Analysis#7, "Who is Clayton Clayton?"

The You Tube clip posted here is meant to illustrate our culture's fixation on gender and ethnicity as we perceive it today. In this clip, some of the attitudes that exist in our society are illustrated, especially concerning gender and ethnicity. Though this is a satirical look, many of these very opinions are prevalent even in the enlightened year of 2010. As the women in the clip say, Clayton/Clayton has an "alternative lifestyle" that makes them uncomfortable. They question his sexuality and comment on the fact that he looks "swarthy" and may be of middle eastern descent. They also comment on the fact that he is "not a christian" and "not an American". What then, does that make him? In attempting to pigeonhole a person, we risk making broader assumptions about race, gender and sexual orientation which may or may not be correct. Langston Hughes writes in "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain", "The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites"(1194-1195). In trying to be true to oneself and trying to find a voice in an artistic sense, it can be difficult to mesh these two sometimes conflicting ways of "being". Langston Hughes hopes that Negro middle class people will turn away from what they think they should be and be able to"catch a glimmer of their own beauty"(1196). He notes that the younger generation seems more able to create a different persona than what is traditionally expected of them. It is interesting to note that this essay was written in 1926, yet seems very current today. The quote "I am a Negro-and Beautiful!"(1196) is timeless and resonates many years after the writing of this. Gloria Anzaldua also writes about the conflict in her book, "Borderlands/La Frontera:The New Mestiza"She speaks about the dichotomy between who one is, by birth, and who one is by society's definition. She writes"Because I, a Mestiza, continually walk out of one culture and into another, because I am in all cultures at the same time..."(2099), illustrating the difficulty many Latino women face today as they make their way in the world. "The new Mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be Indian in Mexican Culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view"(2100). The "New Mestiza" has to balance the expectations of their family with the expectations of a society that is many times color blind, or conversely, too focused on color. In viewing this You Tube clip with the ethnicity and gender readings in mind, one may come away with a very different view about who and what people are, based on who and what they could be incorrectly perceived to be. Works cited: Anzaldua, Gloria." Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza".Norton 2098-2109. Hughes, Langston. The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain". Norton 1192-1196. Leitch, Vincent B. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Second Edition. New York: Norton, 2010. Print. You Tube clip, "Women Against Clayton/Clayton" 2010