Boardwalk Empire
So tonight's episode of Boardwalk Empire made me feel a lot of things about race and gender. Like A LOT of things. I'm putting my analysis under a cut just in case but I needed to articulate it a little. First, because I love the show and want to wrap my head around how to feel about this weirdly ambiguous thing I've watched and second, because it's weird... weird in a bad way...? Good way...? Miscalculated way...?
So here's the set up. Chalky White, an illiterate black man, is the de facto boss of the black community in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the Prohibition Era. He has a right hand man named Dunn Purnsley, also black. Both of them work for Nucky Thompson, the crime boss of Atlantic city. He is white. After the events of season 3, Chalky white convinces (or rather leverages) Nucky to give him the destroyed property on the boardwalk that was once one of Nucky's clubs. Nucky agrees to rebuild it into a night club where African Entertainers dance, play music, and put on shows. This is unheard of and Nucky at first balks, thinking it's a bad move, but he eventually agrees. Chalky White opens the season 4 premier with a white man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Pastor. Mr. Pastor is a talent scout for mainly black entertainers and he is attempting to do business with Chalky but is clearly looking down on Chalky, his business, and the people he represents. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pastor sneaks her information into Dunn Purnsley's pocket. Later on, we see Dunn and Mrs. Pastor in a hotel room in the "black part of town," as described by Mr. Pastor. They are in the middle of having sex when Mr. Pastor reveals himself inside the bathroom holding his gun. Dunn thinks this is a case of a jealous husband. Mrs. Pastor immediately attempts to claim rape.
This is something that was actually an issue in the early 1900s. Probably even now although not so overtly.
But as the conversation continues it becomes clear that Mr. and Mrs. Pastor do this often. Mrs. Pastor brings the black men in and then Mr. Pastor forces the man to continue copulating with his wife while he touches himself. He in fact begins to do this as Dunn proceeds to continue his sex act (now unwillingly) to the delight of Mrs. Pastor. But instead of finishing, he quickly attacks Mr. Pastor while he's distracted and murders him. Mrs. Pastor manages to get away. In tonight's episode, we follow-up with this loose end when Mr. Pastor resurfaces with a mysterious man named Dr. Valentin Narcisse, a Trinidadian (?) man who is apparently the boss of Mr. Pastor and who owns a piece of each of the entertainers who are now working for Chalky. Immediately this gives the whole situation a interesting dynamic. Mr. Pastor, a white man, who had some clear disdain for black men, was in fact under the power of a much more intelligent and powerful black man. This black man in turn appears to display his influence over Chalky, a man who cannot read and is not well read and has spent the last 3 seasons stubbornly proving to everyone else on the show that he is worthy of his position despite those things. Dr. Narcisse quickly proves too much for Chalky to handle. When Chalky refuses to discuss what happened to Mr. Pastor to Dr. Narcisse, Narcisse forces all of Chalky's entertainers to stop performing which forces Chalky to hold a meeting with Nucky present. Chalky is attempting to be his own person now, a peer to Nucky, so having Nucky there to basically reign Chalky in and then calmly accept Dr. Narcisse's business conditions strips Chalky of some of his credibility. At their meeting, Mrs. Pastor tells the story of how Dunn raped her and murdered her husband. Both Chalky and Nucky know it's a lie but Dr. Narcisse appears to believe her. He even his some speech about how a white woman's word is held higher than that of a "Libyan" or black man. Dr. Narcisse, from what we've seen, doesn't seem to hold African Americans up to very high regard. Is it because he's from Trinidad? Other evidence proves this, such as when he refers to himself as a king and to Chalky as a servant. I think that in many ways he sees Chalky as not in full control of his surroundings, no matter how hard he tries, and thus they cannot truly be equal, not in the way that he sees himself and Nucky as equals.
He does leave without any more trouble though after they all agree that he is entitled to 10% of the club's earnings. Once gone, Dr. Narcisse begins speaking to Mrs. Pastor again. He makes an allusion to her "impurity." I'm not sure if it's her proclivity for seducing black men with her husband and then forcing them to have sex with her at gun point or just her being a liar. Either way, it's clear he's known she was lying about the rape the entire time.
"What would you like me to do about [Dunn]?" he asks her as they're driving. "The rope?"
Mrs. Pastor nods through teary eyes. It's then that Dr. Narcisse reveals that he knows. She attempts to continue the charade but it's too late. His driver and his other henchman stop the car and then drag her out, a noose in hand.
"I was raped!" she screams.
"I don't doubt you were," he says. Then adds, "But it's a story I've heard one too many times."
This line leads me to believe that Mrs. and Mr. Pastor have done this often. Lured black men in to satisfy their sexual fetish. Then when things go awry or perhaps even as part of their game they have the man lynched on the grounds that the man had raped Mrs. Pastor. Dr. Narcisse allowed this to go on because he thought Mr. Pastor had a good eye for talent and was bringing him in a good amount of money. But once Mr. Pastor had gotten himself killed and left this loose end of a wife, there was no use keeping her around, especially not after he'd already used Mrs. Pastor to leverage control of 10% of Chalky and Nucky's business. Thus he decides to have her killed and in the manner she had previously killed her other victims. The last image we see is of her dead body in a construction site.
My gut instinct was to feel that justice had been done. This woman and her husband had leveraged the racism in their society to victimize black men for their own fun, doing what was essentially rape and then perhaps murder. But at the same time I was deeply uncomfortable with being made to be glad over the violent murder of a woman, a sexualized female character. A woman who is basically created to be conniving and lacking in morals. In a show that already SEVERELY lacks multi-faceted female roles and positive ones in general this is glaring. Then she is shoved into a plot line that is driven by a far more unambiguous race conflict where she is so clearly the villain and the audience is once again made to root for the violent punishment of a woman. We go, "YEAH!" as two men drag her from the car and hang her while another man watches. "Serves her right for lying about rape!" we scream.
And how fucked up is that? Because yes, I was angered by her accusations of rape. Especially because given the race element, she represented the way white people take black bodies and use them without regard. But rape is a topic that is so mired in misogyny, and the concept of false rape claims is already a murky topic. Women have a hard time being taken seriously when claiming it already, but having something like this in a show just complicates the matter. And the victimization of women in general is something that is all too common on TV.
At the same time, these scenes do reveal a thoughtful contemplation on race dynamics between African Americans and black people of non-American descent, the differences between educated black people and people like Chalky White who are looked down on by their more educated peers, and the way that white people continue to victimize and take advantage of black people even as they treat them as equals on the surface. Dr. Narcisse's brutal dispatching of Mrs. Pastor and Dunn's murder of Mr. Pastor is a visceral feeling of justice for the racism that has been addressed throughout the show and it puts power in the hands of the black characters in the language that all the other white men on the show speak: violence. But as a woman I find the choice of story to carry out this act and the subject matter chosen to deliver this perspective on Prohibition Era racism both disturbing and uncomfortable.
I'll keep watching the show because I'm interested to see where things go with this Dr. Narcisse and because Richard Harrow's sister looks pretty fucking badass, but I am also getting a little sick in general of the way women are becoming increasingly marginalized through sexualization and villainization on this show.
So here's the set up. Chalky White, an illiterate black man, is the de facto boss of the black community in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the Prohibition Era. He has a right hand man named Dunn Purnsley, also black. Both of them work for Nucky Thompson, the crime boss of Atlantic city. He is white. After the events of season 3, Chalky white convinces (or rather leverages) Nucky to give him the destroyed property on the boardwalk that was once one of Nucky's clubs. Nucky agrees to rebuild it into a night club where African Entertainers dance, play music, and put on shows. This is unheard of and Nucky at first balks, thinking it's a bad move, but he eventually agrees. Chalky White opens the season 4 premier with a white man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Pastor. Mr. Pastor is a talent scout for mainly black entertainers and he is attempting to do business with Chalky but is clearly looking down on Chalky, his business, and the people he represents. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pastor sneaks her information into Dunn Purnsley's pocket. Later on, we see Dunn and Mrs. Pastor in a hotel room in the "black part of town," as described by Mr. Pastor. They are in the middle of having sex when Mr. Pastor reveals himself inside the bathroom holding his gun. Dunn thinks this is a case of a jealous husband. Mrs. Pastor immediately attempts to claim rape.
This is something that was actually an issue in the early 1900s. Probably even now although not so overtly.
