#225 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Saturday December 18)
Good morning,
MUSIC
I’ve been thinking a lot about claims of cultural appropriation in the arts. I think we all can get behind the notion that “Blackface” was a vile and mocking art form. That said, I’m not sure it is uniformly wrong for a white actor to portray a Black person, or vice versa, when not intending to mock. In fact, cross-ethnic casting often accentuates a message and can animate that character in a different way and with different perspective. For example, the musical Hamilton changes the race of the founding fathers (and mothers) in a way that shows the humanity of the characters in a manner never previously contemplated. That a white actor can play Othello or a Christian actor can play Shylock can bring layers to the portrayal that a more “accurate” casting might yield. I also believe that one needn’t be gay to play a homosexual character, any more than Neil Patrick Harris can’t play a womanizing cad in How I Met Your Mother. The whole premise of the art of acting seems to me the ability to wear a mask and inhabit a persona different from one’s own.
I am similarly troubled by the insistence that certain musical forms are by their very nature “owned” by a particular ethnic group. Rap is, I believe, an art form practiced in its earliest and purest sense, a predominantly Black art form—but that doesn’t detract from Eminem’s mastery of the craft.
I suspect other artistic endeavors of white artists may be viewed as “appropriating” the stories and the music of another group. I would argue that this form of exercise is an imitation of—a veneration of—the culture that allegedly is being “appropriated.” How sad would it be if we to deny Leonard Bernstein the right to orchestrate a “Mass” (he was, after all, Jewish) or to explore the lives of Puerto Ricans in New York in West Side Story.
When I think of some of the greatest popular artists, I find the diverse musical genres explored by Paul Simon not only to be novel, beautiful, and educational, but also opening up genres to popular consumption. Recall Graceland, his album based on, and “stealing from,” African melodic traditions. And consider Neil Diamond’s “African Trilogy,” which he saw as a tribute to—and not an appropriation of—African musical styles. I believe artistic genres are “owned” by no one.
“America,” from West Side Story:
“Soolaimon,” from the “African Trilogy” on Side B of Neil Simon’s Tap Root Manuscript:
“The Boy in the Bubble” from Paul Simon’s Graceland:
POETRY
Hell and Earth
By Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
From the archives: