I first read David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice months ago, actually. But of course, a blog about it is so much more timely now.
Sedaris is the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, a collection of short stories which won me over immediately with its totally dysfunctional, self-deprecating humor. Plumbs the riches of growing up a gay man in North Carolina. The first story -- oh, you've got to read it. I don't want to give it away.
So clearly I've been a fan. Which is why it really smarted to pick up his holiday collection of stories (and c'mon, I don't pick up holiday collections of anything), only to be brought up short by some old school, unsophisticated, not-even-funny, just plain racism.
I'm reading along, there are elves and department store santas, and then with no warning -- the story is called "Season's Greetings to our Friends and Family!!!" for chrissake, not "Holiday Slutty Gooks" -- there she is: The Vietnam whore.
She has infiltrated the hapless household of her Vietnam Vet father, who is now married with three children, and traipses around the house in her underwear trying to seduce both her half-brother and her own *father* in broken English. Granted, the story is narrated by the hysterical white housewife, hardly a sympathetic figure herself as portrayed here, and Sedaris's style is definitely to exaggerate everything.
However, I'd believed in my heart of hearts that as a gay man, he'd be a little more savvy to the differences between satire and bigoted caricature. So what are the differences? Certainly, there's the difference between making fun of your own -- culture, family, nation -- and someone else's. Membership has its privileges, and critique is the highest of these. (Actually, I believe thoughtful critique is the highest *duty* of membership, but that's for another day.) Not least because, I presume, when you make fun of what's yours, it's from a position of understanding it rather well, of being inextricably emotionally attached to it, and even of being implicated by your own critique. When you make fun of what is someone else's, none of the above necessariily apply, and in their absence, criticism often fails to be nuanced, or complex, or sympathetic. It's just mockery, simple and mean.
How do I know that Sedaris knows nothing about -- and worse, cares nothing to know about -- who and what a Vietnamese character might be? He has named the whore-child "Khe Sahn." These are not Vietnamese names. They're not even Vietnamese spellings. (You never see "h" before "n" in Vietnamese -- it's always "n" before "h." "Anh" is Vietnamese; "Ahn" is not. "Sahn" is nothing.) Would it have been that hard to find a Vietnamese name? Ask a Vietnamese person? Rather than feel entitled to make one up? Not that that would've made the story better, to have a properly spelled name for the gook. But it's pretty damning when an experienced author can't be bothered to do a little Googling, because it matters so little to him to get it right.
Thanks, David. Merry Christmas to you, too.
Posted by erin at December 23, 2005 2:36 AM
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I can't remember the story very well--I read it years ago--but isn't it the epitome of the "unreliable narrator", whose every observation of the Vietnamese child has to be called into question? If I'm remembering it correctly, the story ends in a pretty nasty way, doesn't it?
And as a side note, the story was originally featured in "Barrel Fever", which came out in 1995. Sedaris couldn't have done any Googling, seeing as how Google didn't really exist back then.
thanks for the comments, Francis. yup, it's true the housewife is an Unreliable Narrator. also true that the ending is nasty in an acquitting sort of way: narrator accuses Vietnamese interloper of killing her illegitimate grandchild by putting the baby in the washing machine, but is actually the one responsible.
to know that the narrator is unreliable, though, doesn't necessarily re-humanize that which she's dehumanized. i won't try to prescribe what re-humanizing would look like, but it would act as a kind of counternarrative -- subtly subversive by all means, but you'd have to make the effort to do it b/c it wouldn't happen on its own. and without it everyone ends up looking bad: A's a murderer, B's a whore. two wrongs, you know, not necessarily canceling out.
i stand behind my point about looking for information though. not hard, even before the literal existence of Google, to find actual Vietnamese names. but you'd have to make the effort to do it.
I agree. You go into very dangerous territory when you start caricaturing other people's cultures, especially cultures which have been traditionally the target of racism. which is why I've written a lot about racist mascots and why the "Redskins" and the "Braves" bother me but the "Fighting Irish" doesn't. Membership does come with privileges and nonmembership should come with a responsibility to be respectful.
Presumably the name is a reference to the battle of Khe Sanh, "intensely televised" in 1968. Perhaps the idea was that this was the sort of name that a deranged American might have plucked out of the air. Even the misspelling could be justified along those lines, I suppose.
But to zoom out a little, the use of offensive material can't be justified simply by the explanation that the narrator is bigoted. Regardless, the author is still asking us to read pages of crap. It had better be interesting in some way, not merely "defensible", or else the author is actually perpetrating the offense.
I came here via, the Carnival of the Feminists and I recognize that disappointment!
I had the same feeling when I watched a TV movie about MLK, Jr. and the Montgomery bus boycott that came out a few years ago.
After the boycott was successful and the leadership made the decision to get back on the bus, you see the actor playing MLK, Jr. getting on the bus and hear a voice-over, by the woman playing Coretta King, saying something to the effect of:
"Martin felt like Columbus discovering America when he sat down on the bus that day...."
As a long-time supporter of the American Indian Movement, I was appalled and amazed that a movie focussed on civil rights could use such a terrible metaphor. Sure, it's a fairly minor part of the story, but a slap in the face, nonetheless.