NatureCriminal7896;4270482 said:
What are you talking about it? i understand the dance but graffiti on the cars and windows is what i think 83magic is talking about. there was a problem with the graffiti to racist people but Michael dances makes you get the picture.
There is a lot in the article but here are a few excerpts:
“Making the Dream Palatable (but to Whom?)
No wonder most subsequent airings of Black or White ended before we even glimpse the black panther and we never see Jackson transform from that animal into his dream self (who might actually be his real self). However, in addition to eliminating the panther dance completely, there is a second recutting of Black or White, one that keeps the panther sequence while making several key changes. Primary among these is
an attempt to render the violence intelligible through digitally superimposing racist graffiti on the car and window that Jackson destroys”
The dominant and digitally altered version argues that violence like Jackson’s can be understood only if it comes as a response to overt racism (rather than, as in the original, a response to structural racism)—and in this case
Jackson is now taking action against a racism that makes no sense—except to a white audience unprepared to confront Black anger."
"
My interest here is in exploring the vilification and misunderstanding of the panther dance as a systematic process tied up quite directly and very deeply with racial dynamics in the United States. If, as Eric Lott says in his own insightful commentary on Black or White, we can take Jackson’s message to be a “report on the contradictions of racial identity,” what is also striking is the
systematic way in which that report continues to be either misread, edited, or ignored in ways that support racial hierarchies rather than dismantling them."
In general (but the detailed analysis is fascinating and should be read)
"I will argue that Jackson’s famous four-minute panther dance explores the complexity and impossibility of being a Black performer for popular audiences whose tastes and priorities are largely constructed along the lines of white normativity."
"...there is a palpable tension between what is being represented visually and what is being said; in Black or White the abstraction of language actually undermines what we see. It is no accident that the words of the song continually say “It don’t matter if you’re black or white,” but the song’s title is shortened to Black or White. With this move,
what is arguably the song’s key statement—“it don’t matter”—has been redacted, and in contrast what we see, with the bodies on display, is that “it” matters quite a lot. Most reviews took these images at face value, complaining that the representation was hokey and unrealistic. My argument is that, on the contrary, these two-dimensional portrayals were part of the point"
"The appearance of the panther comes
just when the idea that we are all getting along is exposed as a production number, and the morphing is revealed to be mere technological tricks. Color blindness, too, is being called out as a technology used by society to achieve “equality” or “democracy.”
The whole message is that this “I don’t see color” notion is a sham—and the real world is out there, outside that door that leads into the street.
And out there on the street is all that real stuff that we simply cannot or will not talk about. Stuff like racism and sex and violence. And we get all of those in the four minutes that follow, as Jackson wordlessly articulates his anger and rage, using what John Fiske calls the “loud speech” of action taken in the street."
"To clarify the difficult layerings of dream and reality in the panther dance, it is necessary to describe what precedes it.
Nothing Jackson does takes place in a free space. Ostensibly the star of Black or White, Jackson is neither the first nor the last person we see in the film: instead, our first glimpse is of the angelic face of Macaulay Culkin, and our last is of Homer Simpson. White families open and close Black or White, setting up the initial conditions for Michael Jackson’s performing while Black: he is framed by whiteness"
"The dream Jackson presents is one of breaking free of the boundaries that have limited his artistry, and under the circumstances, this action cannot be taken without enacting some violence. Black dreams are not about utopia—how could they be"
“Like Dunham’s fantasy ballet,
the panther dance rejected the demands of white audiences for “Black entertainment” and instead offered a statement about Black identity. No jungle wiggles, no titillating jiggles.
Jackson’s panther dance is a taking off of the mask, a revelation of the abiding rage and anger that whites both fear and suppress: a truth that cannot be morphed into something palatable either in dreams or in reality.”
https://www.academia.edu/2462183/Mi...he_Uncanny_Business_of_Performing_While_Black