"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated February 09, 1908:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (SEPTEMBER 26, 2020):
Welp… This is literally, hands down, the most upsetting comic of the entire series thus far… - 1/28
I say this because though it really starts to synthesize all of the philosophical, postmodern questions about the "real" that we've been discussing thus far in Befuddle Hall, it also contains the most awful and egregious example of racism that I've seen thus far. - 2/28
When I started reading this strip in my massive Taschen, my mind immediately began racing as I thought about all of the incredibly cool discussion that could be had about this strip. - 3/28
I wanted to ask how Nemo could possibly forget what the Princess looks like already (that isn't even a good representation of her; she isn't blonde!) - 4/28
I wanted to explore how the text-within-a-text acted to remind us that we were also reading (and in my case reading an actual book) as a way to create a meta-inception as the real reads the fictional reading the fake… - 5/28
But then I got to panel 9 and my jaw *literally* (I'm not kidding) dropped open. - 6/28
Somehow, though I'd taken in the page through iconic solidarity, it had gone unnoticed… the second I saw it, I felt as though I'd hit a brick wall. I had to momentarily pause and register what it was I was looking at. - 7/28
What it is, is an unforgiveable example of simianization that more than anything else I've witnessed so far within the #LittleNemo series reveals the true depth of horrible racism that permeated the early 20th Century American culture. - 8/28
Seeing this image caused me incredible discomfort and I genuinely feared the idea of having to discuss this strip here. But, that said, it also reignited for me a postmodern truth that I sometimes forget in favour of leaning back on old habits… - 9/28
This (lower t) truth, if you'll permit me, is that Magritte's #TreacheryOfImages is a lie. - 10/28 [INSERT IMAGE HERE]
The declaration that it's image is "not" a pipe relies on an idea of a separation between reality and representation. However, Magritte's pipe seems to be "the reflection of a profound reality" or a representation "of the sacramental order" (Baudrillard, 1981, p. 6). - 11/28
Magritte's pipe is the perfect imitation of a 2D pipe; there is a sort of religious idolatry in it's perfection that reflects back at the viewer a near perfect simulation of reality. - 12/28
But, Magritte juxtaposes the image with text that reads "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" or "This is not a pipe". How can the viewer reconcile this blatant contradiction? Of course, it's a pipe. IT'S RIGHT THERE… - 13/28
Sadly, this is the interpretation that many take away from this work; that the contradiction is the point and that Magritte wants his viewers to recognize that an image is nothing but an image; that it reflects no reality because it is not real. - 14/28
Indeed, many have used Magritte to support the idea that artistic representations of violence (for example) are harmless because they're only paper and ink. This is a common justification that people use to argue against the danger of violent video games and other media. - 15/28
If it was something more than hate and blatant racism that went through McCay's mind at the time of his drawing panel 9 of this strip, one might argue that it was the belief that caricatures were harmless because they were only paper and ink. - 16/28
Yet, while this reading of Magritte has largely questioned the image… it has failed to challenge the linguistic accompaniment. Why do we take the text at face value but question the image? - 17/28
The word "pipe" has no more claim to a real pipe as the image-as-pipe does, and yet we accept it's claim. By doing so we usher in what Baudrillard calls the "order of simulation" (p. 6) through this acceptance of a replacement/referent for the real. - 18/28
This "hyperreality" (p. 12), where the real is replaced entirely by it's referents, challenges the distinction between the real and the un-real because it suggests that the distinction is no longer important; the line between has been blurred beyond recognition. - 19/28
In the case of this racist caricature of Impy as evidence of hyperreality, it reinforces structures of systemic racism and white supremacy by claiming to reflect reality, while it really only masks the absence of one. - 20/28
Yet, in a hyperreality where the distinction between the real and un-real has been erased, the image (now misinterpreted as real) reinforces the harmful, racist prejudices that sought to denigrate Black Americans. - 21/28
And, again, we see words under the caricature that, rather than draw our attention to the contradiction (as Magritte's do), reinforce the obfuscation: "you look more like a baboon" - 22/28
In Magritte, "truth" and "truth"/"real" and "real" battle it out, forcing us to see the contradiction through frictions… In McCay were see "truth" and "truth"/"real" and "real" walk side by side through hyperreality, content in their treachery and it’s impact on a viewer. - 23/28
So, while Magritte's #TreacheryOfImages lies to us by attempting to reinscribe the boundary between real and un-real, it also challenges us to recognize the treachery of hyperreality as a way to force us to see it's obfuscation of the "real". - 24/28
To reveal hyperreality, means revealing the structures of simulacra that threaten to replace/have replaced the real. Images like McCay's, on the other hand, that maliciously "denatures a profound reality" (p. 6) through caricature, blurs that line… - 25/28
…and (probably unconsciously) replace the real truth about Black Americans in the eyes of young impressionable readers with this false simulacra of simianization that dehumanizes an entire race of people. - 26/28
We've seen many caricatures, many harmful representations, many verbal denigrations and more than a few difficult moments of racism in #LittleNemo. This one though is particularly menacing and, whether it was intended to or not, reads as profoundly dangerous. - 27/28
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #122. What's yours? - 28/28