Nakamura-Whiteness

Nakamura talks about the visual culture on page 97 as, “long excluded non-Asian people of color, in particular Latinos and African Americans…,” She goes on to talk about the Matrix Trilogy (namely the second and third films) as dealing with “whiteness” in the visual field of new media. Putting into conflict the issue of whiteness generates the same conflict for new media, the creator. Looking back through chapter 3, it was evident that not much has changed over the years with depiction of color, explicitly blacks. Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus) appears as almost a revelator and exposes Neo to the truth. Despite his laudable role or portrayal as dominate black character, he is still a support, or sustains Keanu Reeves character. What I ascertained was that Nakamura relates racial dominating influence can’t help but permeate the relationship between machine culture and the subject it interfaces with. There has always been a lack of black dominated roles in media and they are predominately clichéd. Looking to Aliens 3, Charles Hutton portrays a heroic yet profoundly disturbed individual on a prison planet that saves Sigourney Weaver from ultimate sexual violence and death. His portrayal supports the starring actress yet cast him in the too often ethnic stereo typing seen in new media and well as old. This unnecessarily conveys a cultural dichotomy that invades every facet of media and computer interfacing. Another influential movie that was my first real indoctrination into the racial divide in film was “A Dry White Season,” by Euzhan Palcy. I was fortunate to be working with my uncle at CBC studios during the music editing, and met some of the cast members and the director. My experience with Apartheid and racial representation in film were null. I was quickly schooled in what it meant to be black in a white world, from a black country in turmoil. My perceptions were so off base (naïve), some due to age but also ignorance. Luckily, I spent long hours watching and learning about how film portrays blacks and the racial implications. I did not realize it at the time but it gave me some early insight and has helped me understand Nakamura. What I did learn and Nakamura points out is that information and the interfaces we use to portray text and visual images are the perception of the visual culture.