by Hooks, Bell
4
SEDUCTION AND BETRAYAL
The Crying Game meets The Bodyguard
Hollywood’s traditional message about interracial sex has been that it is tragic, that it will not work. Until Spike Lee made Jungle Fever, that xenophobic, racist message had been primarily brought to us courtesy of white filmmakers. That message has not changed. When Hollywood sought to do its own version of Coline Serreau’s 1989 film, Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed, a film about interracial desire where the relationship between a working-class black woman and a privileged white man works, no big white male stars wanted to play the leading role. Though this fact was presented in the news, the reasons were not. No doubt these white men were afraid that they would lose status, invite the wrath of white female moviegoers who do not want to see “their” heroes making it with black girls, or, God forbid, risk being seen as “nigger lovers” in real life. After all, white females constitute a viewing audience that could write thousands of letters protesting love between a white man and a black woman on daytime soaps, letting the networks know that they do not want to see this on little or big screens.
Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed is unique in that it represents interracial love in a complex manner. It raises challenging questions about the difficulties of having a partner who is of a different race and class. It insists that love alone would not enable one to transcend difference if the person in power—in this case the wealthy white man—does not shift his ways of thinking, reconceptualize power, divest of bourgeois attitudes, and so on. As their love develops, the white man is called to interrogate his location, how he thinks about folks who are different, and most importantly how he treats them in everyday life. Since the black woman he loves has children, relatives, and other relationships, he must also learn to engage himself fully with her community. Having worked as a cleaner in his office, she knows his world and how it works. He must learn to understand, appreciate, and value her world. Mutual give-and-take enables their relationship to work—not the stuff of romantic fantasy.
Unlike Hollywood’s traditional yet “rare” black female heroine, the black woman in Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed, is not an exotic sex kitten, is not a “tragic mulatto.” In the French film she is stocky, dressed mostly in everyday working clothes—in no way a “femme fatale.” And this fact alone may have made it impossible for any white male “star” to feel comfortable appearing as her partner. By Hollywood standards (and this includes films by black directors), a full-figured, plump, black woman can only play the role of mammy/matron; she can never be the object of desire. Ever willing to cater to the needs of the marketplace, Hollywood may yet do its own version of Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed but it is unlikely that it will retain the original’s seriousness and complexity of perspective. No doubt it will be another Sister Act, where viewers are made to consider just a bit “ridiculous” any black female whose looks do not conform to traditional representations of beauty yet who is or becomes the object of white male desire. The audience must be made to think it is improbable that such a black woman would really be the chosen companion of any desirable white man.
Audiences may ultimately see an American version of Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed, as Hollywood has recently discovered once again (as it did during the period when films like Imitation of Life and Pinkie were big draws) that films which focus on inter-racial relationships can attract huge audiences and make big bucks. White supremacist attitudes and prejudicial feelings, which have traditionally shaped the desires of white moviegoers, can be exploited by clever marketing; what was once deemed unworthy can become the “hot ticket.” Right now, race is the hot issue. In my recent book on race and representation, Black Looks, I emphasize that blackness as commodity exploits the taboo subject of race; that this is a cultural moment where white people and the rest of us are being asked by the marketplace to let our prejudices and xenophobia (fear of difference) go, and happily “eat the other.”
Two fine examples of this “eating” are the Hollywood film The Bodyguard and the independent film The Crying Game. Both films highlight relationships that cross boundaries. The Crying Game is concerned with exploring the boundaries of race, gender, and nationality, The Bodyguard with boundaries of race and class. Within their particular genres, both films have been major box office successes. Yet The Crying Game received critical acclaim while The Bodyguard was overwhelmingly trashed by critics. Magazines such as Entertainment Weekly gave grades of “A” to the first film and “D” to the latter. Though it is certainly a better film by artistic standards (superior acting, more complex plot, good screen writing) the elements of The Crying Game that make it work for audiences are more similar to than different from those that make The Bodyguard work. The two films are both romances. They both look at “desire” deemed taboo and exploit the theme of love on the edge.
