence seem to be scaled back compared to earlier panels.
It's funny, I've actually read a story very similar to that of Incognero in my American Lit class, about two babies being switched at birth that were about the same skin tone, and the one that was born a slave was raised rich and became conceded, and the one who was born rich and raised a slave grew into a lovely man. It's all about societal expectations; racism was societal and not physical, and it was taught not inherent.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I've actually read a story very similar to that of Incognero in my American Lit class, about two babies being switched at birth that were about the same skin tone, and the one that was born a slave was raised rich and became conceded, and the one who was born rich and raised a slave grew into a lovely man. It's all about societal expectations; racism was societal and not physical, and it was taught not inherent.
ReplyDelete