But as the conversation continues it becomes clear that Mr. and Mrs. Pastor do this often. Mrs. Pastor brings the black men in and then Mr. Pastor forces the man to continue copulating with his wife while he touches himself. He in fact begins to do this as Dunn proceeds to continue his sex act (now unwillingly) to the delight of Mrs. Pastor. But instead of finishing, he quickly attacks Mr. Pastor while he's distracted and murders him. Mrs. Pastor manages to get away. In tonight's episode, we follow-up with this loose end when Mr. Pastor resurfaces with a mysterious man named Dr. Valentin Narcisse, a Trinidadian (?) man who is apparently the boss of Mr. Pastor and who owns a piece of each of the entertainers who are now working for Chalky. Immediately this gives the whole situation a interesting dynamic. Mr. Pastor, a white man, who had some clear disdain for black men, was in fact under the power of a much more intelligent and powerful black man. This black man in turn appears to display his influence over Chalky, a man who cannot read and is not well read and has spent the last 3 seasons stubbornly proving to everyone else on the show that he is worthy of his position despite those things. Dr. Narcisse quickly proves too much for Chalky to handle. When Chalky refuses to discuss what happened to Mr. Pastor to Dr. Narcisse, Narcisse forces all of Chalky's entertainers to stop performing which forces Chalky to hold a meeting with Nucky present. Chalky is attempting to be his own person now, a peer to Nucky, so having Nucky there to basically reign Chalky in and then calmly accept Dr. Narcisse's business conditions strips Chalky of some of his credibility. At their meeting, Mrs. Pastor tells the story of how Dunn raped her and murdered her husband. Both Chalky and Nucky know it's a lie but Dr. Narcisse appears to believe her. He even his some speech about how a white woman's word is held higher than that of a "Libyan" or black man. Dr. Narcisse, from what we've seen, doesn't seem to hold African Americans up to very high regard. Is it because he's from Trinidad? Other evidence proves this, such as when he refers to himself as a king and to Chalky as a servant. I think that in many ways he sees Chalky as not in full control of his surroundings, no matter how hard he tries, and thus they cannot truly be equal, not in the way that he sees himself and Nucky as equals.
He does leave without any more trouble though after they all agree that he is entitled to 10% of the club's earnings. Once gone, Dr. Narcisse begins speaking to Mrs. Pastor again. He makes an allusion to her "impurity." I'm not sure if it's her proclivity for seducing black men with her husband and then forcing them to have sex with her at gun point or just her being a liar. Either way, it's clear he's known she was lying about the rape the entire time.
"What would you like me to do about [Dunn]?" he asks her as they're driving. "The rope?"
Mrs. Pastor nods through teary eyes. It's then that Dr. Narcisse reveals that he knows. She attempts to continue the charade but it's too late. His driver and his other henchman stop the car and then drag her out, a noose in hand.
"I was raped!" she screams.
"I don't doubt you were," he says. Then adds, "But it's a story I've heard one too many times."
This line leads me to believe that Mrs. and Mr. Pastor have done this often. Lured black men in to satisfy their sexual fetish. Then when things go awry or perhaps even as part of their game they have the man lynched on the grounds that the man had raped Mrs. Pastor. Dr. Narcisse allowed this to go on because he thought Mr. Pastor had a good eye for talent and was bringing him in a good amount of money. But once Mr. Pastor had gotten himself killed and left this loose end of a wife, there was no use keeping her around, especially not after he'd already used Mrs. Pastor to leverage control of 10% of Chalky and Nucky's business. Thus he decides to have her killed and in the manner she had previously killed her other victims. The last image we see is of her dead body in a construction site.
My gut instinct was to feel that justice had been done. This woman and her husband had leveraged the racism in their society to victimize black men for their own fun, doing what was essentially rape and then perhaps murder. But at the same time I was deeply uncomfortable with being made to be glad over the violent murder of a woman, a sexualized female character. A woman who is basically created to be conniving and lacking in morals. In a show that already SEVERELY lacks multi-faceted female roles and positive ones in general this is glaring. Then she is shoved into a plot line that is driven by a far more unambiguous race conflict where she is so clearly the villain and the audience is once again made to root for the violent punishment of a woman. We go, "YEAH!" as two men drag her from the car and hang her while another man watches. "Serves her right for lying about rape!" we scream.
And how fucked up is that? Because yes, I was angered by her accusations of rape. Especially because given the race element, she represented the way white people take black bodies and use them without regard. But rape is a topic that is so mired in misogyny, and the concept of false rape claims is already a murky topic. Women have a hard time being taken seriously when claiming it already, but having something like this in a show just complicates the matter. And the victimization of women in general is something that is all too common on TV.
At the same time, these scenes do reveal a thoughtful contemplation on race dynamics between African Americans and black people of non-American descent, the differences between educated black people and people like Chalky White who are looked down on by their more educated peers, and the way that white people continue to victimize and take advantage of black people even as they treat them as equals on the surface. Dr. Narcisse's brutal dispatching of Mrs. Pastor and Dunn's murder of Mr. Pastor is a visceral feeling of justice for the racism that has been addressed throughout the show and it puts power in the hands of the black characters in the language that all the other white men on the show speak: violence. But as a woman I find the choice of story to carry out this act and the subject matter chosen to deliver this perspective on Prohibition Era racism both disturbing and uncomfortable.
I'll keep watching the show because I'm interested to see where things go with this Dr. Narcisse and because Richard Harrow's sister looks pretty fucking badass, but I am also getting a little sick in general of the way women are becoming increasingly marginalized through sexualization and villainization on this show.