- Produced Media
- Arrested Development, S3 E13
- Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyêwùmí, Colonizing Bodies & Minds
“Yet the two following passages from Fanon are typical of the portrayal of the native in the discourses on colonization: ‘Sometimes people wonder that the native rather than give his wife a dress, buys instead a transistor radio.’ And, ‘the look that the native turns on the settler’s town is a look of lust, a look of envy; it expresses his dreans of possession – all manner of possession: to sit at the settler’s table, to sleep in the settler’s bed, with his wife if possible. The colonized man is an envious man.’” pp 121
- In Oyêwùmí’s Colonizing Bodies & Minds, she is determined to question the conventional and gendered ways of viewing colonization. Specifically, theorists like Frantz Fanon have built their understandings of colonization through a male-centered perspective that defines colonialism as the “taking away of the manhood of the colonized.” Quickly on the first page, Oyêwùmí asks, where does that leave colonized women? It is a truly fascinating piece that in the end, casts a dark shadow of doubt around colonization theory both established and those that are ‘novel’ and ‘radical’.
- Arrested Development – one of my favorite shows of all time – is centered around the Bluth family who have fallen from their gracious status as multi millionaires after the father George is placed in prison. The central perspective of an ultra rich white family means that much of the dialogue and framing plays with their fundamental ignorance and frequent displays of racism and – for a lack of a better term – class unconsciousness. However, the clip I have shown here – where Annyong, a Korean child adopted by the Bluths exposes that he was working undercover to exact revenge for his grandfather – plays into a different type of racial trope. This is not as overt as the egregious acts of the Bluths we are meant to see as ridiculous and absurd. This almost appears as just normal. The fact that immediately after confessing his true intentions into entering the Bluth family Annyong expresses his desire for Maeby (one of the teenage girls in the Bluth/Fünke family) is extremely interesting when we consider the Fanon quote Oyêwùmí mentions. Annyong’s two statements existing in the same line of dialogue is not coincidental – we have identified the theory that those colonized hold hunger for revenge and try to manifest it through intimate/sexual relationships with female members of the family.
- Watching the show and especially this storyline now feels a lot different than before. Understanding this framing of colonization as something mainly experienced by men and as ultimately the concession of their masculinity clearly removes narratives and storylines of the relationships between womanhood and colonialism. When I found myself procrastinating on work this semester by watching Arrested Development and came across this moment, I instantly ran to my tablet and look at the Oyêwùmí text.
*If the Annyong storyline or Arrested Development’s premise still is confusing, you can read a better explanation here.