At a time when critical theory and cultural criticism calls us to interrogate politics of locations and issues of race, nationality, and gender, these films usurp this crucial challenge with the message that desire, and not the realm of politics, is the location of reconciliation and redemption. And while both films exploit racialized subject matter, the directors deny the significance of race. Until The Bodyguard, American audiences had never seen a Hollywood film where a major white male star chooses a black female lover, yet the publicity for the film insisted that race was not important. Interviewed in an issue of the black magazine Ebony, Kevin Costner protested, “I don’t think race is an issue here. The film is about a relationship between two people, and it would have been a failure if it became a film about interracial relationships.” Similarly, in interviews where Neil Jordan talks about The Crying Game he does not racially identify the black female character. She is always “the woman.” For example, in an interview with Lawrence Chua in Bomb magazine, Jordan says, “Fergus thinks the woman is one thing and he finds out she is something different.” Both these assertions expose the extent to which these white males have not interrogated their location or standpoint. Progressive feminist thinkers and cultural critics have continually called attention to the fact that white supremacy allows those who exercise white privilege not to acknowledge the power of race, to behave as though race does not matter, even as they help put in place and maintain spheres of power where racial hierarchies are fixed and absolute.
In both The Crying Game and The Bodyguard it is the racial identity of the black “female” heroines that gives each movie its radical edge. Long before any viewers of The Crying Game know that Dil is a transvestite, they are intrigued by her exoticism, which is marked by racial difference. She/he is not just any old black woman; she embodies the “tragic mulatto” persona that has always been the slot for sexually desirable black female characters of mixed race in Hollywood films. Since most viewers do not know Dil’s sexual identity before seeing the film, they are most likely drawn to the movie because of its exploration of race and nationality as the locations of difference. Kevin Costner’s insistence that The Bodyguard is not about an interracial relationship seems ludicrously arrogant in light of the fact that masses of viewers flocked to see this film because it depicted a relationship between a black woman and a white man, characters portrayed by big stars, Costner and Whitney Houston. Black female spectators (along with many other groups) flocked to see The Bodyguard because we were so conscious of the way in which the politics of racism and white supremacy in Hollywood has always blocked the representation of black women as chosen partners for white men. And if this cannot happen, then black females are rarely able to play the female lead in a movie as so often that role means that one will be involved with the male lead.
The characters of Dil (Jaye Davidson) in The Crying Game and Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston) in The Bodyguard were portrayed unconventionally in that they were the love objects of white men, but they were stereotypically oversexed, sexual initiators, women of experience. Dil is a singer/’ho (the film never really resolves just what the nature of her r
ole as a sex worker is) and Rachel Marron is also a singer/’ho. Traditionally, Hollywood’s sexual black women are whores or prostitutes, and these two movies don’t break with the tradition. Even though Dil works as a hairdresser and Marron makes her money as an entertainer, their lure is in the realm of the sexual. As white racist/sexist stereotypes in mass media representations teach us, scratch the surface of any black woman’s sexuality and you find a ’ho— someone who is sexually available, apparently indiscriminate, who is incapable of commitment, someone who is likely to seduce and betray. Neither Dil nor Marron bothers to get to know the white male each falls in love with. In both cases, it is love—or should I say “lust”—at first sight. Both films suggest the feeling of taboo caused by unknowing that actual knowledge of the “other” would destroy sexual mystery, the feeling of taboo caused by unknowing, by the presence of pleasure and danger. Even though Fergus (Stephen Rea) has searched for Dil, she quickly becomes the sexual initiator, servicing him. Similarly, Marron seduces Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner), the bodyguard she has hired. Both films suggest that the sexual allure of these two black females is so intense, that these vulnerable white males lose all will to resist (even when Fergus must face the fact that Dil is not biologically female). During slavery in the United States, white men in government who supported the idea of sending black folks back to Africa gathered petitions warning of the danger of sexual relations between decent white men and licentious black females, asking specifically that the government “remove this temptation from us.” They wanted the State to check their lust, lest it get out of hand. Uncontrollable lust between white men and black women is not taboo. It becomes taboo only to the extent that such lust leads to the development of a committed relationship.
The Bodyguard assures its audiences that no matter how magical, sexy, or thrilling the love between Rachel Marron and Frank Farmer is, it will not work. And if we dare to imagine that it can, there is always the powerful theme song to remind us that it will not. Even though the song’s primary refrain declares “I will always love you,” other lyrics suggest that this relationship has been doomed from the start. The parting lover speaks of “bittersweet memories, that is all I am taking with me,” then declares, “We both know I am not what you need.” Since no explanation is given, audiences can only presume that the unspoken denied subject of race and interracial romance makes this love impossible. Conventionally, then, The Bodyguard seduces audiences with the promises of a fulfilling romance between a white male and a black female only then to gaslight us by telling us that relationship is doomed. Such a message can satisfy xenophobic or racist moviegoers who want to be titillated by taboo even as they are comforted by a restoration of the status quo when the film ends. White supremacist viewers can find their own insistence on the danger of racial pollution and race-mixing confirmed by the film, and nationalist black folks who condemn interracial relationships can also be satisfied. The rest of us are left simply wondering why this love cannot be realized.
When we leave the realm of cinema, it is obvious that the dynamics of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy—which has historically represented black females as “undesirable mates” even if they are desirable sex objects, and so rendered it socially unacceptable for powerful white males to seek committed relationships with black women—continue to inform the nature of romantic partnership in our society. What would happen to the future of white supremacist patriarchy if heterosexual white males were choosing to form serious relationships with black females? Clearly, this structure would be undermined. Significantly, The Bodyguard reaffirms this message. Frank Farmer is portrayed as a conservative Republican patriarch, a defender of the nation. Once he leaves the black woman “she-devil” who has seduced and enthralled him, he returns to his rightful place as keeper of the nation’s patriarchal legacy. In the film, we see him protecting the white male officers of state. These last scenes suggest that loving a black woman would keep him from honoring and protecting the nation.
Ironically, even though The Crying Game interrogates the notion of a pure nation by showing that Europe is no longer white, that European citizens are multicultural as well as multicolored, it too suggests via its characterization of Fergus that a white Irishman can sever his ties to nation and his commitment to fighting for national liberation by becoming romantically involved with a black woman. Though Neil Jordan’s film, unlike The Bodyguard, suggests that this break with national identity can be positive, he does so by suggesting that the national identity one wants to give up is one in which freedom must still be struggle. National identity in England, his film suggests, is not fluid, not static, not so important. In this way, his film deflects the imperialist racism and colonialism of Britain and makes it appear to be the location where everyone can be free, no longer confined to categories. In this mythic universe, fulfillment of desire is presented as the ultimate expression of freedom.
In keeping with a colonizing mind set, with racial stereotypes, the bodies of black men and women become the location, the playing field, where white men work out their conflicts around freedom, their longing for transcendence. In Fergus’s eyes, the black male prisoner Jody (Forest Whitaker) embodies the humanity his white comrades have lost. Though a grown man, Jody is childlike, innocent, a neoprimitive. In the interview with Chua, Jordan confirms that he wanted to represent Jody as childlike when he says that in this relationship Fergus “was like the mother.” Jody alters the power relationship between himself and Fergus by emotionally seducing him. He represents emotionality and, like Dil (another primitive), is not cut off from his relation to feeling or sensuality. The film highlights the depiction of black males and females as childlike and in need of white parents/protectors. And even though Rea attempts to reverse this representation as the film ends by turning Dil into the caretaker, the one who will nurture Fergus, he reinscribes racial stereotypes through both representations.
Fergus “eats the other” when he consumes Jody’s life story, including the mythic narrative that shapes the black man’s worldview, and then usurps his place in the affections of Dil. As the film ends, Fergus as white male hero has not only cannibalized Jody, he appropriates Jody’s narrative and uses it to declare his possession of Dil. Jordan asserts that “his obsession with the man leads him to reshape her in the image of the guy he’s lost.” Black bodies, then, are like clay—there to be shaped so that they become anything that the white man wants them to be. They become the embodiment of his desires. This paradigm mirrors that of colonialism. It offers a romanticized image of the white colonizer moving into black territory, occupying it, possessing it in a way that affirms his identity. Fergus never fully acknowledges Dil’s race or sex. Like the real-life Costner and Rea, he can make black bodies the site of his political and cultural “radicalism” without having to respect those bodies.
