Benjamin and Bhabha’s two theories on the mimetic faculty and mimicry, respectively, have some astounding arguments about human nature’s compulsion to be “the same”. Man wants to mimic what he sees, and significant similiarties are subsequently created because of man’s impulse to do so. However, these two theorists differ in a very important way.
While Benjamin explains man’s desire to find and to produce similarities, Bhabha discusses man’s desire to inflict similarities on other peoples. Benjamin says man has “the highest capacity for producing similarities” because mimesis occurs throughout human history and is a method of expressing the self through art and imitation (720). Bhabha, on the other hand, discusses similarity in a negative light: he says that mimicry “emerges as one of the most elusive and effective strategies of colonial power” (126). Thus Bhabha’s theory on similarity is that the oppressor wants to make the oppressed similar to him so that he can remain powerful, but he does not want the conquered to become exactly the same for fear of losing that power.
These are very confusing topics…but they make more sense in the context of Rolling the R’s.
In the chapter “The Two Filipinos,” Edgar and Nelson argue over Nelson’s race. Nelson does not want to identify as Filipino because he doesn’t “want to be called a dogeater or a gardender for the rest of [his] life” (68). Nelson comes from an upper-class neighborhood (that we saw when the kids were selling chocolates), and does not want to identify with the Filipinos. He essentially makes them the “others.” He wants to maintain power, as Bhabha would say, by being different from the Filipino kids. He instead calls himself American. In this instance we don’t necessarily see Nelson conquering the other kids with his difference, but we certainly see a power struggle between Nelson and Edgar. Edgar says, “just cuz your father one lawyer and your mom one nurse,” doesn’t mean that Nelson is better than them. Nelson says that although they are similar, they are not quite the same, which sounds just like Bhabha’s quote of “a difference that is almost the same but not quite” (126). Nelson essentially does not identify with the Filipino race because he wants to be better than them, and so he finds a difference between himself and the “inferior” ethnicity.
Your lead in by first examining how the two theories are similar to each other was very effective - it allowed you to emphasize what differs between the two. Your close reading itself was also incredibly excellent; however, I believe that you left out how Nelson's identity as an "American" has him relate not to just Filipinos, but also the traditional white American. While Nelson may use the term as a way of being dominant of the other Filipinos as well as a separation mechanism, how does this impact his relationship with those Americans he aspires to be? Do they look down on him as a lesser, and use a defining characteristic such as race or ethnicity to separate themselves from Nelson? This is, in a way, similar to post-structuralism in that the conquerer could potentially also be the conquered in another situation; thus, this could continue over and over. Just a thought - hopefully it made sense!
ReplyDeleteI was going to choose this scene but you beat me to the punch! Your analysis is spot-on especially when you mention Nelson not associating himself with the dogeating, gardening Filipinos. He wants to be American, the "colonial power" according to Bhabha which is funny because America actually did colonize the Philippines. However, in the end, he can not avoid the fact that he looks every bit like a Filipino, not a Caucasian American (compare with Stephen Bean).
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