Although The Sellout by Paul Beatty contains innumerous amounts of humor
throughout the whole novel, the novel addresses real topics that African
American men and women face in the United States. Because Beatty choses to
address these topics with humor and satire (although Beatty does not enjoy
being called at satirist), it does not change the fact that these topics affect
real people. For example, although the inhabitants of Dickens tend to be
depicted as total lunatics, the city of Dickens does reflect real cities in the
United States; black cities affected by poverty, racism, crime, drugs, etc.
Dickens is a town that makes the people who live there feel like they can never
escape, like they are trapped by their circumstances. For example, when career
day is held at the local middle school, Bonbon begins by sarcastically explaining,
“but nothing could dissuade Charisma from making sure her students would have
the benefit of discovering the tens of career opportunities available to
indigent minority youth in today’s America” (Beatty 156). As one first reads this quote, they would
expect Bonbon to be saying something more similarly to the tens of thousands of
career opportunities available in America, as the idea that one can do whatever
he or she chooses to do is so strongly pushed in this country. Instead, Bonbon knows
for minority races, they are stereotypically associated with a handful of low-promising
careers. Further, when describing the people there to present their careers at
Career Day, it included a bus driver and a few farmers. Again, this group of
people just further pushes the stereotype of the careers minorities are
expected to earn after finishing their education.
As mentioned before, Dickens is
mostly inhabited by minority groups, mainly African Americans and Latinos.
Because of this, the topic of racism is heavily addressed and carried
throughout the book. But, many characters
in the novel choose to tip-toe around racism, as both in the book and in real
life, people struggle with knowing how to properly address the situation. Bonbon thinks to himself in one of the Dum
Dum meetings, “Like, why blame Mark Twain because you don’t have the patience
and courage to explain to your children that the ‘ n-word’ exists and that
during the course of their sheltered little lives they may one day be called a ‘nigger’
or, even worse, deign to call somebody else a ‘nigger’ (Beatty 97). Bonbon’s thoughts to himself show the same
mindset the real citizens of America carry when it comes to racism, teetering
between actually addressing the topic or attempting to teach those younger than
them that it either does not exist or is continuing to disappear. Although the
wording of Bonbon’s thoughts may seem crude and in-your-face, it does not take
away the authenticity of the topics addressed in this novel. I think by Beatty choosing to use humor as
his way of conveying these harsh topics, it forces readers to see them in a
different lights and actually confront them, because many people avoid thinking
about them at all.
Your suggestion of using The Sellout as a satirical piece was very interesting, as I approached it more as a farce, due to the experiences the reader faces that appear almost slapstick in nature. Because of these highly improbable solutions, it almost paralleled many of the children’s books that I have read, due to Beatty’s ability to use humor as a vice to employ deeper undertones about society as a whole. The use of humor not only demonstrates the overall ability to comprehend the negative emotions surrounding many of the sensitive topics that are discussed, like the censorship of the “n-word” by replacing “it with ‘warrior’ and the word slave with ‘dark-skinned volunteer,’” but it also creates a more friendlier approach to discuss certain topics (95). It allows entitled readers to understand the complex emotions felt by those in the minority. Through exaggerating the intangible aspects of sensitive topics, Beatty allows the reader to not feel the stress that such taboo topics mean. The extreme uses of profanity help to provide comfort to the reader and act as comic relief, as evidenced when Cuz is discussing the importance of Rosa Parks, a symbol of the Civil Rights movement, describing her actions as someone who “bitch-slapped white America” (184). This is a cruder reference regarding someone that is considered to be very emotionally attributed by many.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you mentioned The Sellout's use of humor to discuss controversial yet important issues. The Sellout is one of those books that has had me laughing out loud at how comical and ridiculous some of its scenes are, but it is important to note why Beatty makes the book so funny and ludicrous while addressing issues about race and racism in America. On one hand, the humor in the novel makes reading about racism and prejudice that the narrator encounters much more palatable for readers, but the novel's ridiculousness often highlights real ridiculousness in America today.
ReplyDeleteOne such scene in the book occurs after the narrator's father dies due to police brutality when he is shot in the back while unarmed. After the narrator drags his father's body to a meeting with the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals, the narrator proceeds to put his father's body on a horse and precedes to gallop down the street where cops eventually block his path on the street. After being stopped, the police crisis negotiator demands his father's corpse and says that the system will hold the killers accountable to which the narrator responds, "In the history of the Los Angeles Police Department, do you know how many officers have been convicted of murder while in the line of duty? The answer is none, so there is no accountability" (50, 51).
Throughout the ridiculous imagery being presented of the narrator transporting his father's body on horseback, Beatty slips in a fact that is equally ridiculous to the scene that is existing. Beatty was not making it up when he wrote that no officer has ever been convicted of murder while working for the Los Angeles Police Department at the time this book was written and attempts to convey that absurdity through ridiculous imagery as just described, highlighting how serious the issue of police brutality and lack of accountability for police who kill unarmed civilians is.