Arrested Development and Philosophy, page 11
Identities, then, aren’t the sorts of things we can pull up by our own bootstraps, to contort an expression irresponsibly (c’mon!). To have an identity that allows a modicum of self-respect, others must recognize this identity as valid and fulfilling. This is a point the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) famously made in his master/slave dialectic: We can flourish as human beings only to the extent that we’re recognized by others; such recognition is basic to human well-being. (As promised by the section title, I won’t quote Hegel. His work is as difficult to read as Fünke’s bestselling The Man Inside Me, albeit for mostly different reasons.)
The absence of recognition is the source of a lot of misery. The Bluth clan knows this all too well. Tobias, for example, wants to be recognized as a victim of a debilitating condition (never-nudity—there are literally dozens of us!). No one takes his condition seriously, however, and he’s left with an identity that isn’t acknowledged by the world around him. Likewise, Gob is a magician, but not one that anyone takes seriously—and not being taken seriously is a situation that is recurrent in Gob’s life as much as it is in Buster’s. Neither brother is regarded as recognition-worthy in anything they pursue. Who would call Gob a successful magician, let alone an illusionist? And let’s not forget Gob’s failed businesses (Bees? Beads?! We’ll see who makes more honey! Bzzzz.). Who would dare to call Buster an academic with expertise in cartography (“the mapping of uncharted territories”) and seventeenth-century agrarian economics (“are we at all concerned about an uprising?”)? Certainly touching yourself is not a scholarly pursuit. I mean, c’mon!
But even when we’re recognized by others as having an identity—as being a businessman, or an illusionist, or an academic, or an analrapist—this doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be hunky dory. Identity can go bad in another way: Some of the identities that we take on involve devaluation (It’s hard to read “analrapist” in any way but a negative one, even when we change the pronunciation). In other words, being recognized as having an identity isn’t enough to have a fulfilling and self-respecting existence. We’ve also got to be recognized as having identities that are worth having. And here’s the big issue: most identities are normative—that is, we implicitly evaluate most of the identities that we find ourselves taking on. Lupe, Franklin, Gob, and Buster can help us see this.
It Ain’t Easy Bein’ White
Some of the things that make us who we are can be picked up and put down at will: You can be an Arrested Development fan or not; you can be an advocate of “Caged Wisdom” or you can completely ignore it. In this sense, an identity is just a way of understanding oneself. As the contemporary philosophy Georgia Warnke has claimed, identity is really a way of interpreting oneself.3 As such, identities can be fun and fantastic things—they can embody our understanding of ourselves as everything from illusionists to cartographers.
But, as we’ve seen, identities can have a dark side, too. Identities can also “go imperial” (to borrow a turn of phrase from Warnke). Ways of being interpreted can come to dominate everything about us. Some ways of understanding ourselves seem to be outright forced on us. The most imperial identities—ones that force themselves on us, and are virtually impossible to escape—are race, sex, and gender.4 No matter how hard we try, and no matter how much we want to get beyond them, race, sex, and gender are forced on us again and again, even when they don’t need to be. Take the case of race. As Warnke notes, “We cannot become ex-white in the same way that we can become an ex-patriot.”5 This isn’t because race is physical and nationality is not. As it turns out, race isn’t physical (there’s no way of determining race by looking at genetic make-up). Race forces itself on us because we think of it as more essential than nationality. So, while we accept that we can run off to live in the O.C. and become an ex-patriot of New York, we think of race as something we just can’t leave behind. We are our race. This is the very definition of an imperial identity: no matter where we go, our race follows us.
Just to illustrate this, we might as well talk for a second about Michael Jackson. Does it matter if Michael Jackson was really black? Most biologists today deny that race is biologically real (there are no genetic markers for membership in a race, and there is more intraracial genetic variation than there is interracial genetic variation). This makes it seem like insisting that Michael Jackson was really black is just dumb, if it means anything at all. If there’s no such thing as black, ole MJ couldn’t really have been black any more than Franklin could have become “all puckered and white” (c’mon!).
And yet, we often view people as essentially being members of a particular race or ethnic group (the jury is still out on science, after all). The Bluths manage to do this more than your average family in the O.C. (I know . . . but I like calling it that). Let’s think back on how the Bluths understand Mexican identity (enter eerie flashback music or Ron Howard narration) . . .
Despite his studies in cartography, when Buster tries to flee to Mexico, he winds up in Santa Anna, California (about six minutes inland from his house). He’s totally oblivious to the fact, having no sense of what Mexico might actually be like. He crawls under a picnic table, worried about the unbearable heat of the “Mexican” sun. Buster is unaffected by reality, and entirely affected by his preconceived notions of what Mexico must be like—as well as preconceived notions about what it means to be Hispanic. He is so bound up in his preconceived notions that he doesn’t even recognize Lupe as the woman who cleans his former residence! In talking to Lupe’s family, Buster speaks slowly and deliberately, enunciating his sounds, and laying on the fake Mexican accent. “I’m one of you now, si?” (“Amigos”). The next day, on the way to work with his newfound family, Buster remarks, “This is great. We’re like slave buddies.”
