The Problem of the Color[Blind]: Racial Transgression and the Politics of Black Performance by Brandi Wilkins Catanese (review)

Harkening back to W. E. B. Du Bois's concluding assessment in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) that "the problem of the Twentieth Century [would be] the problem of the color line" (4), Brandi Wilkins Catanese's new book offers an insightful interdisciplinary approach to examining race in the twenty-first century, declaring it to be a "problem of the color-blind" (6; emphasis in original). Catanese describes advocates of color-blindness as "those who wish to disavow the continued material manifestations of race in our society" (6). In an effort to understand the current supposedly postracial state of America, Catanese critically examines the aftermath of the 1980s and '90s culture wars by focusing on the emergence, varied meanings, and implications of the term "color-blind" as a means to illuminate the nuances of racial identity.

Influenced by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Catanese situates race as a historical process that treats bodies as "cultural sites upon which ideas are routinely mapped," rather than an ontological condition that is "entirely real (biological) or entirely illusory (social construct)" (18). Drawing on the theories of Michel Foucault and Georges Bataille, Catanese privileges the body as a productive site of cultural activity, and suggests that performance allows for the body to be restylized, noting that such restylizations have the power to expose racial discourse, transgress racial boundaries, and "force the possibility of progressive action" (21). In the theatre, she maintains, such performances can generate disruptions that iterate outward from the actor's body to broader sites of cultural meaning.

Taking up the scholarly debates of the 1990s about color-blind casting, Catanese challenges the idea that such a practice can transcend racial difference. As she points out, transcendence presumes that racial categories can be overcome rather than dismantled, revealing the "moral limitations of transcendence as the framework for racial healing." Moreover, she notes the inherent paradox of colorblind performances that, in fact, enact moments of racial transgression that could be used as part of a strategy for social change (22). For Catanese, such color-blindness, along with a strictly quantitative approach to multiculturalism, are "far more ideologically linked than they are oppositional responses to the politics of racialized representation." Since neither achieves its goal, Catanese calls for a "new vocabulary and evaluative framework" that focuses on how performance in particular can "intervene against the limitations that stereotypes impose upon black expression" (3). In the following chapters, she presents three engaging case studies that explore the implications of black performance in theatre and film.

In chapter 2, Catanese investigates "institutional pressures influencing black performance in America" by focusing on the widely publicized debates about color-blind casting between playwright August Wilson and theatre critic Robert Brustein, and subsequent responses from theatre practitioners and scholars. She provides thoughtful close readings of Wilson's and Brustein's arguments, situating them within their respective frameworks of Black Power politics and mainstream professional theatre to demonstrate how racial thinking continues to inform their positions. As Catanese points out, "cultural institutions are key sites through which, inadvertently or not, race continues to receive material support belying the simple discursive tricks that color-blind politics attempt to enforce" (23). Catanese therefore ultimately advocates institutional support for artists of color within American theatre institutions.

Chapters 3 and 4 analyze the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality in the representation and performance of race in popular culture. Chapter 3 examines two film adaptations of novels starring Denzel Washington, The Pelican Brief and Devil in a Blue Dress. In an analysis of key scenes from both, Catanese compares each film to its source novel, paying particular attention to Washington's agency as a performer. She brilliantly examines how his performance of "nontraditional" roles actually reveals the nuances of race in his portrayal of interracial heterosexuality. In her fourth chapter, Catanese provides a close reading of Suzan-Lori...