Pre class Post - bell hooks

In Bell Hook’s essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” he talks foremost about Otherness and how ‘we’, white people, desire it. It is something that is different from the norm and when we see Otherness, it excites us. “…there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference. The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling.” (Hooks 366) Instead of a white male having sex with a white female it is more exciting, more interesting, although more intense to have it with someone Other; with a Black or Asian female. According to Hook it is more desirable because it is not ‘normal’. “When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other.” (Hooks 367) Hook argues that we almost ‘shop’ for Otherness like we would ‘shop’ for anything else since race has been commodified in our society/ culture. I believe Hook is saying that a white male, being the dominant race, can ‘shop’ for an African American female. He further says that stepping into ‘difference’ for the white male is exciting and ‘will provide a greater, more intense pleasure than any that exist in the ordinary world of one’s familiar racial group’. (Hooks 369)

He believes that “it is within the commercial realm of advertising that the drama of Otherness finds expression.” (Hooks 370) Hook gives us an example of how Pepsi does its advertising: They use Black people over whites because market surveys say that black people buy more Pepsi than other soft drinks. I thought about Nike here. If we would look at all the Nike adds nowadays I believe there are much more adds with Black athletes than with White athletes simply because market surveys probably found more black people to wear Nike or like Nike.

Whether in sexual desire or desire of commodities Otherness plays an important role. Otherness makes ‘things’ stand out more so and are hence more desired and spark more interest.

AHC – GK