Apparently, Buster thinks that being Mexican is like being a slave. But he’s not entirely to blame. He grew up believing that Rosa, the old Bluth housekeeper, lived in the kitchen. When Lupe eventually leaves the Bluth’s employ for having had sex with Buster, she is replaced with a robot—and no one much notices—Buster even has sex with it too (what do you expect, at that point he’s half-machine!).
Lindsay isn’t any better, and she might even be worse. She’s got the hots for Ice, the African-American bounty hunter and caterer (how’s that for playing with stereotypes?), but this doesn’t really prove anything. Sexual attraction and racism aren’t mutually exclusive. Still, we’d be better off focusing on how Lindsay treats others generally, and since we’ve been talking about Mexican identity, we’d do well to remember some things about sister Bluth. I know a busload of Mexicans just trying to have a reunion who would say Lindsay’s got the wrong idea about what it means to be Mexican. It doesn’t mean that one’s a day laborer willing to scab on a construction site! And let’s not forget that Lindsay more or less kidnaps Lupe when she wants the model home cleaned (“Immaculate Election”).
Lucille is the worst of the group in this, as in other matters. She searches Lupe’s purse before Lupe can leave the house, asking, “Is this your onion?” Lucille also finds a ball of foil, and suspiciously questions Lupe as to its contents. When Lupe responds, “Nothing, it’s a ball of foil for my son,” Lucille allows her to go on her way. When Lucille goes to the Daytime Desi awards, she continuously asks the Hispanic guests/actors to get her a drink. Apparently, Lucille believes that Hispanics are naturally part of the service industry—that to be Hispanic is just to be someone who waits on whitey. She even says as much: “A room full of waiters, and nobody will take an order” (“Key Decisions”). We see this also as Lucille drives around the O.C. trying to find someone to unload her groceries for her, after finding out that Rosa is not “still alive” (“The One Where they Build a House”).
I wish things were better for Michael, but he doesn’t even recognize that the woman he inadvertently kidnaps is not Lupe. He sees a Mexican woman in what looks to be a service uniform, and simply assumes it’s Lupe. Is he so oblivious to Lupe that he’s never bothered to notice what she looks like? Does he think all Hispanics look the same? Even the best-intentioned of the Bluths, our hero Michael, falls into the trap of insisting on certain identities for those he meets.
Gob is the very definition of culturally insensitive. His notorious chicken impression (which gets him attacked in Mexico, first by the natives and later by Gene Parmesan), his repeated failure to understand the meaning of the word hermano, despite having taken four years of Spanish, and his insensitivity to Marta all display colossal misunderstandings of race and ethnicity.
What’s philosophically and ethically interesting, however, is not simply that the Bluths operate with stereotypes. It’s that the stereotypes are taken to be models for how people must behave. The Bluths want others to be their stereotypes, and they continuously attempt to make this happen. The Bluths seem hell-bent on making people live out their social identities, no matter how pure their intentions. The danger in this, of course, is that it can be stifling. We can be made to meet social expectations that we have no interest in meeting, or that make us deeply unhappy. The way others expect us to be, in other words, can actually prevent us from living a life that we regard as fulfilling. This is at the heart of the ethics of identity: because identity is a social phenomenon, it is something that can be forced on us by the world we live in. Identity, rather than expressing our values and commitments, can become another means of limiting freedom.
Stuff Whitey Isn’t Ready to Hear; African-Americany Might Not Be Ready, Either . . .
No discussion of identity in Arrested Development would be complete without consideration of Franklin, the two-time black puppet that Gob eagerly offends others with. (Franklin is “twice black” because of a laundry accident, followed by a re-dye.)
Franklin is both a stuffed stereotype and a surprisingly edifying puppet. There’s no better place to start than with the classic tune from Franklin Comes Alive:
Gob: It ain’t easy bein’ white.
Franklin: It ain’t easy bein’ brown.
Gob: All this pressure to be bright.
Franklin: I got children all over town.
This lovely song, a duet with Gob and Franklin, is full of error. The error is clear enough: Franklin’s very voice, provided by Gob, embodies this. On one hand, Franklin is ghettoized; on the other hand, Gob sings about how it’s difficult to live life as white. Surprisingly, besides the error of enforcing stereotypes, there’s also some understanding: identities exert pressure on us, particularly when they go imperial.
Franklin is regarded as essentially black (at first, at any rate), and his activities are those stereotypical ones associated with his race. Of course, Franklin is too over the top and ridiculous for us to fail to notice that stereotypes are being employed (nobody’s that oblivious!!). But the severity of the stereotypes just lets us see them all the more clearly.
