Friday, March 9, 2007
Leroi Jones' Dutchman
This week we discussed the significance of Jones' Dutchman as an exploration of many of the themes of the Black Arts Movement. Lee's Obie winning play presents a series of counter arguments to many passive and non-violent approaches to social change presented in art in the mid 1960s. The Black Arts Movement was often defined as a "sister" movement to the Black Power movement because of the ways that it stressed the political, cultural and economic components that consituted a"Black" identity as well as the "by any means necessary" approach preached by Malcolm X. Considering Jones' "militant" presentation of "blackness" in this play, in what ways do you feel the play resonates today if at all? In what way is the play "dated"? In what way do the characters of Clay and Lula operate as "composites" of race realtions between Blacks and Whites in the 1960s?
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The play is "dated" in that the era of social change has faded away. The composites embodied by Clay and Lula are complex and convey, I think, every possible emotion felt by a black person toward whites and every emotion felt by whites toward blacks. I don't think this play would be relevant today as far as people relating to it because the racial tension was more intense back then, not to say that racial tension is not felt now. I just think blacks who have made it and have had the opportunity to move up in the world and experience the benefits of capitalism wouldn't relate to a black radical movement of any kind.
I believe that although "The Dutchman" does not represent the same things that it meant when it was originally produced, I believe the play does still resonate today. While I agree with Saqqara that the play may not be relatable to blacks who have benefited from capitalism, I believe it would have some meaning to those who still feel they are falling victim to the capitalistic system. Clay's character represents a certain twoness. My interpretation of it in a modern sense is that our initial introduction into his charactter is that of a man who may be benefitting from a capitalistic system. He is able to live in a nice home in New Jersey with both of his parents, and receive a college education. however, the anger that burns within him, the anger he argues burns within all of the "tortured artists" of the time is one that realizes that they are not in control of their own lives. That if they slip they will indeed fall because the system was not built with the intentions of building and maintaining their success. I personally know tons of people who although may not go out and kill people, or cry out their pain in artistic expression, feel that same sense of entrapment and damnation. However, in my opinion, these people are now our modern drug abusers, not just recreational users, but abusers, and alcoholics, and the people who feel trapped by their situations and thus allow themselves to feel a sense of complacency in their situation of mediocrity or worse, because whatever substance they have allieviates the burden of consciousness of their situation and maintains their passivity.
Yeah I guess the Black militant movement has kind of faded away, but I still found a lot of relevance in The Dutchman. I was really fascinated above all by Baraka's comments on the white appropriation of Black culture. Like how Lula felt she knew better than Clay what "Blackness" was and felt she could call him an Uncle Tom. I see this kind of thing a lot. If a Black person doesn't listen to rap, where "urban" clothing and drop the N-bomb, his white friends will say "Oh so-and-so's not really Black; I'm Blacker than he is." It's interesting that people feel they have a right to say this. I guess it connects to African American style and music dominating popular culture so much that many whites have embraced it as their own, so much so that they feel entitled to question the "realness" of actual black people. And Baraka was really commenting on the beginning of all this. What jazz was to hip whites at that time, Hip Hop is to the whole country now. And I'm sure a lot of Black people feel the same way Baraka does when he says Charlie Parker is really saying "kiss my Black Ass." Because to some extent the African American experience cannot truly be appreciated except by other African Americans (as with any ethnic/cultural group.) Yet white people really feel they "get it." I'm not saying they don't, but I can see how it could frustrate a lot of Black people. Because if whites are so quick to put Black culture on a pedestal, why not grant Blacks the social status such a great culture merits.
I think the Dutchman has resonance in the fact that there is still a dynamic in the black-white relationship where there is an underlying tension created by a black paranoia and a white intemidation. For example, Clay and the men he represents see opportunity in assimilating to American ideals while women like Lula and the women she represents view Clay very patroninzingly. The tensions are exploded for drama's sake and I think in this explosion is where the play has its strongest pull because it stimulates those feelings beneath the surface for the reader.
i happen to like "dutchman", a lot. i have a reverence for the beath movement and what it tried to do, how it attempted to change literary style. i think what a lot of people fail to realize is that this is indeed the case, and apply a rhetoric and classification to beat writings as if it were something else. beat writing is entirely independent. therefore, when people describe lula as crazy, i take osme issue. well, she is crazy...but not THAT crazy. her character might very well be out of her mind, but the way that is communicated on the page is at times stylized. stream of consciousness is a hallmark of beat writers, so lines that are tangential and sometimes extreme must be recognized as possibly being a manifestation of the wrtier aand not so much an indication of the character. the play is dated, unfortunatly, because beat is dead. the play is obvious in its subgenre, so when one reads it two things will happen. if they are fmailiar with beats they will immediatly recognize it as such, if they are not they may misunderstand the writing to be poor, or assume that the words of the playwright are meant to be characterizations. in either way, because the piece is part of a long past movement, it looses some of the relevancy that may have been present as of the black arts movement.
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