Hominy, for example, is one of the most absurd characters in the book. In both his ridiculous, voluntary racism and his acting career, (which, since the Little Rascals actually did exist, is firmly grounded in reality and plausibility) Hominy readily makes a fool of himself and perpetuates racial stereotypes. In this way, his “slavery” is an exaggerated representation of his obsession with his demeaning acting career, and he “quits” slavery shortly after watching the some of the most racist Little Rascals episodes. The timing of this implies that seeing the most ridiculous side of his obsession may have helped Hominy let go of at least one of his self-destructive obsessions, but it may or may not allow Hominy to work through the emotional problems at its root.
The narrator also has many absurd experiences which contribute to his confusion about his identity, beginning with his father’s allegedly scientific experiments and continuing after losing his father and the existence of his city: “I had no idea who I was, and no clue how to become myself” (40). Surprisingly, even after his many ridiculous antics, he seems hardly any closer to resolving this confusion when he laments, “Dickens, the segregation, Marpessa, the farming, and I still don’t know who I am” (249). Although the bulk of the novel’s rather absurd plot has already passed at this point, it seems hopeless that the narrator will ever be sure of who he is.
Beatty weaves absurdity into almost every sentence of this book, from his swearing to his unlikely characters to his flirting with magical realism, and I think the entire book could be considered a larger-than-life observation of race in America. However, it is often based in reality or stereotypes, leaving readers unsure if they are meant to agree with the narrator or if doing so would make them racist. However, this very state of unawareness seems to be the end result of all of the events in the book, since Hominy’s story ends in uncertainty, as does the narrator’s: Foy tells him he will “never understand,” and the narrator admits, “he’s right. I never will” (288) in the final chapter, entitled “Closure.” By closing the novel on this uncertain note, Beatty reminds us that in real life, this may be the closest we ever get to closure regarding race issues. Dialogues about race will always be uncomfortable, and trying to define racism or race itself will always be confusing. However, through absurdity and comedy, we may have a chance of at least being able to openly and honestly consider the problems underlying our society, like the black comedian who, through jokes, “plucked out your subconscious and beat you silly with it, not until you were unrecognizable, but until you were recognizable” (286). Beatty’s absurdity forces readers to confront their own opinions and often ignorance, and invites them to use this uncomfortable ambiguity as a starting point for solving complicated problems.
I wholeheartedly agree that Beatty uses absurdity in The Sellout to convey the overarching absurdity of a cut and dry solution to race. In the Prologue, the narrator spews a common solution to remediate centuries of turmoil: “Growing up, I used to think all of black America’s problems could be solved if we only had a motto,” (10). This serious statement and his own realizations about the unification of race are undercut by the fact that he was in the Supreme Court “stoned by memory and marijuana,” (15). Smoking marijuana in the Supreme Court is obviously outrageous, but the placement of the narrator’s monologue about mottos in the same chapter is significant in that both seem ridiculous. By doing this, Beatty is challenging a common fix to racial injustice. Another instance in which Beatty takes race conversations and lessens their impact is during the bus ride on Hominy’s birthday, where Laura Jane, the white girl hired to take Hominy’s seat, states “it isn’t race that’s the problem but class,” (138). While this casual inequality conversation was occurring between Marpessa and Laura Jane, Marpessa also “[turned] the bus into one of those Bora-Bora hotel rooms,” (140). Beatty has taken this statement typically thrown around by lower class white citizens and made it as ridiculous as partially flooding a bus for a party. Overall, Beatty has purposefully paired the absurd with conversations about race, which I find showcases the absurdity of simple solutions for inequality that Americans tend to lean towards.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Beatty’s use of absurdity and exaggeration in The Sellout helped acknowledge that there is no “perfect solution” to end racism, I also believe that it was used as a tool to show how entertainment is used in our society to distract audiences (whether they are reading this book or watching the news) from certain cultural, social and political issues. After reading this book, the first thing that popped into my mind was Donald Glover’s “This is America” music video, which was released this summer. This is because in both The Sellout and the “This is America” music video, absurdity and exaggeration are used in order to draw the attention of the audience away from the tragedies that are going on simultaneously, but in the background. While this is the case, though, both pieces also use absurdity to point out racial, cultural and social issues that are talked about a little more than others in America (i.e. Jim Crow, “the Dickens Five,” etc.). However, it’s not until you attempt to look past the absurdity that you begin to realize that the author (or artist in Donald Glover’s case) is trying to analyze deeper issues that are not addressed near as much in America (i.e. identity).
ReplyDeleteOut of context, The Sellout is downright offensive, however, Beatty’s use of derogatory terms and insulting stereotypes ultimately paints a picture of modern-day racism just as well or even better than the classical African American novel. In an interview we watched during class, Beatty claimed to have spent a lot of time incorporating symbolism and meaning into The Sellout, which he further exaggerated by his use of satirical elements. For example, Hominy was once the butt of the joke on the Little Rascals, and now he is the butt of the joke in real life. Hominy is a poor, old man that thinks he is a slave, and he enjoys being humiliated by both the narrator and the white woman the narrator pays to whip him (84). Modern-day African Americans are also the butt of the joke, especially in the entertainment industry, where they are typically cast as background characters that fulfill the stereotypes white people buy in to. The narrator is a poor, young man who grows watermelon and weed (64). His father was shot and, although he had the chance to escape his father’s life when he went to college, he did not. Beatty brings yet another stereotype to life in the narrator by making him a no-name black boy that smokes weed all day and does not take advantage of economic opportunity. The modern-day stereotype that black fathers are neglectful can be seen in the narrator’s father, who was a terrible parent and subject his son to horrible psychological experiments and abuse (32). Despite the father’s extensive education, he was never able to move his family out of the ghetto, either, further alluding to the idea that black people do not take advantage economic opportunity. While all of Beatty’s characters perpetuated and confirmed common stereotypes, each character’s situation was also caused by social or economic injustice. Hominy was exploited by white people in the entertainment industry, which is what led him to go insane. The narrator wrote that, “I minored in crop sciences and management, because Professor Farley, my intro to agronomy teacher, said that I was a natural horticulturist” (62), insinuating that the ingrained beliefs others had about him is what led him to be a farmer. All of the black characters succumbed to the stereotypes that others believed of them, hence the name “The Sellout”, and, as Beatty repeated throughout the novel, “people eat the shit you shovel them”.
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