Franklin: Can I tell you somethin’ my man?
Gob: Sure, Franklin.
Franklin: You are one cold [Long beep]. Speaking of mothers . . . let me give that oatmeal some brown sugar [Gob begins to make Franklin molest Lucille, as George Sr. jumps off of the couch to defend his wife] [“Meat the Veals”]
Franklin’s lust for old white women isn’t even his worst trait. Franklin, it turns out, is also a pimp (“Family Ties”). But despite being a sex-crazed pimp, Franklin is very sensitive to issues of race.
Gob: I just had an old friend who wanted to tell you [brings Franklin around to face Lucille]
Franklin: how much I miss you.
Lucille: oh . . . who let this little black [BEEP] . . .
[Franklin, soaked in ether, kisses Lucille, rendering her unconscious. Buster enters.]
Buster: Hey, brother!
Franklin: Who you callin’ brother, you honky ass . . . [“Meat the Veals”]
And how could we forget Franklin’s (third season) T-shirt bearing the phrase, “George Bush doesn’t care about black puppets”? But despite his sensitivity to issues of race, Franklin doesn’t speak for the African-American community—even if Gob sometimes acts as though he does.
Gob: Franklin said some things that whitey just wasn’t ready to hear.
Michael: Gob, weren’t you also mercilessly beaten outside of a club in Torrence for that act?
Gob: He also said some things that African-Americany wasn’t ready to hear, either. [“Meat the Veals”]
And yet, for all the politically incorrect racial slurs, Franklin presents us with some important reminders about race. As perhaps the most imperial identity, someone’s race is often wrongly regarded as telling us what we need to know about them. Arrested Development spoofs our tendency to let race “go imperial”—and thus also critiques the idea that race is anything essential to a person—when, in “Meat the Veals,” the police confront Franklin behind the wheel of a car.
Cop 1 [pointing gun]: Put your hands up or we’ll take that as a sign of aggression against us!
[Franklin sits silently behind the wheel of an automobile.]
Cop 2 [pointing gun, frantic]: They’re not up! He’s aggressive!
Not only are the stereotypes we associate with race wrong; the very idea that race is essential to what a person is is wrong. Arrested Development manages to show this as well. Franklin, in a devastating laundry disaster, gets bleached out. In losing his color, he somehow also gains a British accent. “You’ve ruined the act Gob . . .,” Franklin, now bleached-white, tells a saddened Gob. The idea that the puppet’s color made it essentially the kind of puppet it is also calls into question our own assumptions about race.
The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah (1954–) tells us that racism is not our only problem. Our bigger problem is what he calls racialism—the belief that races are in some deep sense real (in the way that stars and atoms are real).6 Races aren’t any more real than baseball teams or traffic laws: They exist only insofar as we think they exist. The problem with thinking races exist in the deep sense, though, is that we start thinking that people must be the race we identify them as. In fact, racial identity is performed—much as Gob performs Franklin’s racial identity. It isn’t something we are, but something we do. If we could think of race in this way, we’d make it easier to be white, and easier to be brown. (Gob: That’s the exact kind of joke he would have loved. . . .)
An Ethics of Identity
Given how precarious our identities are—and how much value-baggage comes with them—we might be better off without them entirely. Of course, we all know that’s not really possible. As Aristotle, Hegel, and so many others have pointed out, to be human is to be social—and part of being social involves negotiating who one is with who others take one to be. Does this mean we’re as screwed as Lucille during a conjugal visit?
Maybe not. Not all of our identities are imperial ones—and maybe there’s a lesson to learn there. We don’t always insist that people are one way or the other. I mean, look, book reader, I don’t think you are either essentially a Yankees fan or essentially a Red Sox fan. You might not be either. When you take on that identity—when you don the Yankees cap—you do so recreationally (at least I hope that’s what’s going on!). You can take off that identity, and no one will know any better. You won’t find a box to be filled in on your job application or your health insurance about which team you like. You won’t be denied a job or a proper education because of it.
The danger of identities is not that we have them, but that we tend to take them so seriously—and we tend to regard them as essentially who we are.7 But, if identities are social things, we can take or leave any of them, no matter how real they are. This might well lead to a more tolerant world, where race and gender were toys to play with rather than tools of oppression.
I know, I know. I’m an idealist. A dreamer. And you’re a book reader and a TV watcher. But we’re more than that, too. The trick is to learn Franklin’s lesson. It ain’t easy bein’ anything. The sooner we can make identity recreational, the better. Essentialized identities tend to breed hate, and hate takes a lot of time (even more than the annual Motherboy event). The sooner we give up insisting people fit our identity expectations, the sooner we’ll be able to devote our lives to getting Arrested Development back on the air.
