white, whiteness, and white girls

Because I am in a class about Identity politics, I have been very aware of the way that identity is played out on T.V. I really do not like to think that I watch a lot of T.V. but lately I do feel I have been indulging in a little escapism. Thankfully I don’t actually have to watch many shows often to get a good sense of how identity is portrayed. The show that I have a big issue with currently is “Lipstick Jungle,” I have only watched an episode or two, (someone in my house secretly likes to watch it every week), but I was very disappointed. Lipstick Jungle descends from Sex in the City, which I really do/did love. I completely acknowledge that although Sex in the City managed to give a multifaceted view of (upper-middle-class, white, straight) women’s sexuality in the late 90s, it did nothing other than promote white as the norm. I had hopes that in the 21st century version of the “powerful and sexual women’s” show we would actually get to see a little bit of diversity. I’m sure this show is aimed at some specific target group, but this was a great opportunity that I think the show’s producers missed out on.
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I was excited to read about the show titled “Whiteness: A Wayward Construction.” In my opinion, some of the other shows that have been breaking down identity are lacking the critical aspect of “outsiders.” In Freestyle, as far as I know, only African Americans commented on blackness. In Post-Jewish, although the curator seemed to expand the boundaries by showing work by Jews who could be considered controversial, the line was still drawn at those who are Jewish. Of all of the races “white” is the one that needs to be analyzed the most. When thinking about the museum shows we have talked about so far this semester, Bad Girls, Freestyle, Whiteness: A Wayward Construction, White! Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art, Post-Jewish, I am glad that the art world is slowly trying to at least consider and critique stereotypes. The art world has always seemed to be a home for outsiders and yet it has historically been racist and sexist. I still feel that we have a long way to go but I think the first step towards a truly post-ethnic art world is to be aware and at least work to break stereotypes.
A quote from “From White to Whiteness,” by Tyler Stallings:

“The privilege conferred by whiteness is to be considered human and normal, to be viewed as a multifaceted, complex, and mutable individual, as opposed to being categorized, fixed, and kept in place. If we want to live in a society where others enjoy the same privilege, it will be necessary for whites to acknowledge both their nature as racial beings (even if we accept that race is largely a social construct) and the way that whiteness has operated, often by stealth, to maintain social and economic hierarchies.”

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Wendy Ewald created a piece of art titled “White girl’s alphabet.” The piece consists of images combined with text to create an alphabet. Ewald worked with a specific group of high-school girls to create this alphabet, they helped choose images to pair with the letters and wrote statements for each one. Ewald “was interested in finding out how the girls’ choice of words and images reflected the ongoing campus debates about gender and race.”
Out of the letters in the alphabet, I felt that the letter “N-Normal” was the “whitest” of them all. The image paired with this letter is of young white woman standing straight in the middle of the frame. I strongly feel that this just reinforces the idea that white is normal and anything else is weird, bad, or other. The other letters that stood out as being very white were the letters “R- Rebel,” (white man smoking a cigar) and “W-Weight,” (two fairly thin white women comparing stomaches). I wish I had the images to show you but I can only find imagery from one of Ewald’s other alphabet series. After showing the girls the series all put together, the girls were “astounded at how revealing they were,” and they felt that it was "sad." Did they also see how well they were reinforcing myths about whiteness?