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| The white male gaze in full-effect |
The reason I did not initially cover the hoopla surrounding the homoerotic Doritos commercial is that I disliked it from the moment I saw it.
It seems, to me, to be filmed through a white supremacist lens, hearkening back to the demeaning stereotypes that regard the black man as the Black Buck--a hung, sexually insatiable savage whose libido could only be tamed through unjust rape laws designed to both castrate and lynch him.
However, in a recent interview with No More Down Low TV, the African American gentleman who participated in the commercial--George King, a personal trainer from Compton, CA--discusses the fact that he has been openly gay since he was 19 years old. That, to me, was worthy of coverage.
In his defense of the commercial (and he, of course, has to be an apologist for it; otherwise, he would be forced to realize himself as a pawn, sell-out, and a kind of traitor), King denies there being any racially offensive themes in the video. While he admits that the commercial's creator was looking for someone who was "big, masculine and muscular," he says that the role did not specifically call for a black man. Nevertheless, there was a black man cast and the director, if he did not wish to evoke a long history of dehumanizing characterizations, could have either cast a white man in the role King played, or could have cast two black men. But that requires a consideration and thoughtfulness that racists rarely wish to engage in, mainly because they feel they should not have to. It is easier for them to do what they wish by attempting to silence the opposition.
Racism deniers always have the same argument: They deny racism as a motivating factor because they fail to acknowledge how it can inform their choices subconsciously or unconsciously. They believe that racism is always a conscious act. And they must believe that because it is the only way they can be absolved of the majority of their crimes, the ones committed subtly, surreptitiously, by matter of course and white privilege. Racism, they say, is lynching, the Ku Klux Klan, and using the "n-word," but it is not avoiding black people on the street, grabbing one's purse when a black man walks into an elevator, throwing away resumes with ethnic-sounding names, or trafficking in stereotypes deemed harmless or humorous in "post-racial" America. The narrower they can define the term, the more they are permitted to partake without being labeled. It is a passive form of racism, but it is still racism.
Another position passive racists take is that the opposition makes everything about race. What they do not gather is that, as Beverly Smith says, "In a white supremacist culture, actions and concepts that have nothing to do with race become imbued with racial meanings."
What is saddest about this is that my criticism will be most uncomfortable for many black people--those who participate in the white supremacist paradigm, admire its power, seek to emulate it, or worse, enjoy the objectification and view it, in this particular case especially, as complimentary.
In any event, here are the videos for your review.
The commercial:
The interview: