Going Unrepresented
Why, How, and to What Ends Representation Matters (also, for unknown reasons, a reference to Herbie the Love Bug and the Love Bug franchise)
Because entire generations have lost faith that their lived experiences will be addressed in any meaningful sense by the governments that allegedly represent them, we now focus intently on how our lived experiences show up (or fail to show up) in the cultural sphere.
This isn’t to say that all those born after, say, the late ‘70s are apathetic towards electoral politics or laws as such, but rather that there is (to our eye) a tacit recognition that voicing assent or dissent, voting, and all the other mechanisms of interacting with governmental powers are often and largely ineffective while, on the other hand, assent and dissent (so long as it is voiced by money or in such a way that their acquisition of money appears genuinely threatened) in regards to cultural products created by media conglomerates tend to result in identifiable and concrete results. This isn’t necessarily a good thing - but it is, as far as we can see, a very real thing.
Governments aren’t seen to be very sensitive to the voice of the people whereas media corporations (and their stockholders) are (in a manner of speaking) sensitive to the (actual or imagined) actions of the consumer. This makes sense. A (democratic) government’s concern for the people is directly relative to how proximate they are to an election whereas oligarchical media corporations are constantly and immediately concerned with their customers or, if we want to be a little less cynical at the outset, their audiences. Formal democratic action only happens on certain days whereas cultural markets are open for business all the damn time.
Besides the fact that corporations appear to be more responsive or at least quicker to respond (albeit always reactionarily so) to people than governments, there’s another good pragmatic reason that many of us center our expressions of love and rage, support or opposition, on cultural products rather than party politics, namely, that cultural products seem to be more accessible, evenly distributed, and influential than many (or even most) acts of legislation.
The most trivial cultural product seems to have an impact on hearts and minds (i.e. prompts people to reckon with themselves and the state of the world) than most bits of legislation. It feels correct, further, to say that The Fast and Furious franchise has had a more influential (albeit diffuse) effect on attitudes and behaviors relative to cars than have most of the motor vehicle related bits of legislation in recent memory. This is more a matter of perception than reality, but perception goes a good way towards framing reality as reality.
Our perception of cultural products as more immediately and directly influential than laws and the like, in part, has to do with their (potential/imagined) reach. A cultural product, now, often addresses a global audience whereas the products of the political system (i.e. legislation) address much smaller groups (e.g. a province or state, a nation, a conglomeration of nations). While The Little Mermaid is circulating around the world in countless languages among countless people, new legislation regarding fishing and wildlife may be known to very few within one particular part of the world and affect fewer still. Cultural products aren’t geographically limited in the way that laws or other political actions are.
Moreover, cultural products aren’t temporally or historically limited in the way that laws or political actions are. The Little Mermaid will continue to circulate in its past and present forms for a good long while and reach new, younger audiences, etc. etc. whereas legislation tends to be amended or overturned in time. We don’t revisit or concern ourselves with old laws or retired politicians, but we do - regularly - revisit and concern ourselves with old cultural products and the (real and fictional) people involved in them. Ariel is here to stay in a way that political agents from 1989 (when the animated Mermaid first came out) and 2023 (when, you know, the new live-action Mermaid was released) are not.
Not only is Ariel here to stay, but her story and songs (and issues with forks) would seem to have had a far more lasting and meaningful impact on people than, say, the words or actions of Tom Foley (dare you to know who this is without looking it up) or Ed Broadbent (double dare you even) and will potentially have a more widespread and immediate impact than, say, the actions of Patty Murray (do you know this person?) or Pierrette Ringuette (10/10 name, but she is… what now?).
Cultural products, in short, not only have a (seemingly) broader reach than formal political operations, but also have greater constancy, longevity, and influence. Entire governments have ceased to exist, but Gone with the Wind stays Gone with the Wind, “White Christmas” (the best-selling single of all time) stays “White Christmas,” A Tale of Two Cities, etc. Political parties and legislation and wars, even, will come and go - but Celine Dion’s heart will go on. Whereas the residual and lasting effects of a political action (whether ameliorative or debilitating) take place across history and their efficacity would seem to diminish over time, cultural products are always readily here in the present and their force is nearly infinitely renewable.