Most critical reviews of The Crying Game did not discuss race, and those that did suggested that the power of this film lies in its willingness to insist that race and gender finally do not matter: it’s what’s inside that counts. Yet this message is undermined by the fact that all the people who are subordinated to white power are black. Even though this film (like The Bodyguard) seduces by suggesting that it can be pleasurable to cross boundaries, to accept difference, it does not disrupt conventional representations of power, of subordination and domination. Black people allow white men to remake them in the film. And Dil’s transvestism appears to be less radical when she eagerly offers her womanly identity in order to satisfy Fergus without asking him for an explanation. Fergus’s actions are clearly paternalistic and patriarchal. Dil gives that Billie Holiday “hush now, don’t explain” kind of love that misogynist, sexist men have always longed for. She acts in complicity with Fergus’s appropriation of Jody.
Those of us who are charmed by her defiant, bold manner throughout the film are amazed when she suddenly turns into the traditional “little woman,” eager to do anything for her man. She is even willing to kill. Her aggressio
n is conveniently targeted at the only “real” woman in the film, Jude, who happens to be white. When Dil assumes a maternal role with Fergus she shifts from the role of ’ho to that of mammy. But when Dil is lured to believe Fergus will be her caretaker, the roles are suddenly reversed. There is nothing radical about Dil’s positionality at the film’s end. As “black female” taking care of her white man, she embodies a racist/sexist stereotype. As “little woman” nurturing and waiting for her man (let’s remember that girlfriend did not faithfully wait for Jody), she embodies a sexist stereotype.
Throughout much of The Crying Game, audiences have the opportunity to watch a film that disrupts many of our conventional notions about identity. The British soldier is black. His girlfriend turns out to be a transvestite. Fergus readily abandons his role as IRA freedom fighter (a group that is simplistically portrayed as only terrorist) to become your average working man. In the best sense, much of this film invites us to interrogate the limits of identity politics, showing us the way desire and feelings can disrupt fixed notions of who we are and what we stand for. Yet in the final scenes of the film, Fergus and Dil seem to be primarily concerned with inhabiting sexist gender roles. He reverts to the passive, silent, unemotional, “rational” white man, an identity he sought to escape in the film. And Dil, no longer bold or defiant, is black woman as sex object and nurturer. Suddenly heterosexism and the Dick-and-Jane lifestyle are evoked as ideals—so much for difference and ambiguity. Complex readings of identity are abandoned and everything is back in its place. No wonder, then, that mainstream viewers find this film so acceptable.
In a culture that systematically devalues black womanhood, that sees our presence as meaningful only to the extent that we serve others, it does not seem surprising that audiences would love a film that reinscribes us symbolically in this role. (I say symbolically because the fact that Dil is really a black man suggests that in the best of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal, imperialist worlds the female presence is not needed.) It can be erased (no need for real black women to exist) or annihilated (let’s have the black man brutally murder the white woman, not because she is a fascist terrorist but because she is biologically woman). Because I considered Jude to be first and foremost a fascist, I did not initially see her death as misogynist slaughter. Critically reconsidering the scene in which Jude is murdered, I realized that Dil’s rage is directed against her because Jude is biologically female. It cannot be solely that she used the appearance of femininity to entrap Jody, for Dil uses that same means of entrapment. Ultimately, despite magical transgressive moments, there is much in this film that is conservative, even reactionary. Crudely put, it suggests that transvestites hate and want to destroy “real” women; that straight white men want black mammies so badly they invent them; that white men are even willing to vomit up their homophobia and enter a relationship with a black man to get that down-home service only a black female can give; that real homosexual men are brutes who batter; and ultimately that the world would be a better, more peaceful place if we would all forget about articulating race, gender and sexual practice and just become white heterosexual couples who do not play around with changing roles or shifting identity. These reactionary messages correspond with all the conservative messages regarding difference in The Bodyguard.