In his novel The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s satirical style manifests in old man,
washed-up child actor, and resident crazy person Hominy Jenkins. Poor Hominy
just wants to “feel relevant” again, which becomes increasingly difficult because
“when Dickens disappeared, [Hominy] disappeared” (Morgan 77). After a melodramatic
suicide attempt, Hominy feels he owes his life to the narrator, who saved him. He
seems to regain purpose and relevance in becoming the narrator’s slave, despite
the narrator’s many refusals and numerous attempts to “emancipate” him. But, this
is not enough to give Hominy a complete sense of identity – the last missing
piece is his beloved Dickens.
Hominy’s resolve to be a modern-day
slave in L.A. echoes his childhood acting career as a member of the Little Rascals.
Unfortunately, he was the butt of all the show’s racist jokes because he was
the only African American cast member. Hominy explains, “‘Sometimes we just
have to accept who we are and act accordingly. I’m a slave. That’s who I am. It’s
the role I was born to play…This is the ultimate nexus between craft and
purpose, and we won’t be discussing this again. I’m your n***** for life, and
that’s it’” (Morgan 77). Hominy is stuck in this childhood role as the one and
only minority Little Rascal – it’s all he knows. When Dickens disappears, Hominy
loses his sense of identity. His local fanbase comes around to visit less and
less often, his stack of fan mail dwindles, and his feelings of irrelevance grow.
Even the narrator recognizes that he is just “a wizened old black man who knew
only one thing—his place” (Morgan 81). With the Little Rascals disbanded and
Dickens erased from the map, Hominy loses both his place and his purpose.
So, when Hominy and the narrator erect
a new “Welcome to Dickens” sign on the freeway, Hominy experiences a great
sense of pride and satisfaction. He says, “‘Massa, signs are powerful things.
It almost feels like Dickens exists out there in the smog somewhere…The whip
feels good on the back, but the sign feels good in the heart’” (Morgan 88). Hominy
knows in his heart and soul that his rightful place is as the narrator’s slave,
as the patsy of the Little Rascals’ racist humor, and as a resident of the lost
city of Dickens. As hellish and poor as Dickens is, he still roots his identity
in this community, so he is eager to contribute to the narrator’s efforts to
bring it back into being. The “Welcome to Dickens” road sign is just their
first step towards reanimating the city.
I would venture to say that in some way Hominy represents the town of Dickens. In a literal sense, Dickens was known for him, where people would purposefully venture there just to ask, “do you know where I can find Hominy?” (67). He was the center of most town rituals, having his birthday “celebrated as a collective” by Dickens (128). And when the town was metaphorically killed, Hominy felt the need to become a “self-lynching drama queen” (75). Hominy validated himself with the town’s notoriety, which is the only thing he valued as much as his Little Rascals career. Like you stated, his modern-day slavery was comparable to his childhood acting, which is perhaps why Hominy’s only tools to reestablish the town was based on what he had known as a child: indentured servitude. His slavery to the narrator, however, was more set on terms with the goals of getting Dickens back on the map and getting back the racist Little Rascals tapes. In fact, after gaining the Little Rascals tapes from Foy Cheshire, Hominy simply stated: “I quit,” (283). His use of slavery to get what he wanted, while it could be interpreted as a messed-up logic for an ex-child actor, was a hyperbolic representation of what Dickens had to do to get back on the map. The only way the town, or Hominy, could “feel relevant” again was to resort to extremes and to humble everyone in the process (77).
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about Hominy missing a piece of himself without Dickens. One of the novel’s more prominent themes is searching for a home, or even building a home. Ever since Dickens disappeared, Hominy felt as if his freedom and sense-of-purpose are lost. Hominy says that “True freedom is having the right to be a slave,” (83). I think that by enslaving himself to the Narrator he is not only echoing his childhood but also making a broad, political and social point. Hominy feels that the only way to express freedom is by voluntarily doing the act that is considered the ultimate lack-of-freedom. By trying to revitalize Dickens, Hominy is also trying to revitalize himself. Broken people sometimes try to fix the things around them to try and put their energy into something other than their own problems. Subconsciously, Hominy is healing himself as he heals the town alongside the Narrator. Through Hominy’s choice to break all social norms and enslave himself, Beatty draws on the theme of challenging society’s “rules”. Throughout the novel I kept wondering why we all succumb to what we are told about the “rules” of society so easily. The Sellout poses a threat to the “status-quo” of humanity, but it does it in a way that is so funny that you may not realize how deep the themes in the novel are.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Hominy Jenkins is a manifestation of Beatty’s satirical style, I believe he plays a much more crucial role in The Sellout than simply acting as a symbol of slavery in the entertainment industry. To me, Hominy represents an even more intense ‘Uncle Tom.’ His outlandish character serves as an extension of the narrator, who can already be considered ‘the white man’s bitch’. Although Hominy’s self-given purpose in the novel is to be the narrator’s slave, I believe that Beatty had a deeper purpose for this character, which was to indirectly criticize the concept of self-hatred among black people. Even though this self-hatred is already prevalent in the narrator, Hominy takes it a step further by calling himself a “worthless black life” and “demanding that [the narrator] whip” him within an inch of death (78). One can only assume that this eccentric behavior is Beatty making a mockery out of black Americans who feel the need to act subservient to white Americans. In fact, this display of behavior causes the narrator to practically rule out Hominy as one of his kind altogether, judging him to be “a mark of shame on the African-American legacy” and “something to be eradicated, stricken from the racial record” (76). Through Hominy’s actions, Beatty ultimately reveals the foolishness behind this ‘Uncle Tom’ way of thinking.
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