Besides the disparity in influence, etc. that cultural products hold over political actions, cultural products also vie for our attention and engagement in a way that political actions do not. Cultural products are deliberately designed to be engines of empathy and antipathy. Political actions and the events that follow therefrom are not engineered to this end. Cultural products are made to please (in a broad sense of please) as many as possible whereas political actions and events are, well, not. Everyone involved in publishing a book, say, wants you to both know about and engage with (i.e. buy) that book. Everyone involved in passing a law does not want or (often) care whether you know about or engage with that law. It makes, then, good sense that we engage with the thing that is engineered for us to engage with. It makes good sense, moreover, to disengage from a system that is indifferent or outright hostile to our direct and actual cares or concerns.
We may be - seemingly - more invested in cultural products and more reverent of their work than political actions, but we are not uniformly invested or reverent. We are not, that is, concerned with every cultural product nor are we interested in all aspects of them. The majority of music, books, movies, etc. persist in relative obscurity. They receive little notice and less engagement. This doesn’t mean that they lack influence, but rather that their influence might only accrue slowly and make itself known subtly over time. We don’t pick and choose what gets attention, but we do all (seemingly) elect to attend to a few things all at once. Whatever your experience with Spiders-man, Spiders-man is something you have thoughts or feelings about (even if they consist of not caring about Spiders-man).
Why certain cultural products come to the fore rather than others has a million different (mostly unsubstantiable) answers, but those answers don’t really matter (here). It matters only that a) we care a lot about cultural products, b) a lot of people come to care in a focused way about certain cultural products (whether they want to or not) all at once, and, maybe most importantly, c) we care only about some parts of that cultural product.
Our engagement with culture is, in a non-pejorative sense, superficial. We care about what’s there before us - either in the press or in the product - rather than the means by which it got there or all the systems in place that shaped those means. The majority of people are not interested in the publisher of a book, the director of a tv show, the cinematographer of a movie, the engineer of an album, and so on. Instead, we care about authors, stories and characters. We care about singers and lyrics. We care about actors, plot, and (a select few) directors. We care, in short, about the most visible agents and immediately graspable parts of the thing.
The slogan REPRESENTATION MATTERS serves as a good catch-all for the crux of our concern with cultural products, but how or why representation matters (or is taken to matter) varies in a couple of crucial ways.
The first sense in which representation is said to matter is very simple. It is important that people and the qualities that pertain to them are represented in mass media. It matters that people of a certain race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, age, religion, and so on show up somehow. It is valuable simply to encounter (real or fictional) examples of all the different ways a person can be or be composed. We should take this as axiomatic.
The second sense in which representation is said to matter is a little more involved. It is important that people and their qualities are represented fairly. Some might say that we’re striving for “accuracy,” but this seems like a fraught goal and bad term. An accurate depiction of an individual is, legit, any depiction because individuals can be any type of way. So, instead, we want representation that strives (across various media) to fairly depict the vagaries and varieties of how people and their qualities manifest in the world.
To use a (sort of) apolitical example of these two things: we want, first of all, that “tall people” (broadly defined) show up in media. Given that there exist tall people, tall people ought to be represented. We want the media landscape to reflect the actual one. Our aesthetic demands are all, now, routed through and supported by political and ethical imperatives (because, as we said above, the formal arenas for political and ethical action have failed us and largely ignored us for a long time now).
We do not, though, just want “tall people” to show up only to reach things on high shelves, but rather to do and be things that demonstrate the various aspects of what it is like to be or be seen as a “tall person.” This will mean, of course, represented instances in which tallness is experienced as beneficial as well as instances where tallness is experienced as detrimental - but aaalllllsssssoooooo instances in which tallness just is and falls (sort of) into the background. We want representations of “tall people,” but not representations that take “tall” to be the only and exclusive aspect of “tall people.”
Just as it is unfair to suggest that any person is entirely defined by any one quality to the exclusion of all others, so too is it unfair to represent them that way. So, then, what counts as fair representation? Let’s, because this is already a long post, just say that “fair representation” is a representation that captures an experience or quality in as much detail and complexity as possible. For example, to be an archer involves more than just archery. A fair representation of “being an archer” would involve as many aspects of that life as one can meaningfully show. To show a person with a bow and arrow bowing and arrowing all day everyday would not represent them fairly. They’re people. They also do people things.
[This description might be overly didactic, but given how many deeply unfair and fucked up representations circulate in the world it seems to warrant stating explicitly. Paddington fucking bear has, for example, been given a more complex and nuanced treatment in films that people who have problems with substance abuse. The travails of transformers have been more sensitively depicted than folks with severe cognitive difficulties. This is fucked up and, because we’re feeling a certain type of way lately, we’re trying to assume that this fucked-up-ed-ness is accidental rather than deliberate.]
Fair representation might not be possible in a single cultural product, but one hopes at least to see it accomplished across a variety products. It would be nice if all representations were fair representations, but the imperfection of everything means that it’s not going to happen. Most people are going to be burdened with unfair representations. The fight, such as it is, is to see those unfair representations balanced out by fair ones. This is, especially pressing, because - as we’ve said - cultural products persist for a long time, assert strong influence, and so on.
OK. Why, then, do we want fair representation of everyone? Why are so many of our hopes invested in this seemingly very easily accomplished thing?
Representation matters on a personal level. To see an aspect of one’s experience represented affirms its existence. This affirmation can serve a bunch of purposes. You can test your experience against what is represented which, then, might help to clarify your feelings or thoughts about it. You can, perhaps, more readily identify or empathize with the (real or fictional) person who shares one or many of your qualities or attributes which, then, allows you to slip more deeply and feel more fully the work of the cultural product. It is, in short, good to see some part of your life fairly represented in media. It is, especially, good to see some part of your life reflected in media when the world we live in is seemingly dedicated to denying that that part of your life is meaningful or even extant.
Representation also matters on a social level. In some instances, people only know or see certain people (or qualities of people) by way of representations. A viewer’s circumstances might be such that, say, they’ve never experienced a very snowy winter and know nothing of people who live in places with very snowy winters. It is, then, good for them to learn and experience very snowy winters and the people who live through them somehow (when fairly represented). It is also (potentially) good for the snowy winter people to have others partially understand their circumstances. The social level of representation works to stitch the world’s disparate elements together to form a coherent and diverse whole.
This isn’t a matter of building bridges, but of creating maps. Representations give us a picture of what the world is like without giving us the means of navigating it exactly. We want good and fair maps because bad and unfair maps fuck everything up.
[Again, this might seem very obvious and didactic - but we hear people regularly complain about people’s deep investment in representation. They never explain why they think representation doesn’t matter, but they act as though it’s trivial or irrelevant or something. It’s maddening. If you find that you “don’t care about relating” to representations, then that just means you have enough already to relate to. If you find that the representation of certain experiences or qualities can’t possibly matter, then throw yourself a nice little party because your experiences and qualities have already been represented. Enjoy your privilege, jesus fucking christ, do you know how many words we have had to type because folks keep making this myopic and unfeeling fucking argument? Askldjfajkl;fjkl;asdf. OK. Back to it.]
The problem, of course, is that representation is (rarely) accomplished fairly or well. Folks tend to make messed up maps that enlarge or diminish some area or territory. So, then, to improve the chances for fair representation our concern falls behind the scenes on the (promise we’re going to drop this analogy in a sec) mapmakers. We want to see representations of certain people and qualities produced and enacted by people who, themselves, belong to certain communities and have certain qualities. We want the territory drawn by those who live there and know it intimately. We want tall stories by tall folks, snowy stories by snowy people, and so on. This is, of course, an imperfect way to guarantee fair representation , but it’s a decent and understandable position. Would you rather have a map of a city drawn by someone who had never set foot there or one drawn by someone born and raised there? There’s no certainty that one will be better or truer than the other, but there’s ground to prefer the latter sight unseen. It makes intuitive sense.
From where we’re sitting, this all seems perfectly non-controversial and obvious as a set of practices and desires. Why wouldn’t anyone want the representation of everything? Why wouldn’t they want said representations to aim towards fairness? Why wouldn’t you want people with certain experiences or qualities to participate in the representation of those experiences or qualities? Setting aside idiocy and bigotry, it is hard to understand any good faith arguments against the total and complete representation of every aspect of the world and its people in as many and various ways as possible.
We live in a world where there are FIVE HERBIE THE LOVE BUG movies as well as a tv series, so we can have maybe one or two bits of media about literally anything. In what universe is it even moderately ok that SENTIENT VW BEETLES are more frequently and fully depicted than MOST experiences or qualities that pertain to actual living humans?
The facts, though, are such that most qualities and experiences will not be fairly represented or even represented at all. Part of this comes down to the structures in place that guide the production of cultural objects, but also the structures in place that train and enable people to create cultural objects in the first place. Representation might matter, but - for many or most - it is not forthcoming. Just as in the political sphere, the cultural sphere has a narrow set of interests predicated on a skewed sense of who is worth addressing and how they’re worth addressing.
So, then, we fight over the meager representations of things we’re offered. Rightly so, given their import, and try, somehow or another, to encourage representations in directions we want. We champion representations we take to be good and fair, denounce those that we take to be bad and unfair. We buy things to endorse cultural products in the hopes that more like them will be made and (please! we beg!) avoid spending money on cultural products that we think are bad and harmful, etc. We make do with what we’ve got, for better or worse, and we exercise our political and ethical positions in terms of movies and books and music because other avenues are effective culs-de-sac.
We know well enough what to do or not do in regards to what is represented, but what do we do with or about all the stuff that goes represented? It is easy enough to criticize or critique what exists, but what about what doesn’t yet and may never exist?
To cite an easy example that’s close to this blog’s literal home: There is likely never to be a fair, popular media representation of anglophone life in Quebec. Anglophones in Quebec occupy the margins of the margins. The value of representing this community is not seen to extend beyond the bounds of the community itself. Who, other than English Quebecers, would care to hear or see English Quebecers as such? Moreover, who will support English Quebecers trying to tell stories or sing songs for or about English Quebecers? The representational future of our community is not hopeless, but it’s not hopeful either.
The same unrepresented future is shared, of course, by much larger communities who might benefit more fully from fair representation. Folks whose physical, cognitive, socioeconomic, etc. circumstances that are marginalized will, likely, only ever get piecemeal, imperfect showing across the popular cultural landscape. Stories about, say, people who are unhoused or people who live with disabilities or literally any endless number of particular qualities that are not (seen to) pertain to a large enough audience to turn a big enough profit will go untold.
Our understanding of ourselves, others, political structures, and everything else are - for the most part - delivered to us via screens or pages or speakers. Very few people, to return to an earlier analogy, have seen the world as a whole directly - but all of us have seen a map or, at least, can consult some maps if the desire so moves us. If our maps are imperfect or incomplete, then our worlds are (by extension) imperfect or incomplete. Since reality, as it pertains to certain people, goes and will go unrepresented, our perception of reality as such is hampered and/or impoverished.
So, then, what to do about going unrepresented? What does or can it mean to live in a part of the map that isn’t or won’t be filled in fairly or otherwise?
On the one hand, one could be grateful (at least) not to be misrepresented. It seems, from where we’re sitting, better to exist as a blindspot within the popular imaginary than to exist as a (perceived) blemish. Better, perhaps, to go untyped than stereotyped. This, though, is cold comfort. It’s a pretty dire world if we’re getting dewy-eyed about not being prejudicial depicted for the amusement or distraction of others.
A better, maybe, way of looking at going unrepresented is that it’s an opportunity to represent oneself. Of course, well, it’s unlikely that your attempt to depict your particular qualities or experiences (or those of others you take to be important) will see massive audiences or worldwide recognition, but there is something enticing about a blank canvas (even if the acquisition of the canvas is costly and the work of filling it in demoralizing, etc.). Making an attempt to participate in the representation of yourself, your qualities, or others is, though, a noble pursuit even if it never reaches fruition or achieves much acknowledgment at all. You will have tried to improve and enlarge the picture of the world people carry around with them. This, if you can swing it, is a beautiful and virtuous act.
