Wednesday, November 4, 2020

U.S. Minorities Seen Needing Control Over Production

Viet Than Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Sympathizer" and not an uncontroversial character based on what I have previously written about him, has expressed a somewhat Marxist view of what U.S. non-white minorities need to do to get their stories told.

They need to acquire control over "the means of production," he told the Los Angeles Times.

“If you come from a so-called minority, let’s say me as an Asian American, you live in a condition of narrative scarcity: almost none of the stories are about you. ... If Black people and other people of color and other minorities don’t control, or don’t have control, over the means of production, they really don’t control their stories. They are subject to the whims and mercies of people more powerful from them — the producers and the owners — who can dictate what kinds of stories are told,” Nguyen said.

The author appeared to be talking mainly about film and other expensive forms of story telling as opposed to writing, but his point is nonetheless in the tenor of the times: a perceived need to end "white privilege" and to even "cancel" the culture associated with it.

But it seems a little behind the curve. There doesn't seem to be a pronounced shortage of stories involving or about minorities at present. Rather, perhaps all too belatedly, there seems to be a determined push toward greater diversity with respect both to the nature of the stories being told and who is telling them. For evidence of that, consult the arts sections of major American newspapers and magazines on regular basis.

Just one example: the leading candidate for this year's Tony award for the best play on Broadway (before theaters closed for the pandemic) is "Slave Play" by Black playwright Jeremy O. Harris.

No comments:

Post a Comment