The Dismissal of Jes Grew and Similarities in Today's Society
To be completely honest, after reading Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, many parts of the book continue to be completely incomprehensible to me and I am still struggling to piece the various plotlines together. At the beginning, Jes Grew was one of these puzzling phenomena that made no sense. What really is Jes Grew? Is it an actual plague? Why are people so angry about it? However, I am pleased to say that I am now a changed woman. From our in-depth class discussions on the importance of Jes Grew, I can confidently say that I can not only provide a definition of Jes Grew, but my own depiction of it in today's culture.
At the beginning of Mumbo Jumbo, we are introduced to Jes Grew as something that makes people dance provocatively. However, Reed only refers to Jes Grew using the vocabulary that one would normally use with infectious disease, which confused me for a bit. Words such as “pandemic”, “infection”, and “immune” had me wondering if we were talking about an actual disease. However, as the story went along, we learned that Jes Grew actually refers to the dance people do when they listen to music such as jazz. It was referred to as a plague in the book due to how it spread throughout society and caused people to groove with the music.
Jes Grew was seen as a threat to many of the people in Mumbo Jumbo because of what it signified. Since jazz came from African-American roots, it signified the acceptance of African-American culture into white American society, which appalled many people. In class, we talked about similarities in today’s culture. One such example was Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance, where her dancing was thought to have incited anti-police rhetoric. Whenever an African-American voice gets heard in society, many people automatically assume that the platform is dangerous and has the potential to harm others. Critics also trashed on the art form itself, saying that the lyrics were incomprehensible and called the dancing provocative.
Another example of unexplainable hostility against African culture was when a reporter made racist comments against Zendaya’s hair in 2015. Zendaya was wearing dreadlocks, and a (white) reporter said her hair looked like it smelled like “patchouli oil and weed.” This again shows an example of the racial biases we hold against African culture in our society to this day, likening a traditional hair style to drugs. Zendaya’s example was a specific example with media coverage, occurrences like this happen in day-to-day life. Traditional African hairstyles are often thought of as dirty and unprofessional, even when it is simply a representation of culture.
In Mumbo Jumbo, Jes Grew represented a societal change that receive backlash for no reason other than the fact that its roots came from African-American musicians. While Mumbo Jumbo was obviously an exaggeration of the disdain jazz received from society, there is truth in how people were quick to reject an art form because of its heritage. Unfortunately, the phenomena that Jes Grew represented in the novel still persists in today’s society as well. Whether it be dance, hip hop, or hair, many people still view black cultural appreciation as a threat to society and try to repress it.
Zendaya's example is a great one! No matter how trendy something is, it is often disparaged if it is traced back to African heritage. Yet, it faces less heat if it's a white person participating in a certain trend. I think of Kim Kardashian when she wore dreadlocks and initially received praise for making "braids trendy" while receiving backlash for cultural appropriation later. It would have been interesting to see something like this happen with The Wallflower Order in Mumbo Jumbo.
ReplyDeleteAs Rithika mentioned, I find it interesting that the Zendaya example can be connected to how certain culturally significant clothing or hairstyles are seen as unprofessional and gross, yet when a white person dresses in this manner, it's deemed "beautiful" and "chic." I had also thought of Kim Kardashian wearing dreadlocks and it becoming more "trendy" because of her. Additionally, I was reminded of the France hijab ban, where hijabs were criminalized, yet there was later advertisement for a different form of headscarf by a French (non-Muslim) woman. There was a flood of comments that promoted this woman's scarf, yet bashed the hijab. The stealing of culture may be represented by the art in the story, but I wonder how Reed could have further implemented this into Mumbo Jumbo in regards to jazz.
ReplyDeleteHello Anuprova, I enjoyed reading your post. I completely agree that manifestations of Jes Grew and African culture are seen by a threat by many people, even today unfortunately. This backlash is definitely a core piece to something carrying Jes Grew. This means that Jes Grew is not necessarily a sign of times being good, but of progress. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI believe an example of Jes Grew in more modern times could also be rap music. Rap music faces similar types of backlash as jazz did back in the early twentieth century. Many critiques call it "not real music" or that it is a bad influence on the youth. Without directly saying, they are calling it a plague, whether they believe that to be a plague of society or a plague of music. And so long as rap faces opposition, it will continue being a form of Jes Grew.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Lots of people view rap music as not real music, cheap, incomparable to earlier forms of music, and I think that definitely has to do with its origins. The counterculture emergence of rap is very in line with the spread of Jes Grew.
DeleteHi, I like that you mentioned that a lot of hostility towards African American and African culture still exists in society today - rap is obviously a very good example and someone talked about TikTok in another blog post, which also relates quite well. A lot of arguments you hear is that the youth are being 'corrupted' or that the moral foundations of society are crumbling and race definitely plays some part in this. Nice job on this post!
ReplyDeleteI like to entertain the concept that Jes Grew cannot necessarily "win out" over it's opposition. The Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral can never truly extinguish the Wallflower Order because there will always be a Hinckle Von Vampton in the world who doesn't agree with the new ideas coming into society. Jes Grew, in addition to representing culture, portrays change - evolution. Unfortunately, in our modern day way of life, it's quite easy for people to show their disdain for a new development, particularly an art form such as Hip-Hop and Rap. However, that aspect of how we work sociologically suggests how we will always keep changing and evolving and building on the work of others before us to create new things, a concept I can definitely get behind. Great topic.
ReplyDeleteI find it so interesting how Jes Grew and atonism is still very prevalent even today, and it's easy to see as long as we put on our "Ishmael Reed glasses" as Mr. Mitchell likes to call it. I think another example of jes grew being opposed today is rap music, as it is being treated similar to jazz with claims of it not being real music or plaguing our youth. Nice job!
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