What, though, if you have no desire to create representations and want only to engage with them? If you don’t want to or can’t participate in the creation of cultural products, well, then you might be forced to abstract away from particulars and draw endless analogies to your own experience. If you are a “tall person,” you might have to somehow make do with drawing parallels between other similar or related representations. This is frustrating and horrible work. Some might say that this is just the narcissism of small differences, but small differences are only small to those unaffected by them. With any luck, representations of some kind or another will enter your life that serve as a better salve or support despite being imperfect and non-identical. Again, cold comfort.
Just as there is no good argument to exclude certain people from representation in cultural objects, there is little good argument for the benefits of going unrepresented. Given that cultural products are seen as the only real arena for the expression and depiction of our lived experiences, to be cut out or off from them can be dizzying and awful. Your experiences, qualities, etc. can come to seem unreal, immaterial, and nestled uniquely within you. Moreover, you can see others unable or unwilling to believe in the existence and import of your VERY REAL experiences, etc. You can end up distanced from yourself and everyone else. It’s an isolating and alienating thing to imagine that not only are you alone, but that no one cares enough to even acknowledge that your aloneness exists or matters.
BUT - yes, but there is something liberating about being overlooked or ignored by the representational regime of cultural products. It means that your life, truly, is entirely your own to craft. This is daunting and terrifying, but also maybe invigorating. There are no stories about you other than the one you tell yourself. There are no narratives or images against which to measure the infinitely peculiar quanta and qualia of your life. You, so to speak, get to draw the map as it pertains to you. You limn the territory of your world and, if you so decide, share it only and exclusively with those you want. You represent yourself to yourself, give credence, and affirm your own experiences.
[Sidenote: Be kind to yourself! Be generous and patient! Love your little corner of the globe for all its awkward and gorgeous features. Treat it as the precious and alterable thing it is.]
Individualism only goes so far, though, but it (maybe) serves as a good first step by which to find other people, charting similar territories, and with whom you can combine your efforts to somehow make sense of the treacherous landscape we’ve each differently inherited.
Maybe that’s too optimistic, but given that representation (or, in other words, acts of translating the particularities of lived experience into a set of signs and symbols that can be shared with and understood by others) is something we do or engage with by necessity rather than by choice it maybe is absolutely crucial to hold onto a little optimism here. Representation in culture is one of the last and only aspects of the world whereby each of us, no matter our particular station, can encounter possibilities and opportunities and chances that (seem to) exceed the rigid boundaries of this world. It is in and through representation that we can see a way beyond or over the intractable power structures or foregone social conclusions that subtend this cursed earth.
It is in representations, finally, that we might be able to chart a world in which our voices, experiences, and hopes are expressible and recognized and heeded in avenues other than culture. We can’t create a new world altogether, but we can represent one in which we are free, respected, and encouraged. Through representations, we can see or make seen a world other and better than this one.
And maybe, in time, our territories will come to better resemble the better maps we create in the meantime.
This may be unrealistic, but that might be the entire point.
Clearly your best piece so far. (It will definitely require a second reading.) It is intimidating to even consider commenting on it... One bit really stands out for me, and I quote: "It’s an isolating and alienating thing to imagine that not only are you alone, but that no one cares enough to even acknowledge that your aloneness exists or matters." In the context of an English-speaker living in Quebec nowadays, that comment speaks loudly (probably because I know so many of them). Thanks for this profound post.
the little mermaid and fishing/wildlife in the same sentence = a real LAUGH OUT LOUD moment.
"given that representation (or, in other words, acts of translating the particularities of lived experience into a set of signs and symbols that can be shared with and understood by others) is something we do or engage with by necessity rather than by choice it maybe is absolutely crucial to hold onto a little optimism here" and "It is in representations, finally, that we might be able to chart a world in which our voices, experiences, and hopes are expressible and recognized and heeded in avenues other than culture"
- yes to going unrepresented in theory but in actuality this new third thing which can be described as maybe seeking ways to represent ourselves to the best of our ability and to share in all the ways creatively, relational-y, in the culture objects we make, engage with and attend to, we try anyway - it's what we can do and still feel authentic and true to ourselves.