In Adam Bank’s book, Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age, he uses ideas of multimodal rhetoric and rhetors as community leaders to help us understand how DJs occupy a space outlined in West African culture for the “griot,” a role Banks defines as a “master of both words and music who is a storyteller, praise singer, and historian” and “absolutely central to the life of his or her society” (22). What I am seeking to explore is how to apply these African American rhetorical strategies to queer rhetorics.
Bank’s ideas bring to mind hypertext and hyperculture, where, as Byung-Chul Han describes, “The borders and enclosures that convey a semblance of cultural authenticity are dissolving” (9). However, in the case of the griot and their work, we can understand that these figures have a responsibility to numerous kinds of work. The hypertext allows them to be a special figure as well as experience a special struggle. Using examples from The Queen, Paris is Burning, and Pose, which tell stories of the ball culture of the 80’s and 90’s, which mostly took place in club environments and was created by Black queer people, I explore this pressure and why it matters.
In order to understand these worlds, we need to understand the intersection of African-American and queer multimedias. The ball scene was invented by Crystal LaBeija as a reaction to the racism of the 60’s pageant scene. After competing in the 1967 Miss America Camp Beauty Pageant and feeling that the competition was rigged in favor of white queens, she publicly accused the organizer of racism, shouting “She said, Crystal darling, don’t go. Because you’re not going to get it. And that’s why all the true beauties didn’t come!” (The Queen, 01:30:46).
As she rejected the racism of the time and created her own balls, LaBeija represented what Banks refers to as the DJ being “In the pursuit of a new present and future” (53). As Banks describes the role of the DJ as making “another world, another universe, another text,” Crystal LaBeija and her cofounder Lottie Labeija created a new world and new rhetorics. According to the official House of LaBeija information, this house was the first of its kind to “welcome those from their community, people who looked like them, people who lived like them, people who were them–people of color!” (History).
In addition to forming a new kind of competition, Crystal and Lottie LaBeija also formed a new kind of community in establishing the House of LaBeija. In referring to the groups of people that make up this kind of organization, they called it a “House,” emphasizing the familial aspect of this culture. In Bank’s analysis, we can understand how community is as much a part of this environment and one of its priorities as competing.
Throughout the documentary, we see examples of hyperculture in its collapsing of the boundaries. In one participant’s words, “A Ball is as close to reality as we’re gonna get to all of that fame and fortune and stardust and spotlights” (00:04:25). As Pepper LaBeija describes, “You know, a lot of kids that are in the balls, they don’t have two of nothing. Some of them don’t even eat. They come to balls starving…They don’t have a home to go to, but they’ll go out and steal something and come to a ball one night and live in a fantasy” (00:06:54). As we can see through these stories, the participants are walking to create their own versions of life. The blurring of lines Han writes about did not cause these people to cease to exist, but rather to exist in a world they were barred from. In the words of Elektra Abundance in Pose, “That category was invented, like all other categories, in order to give us a chance to experience what the outside world gets to live.” (Something Borrowed, Something Blue 00:15:02). In Paris is Burning, you see contestants walk in categories including “Executive Realness” and “High Fashion Winter Sportswear: The Poconos vs. The Catskills.” Aspects of the world these participants could not access were parodied and honored, creating a hyperculture in which lines blurred and limitations ceased.
When we see the structure of the ball in Paris is Burning, we see the DJ not as digital griot, but as a smaller, less vocal part of an ecosystem that is being led by someone else. Banks referencing the DJ as being the “bearer of ritual. master of ceremonies.” does not apply in this particular club environment, as the queer community had created an entirely different environment where an MC was in charge. Junior, the MC in Paris is Burning is the one in control of this environment, is clearly “always in conversation, always with an answer” (Banks, 4). He is responsible for organizing the competition and keeping the morale, with “As far as all of y’all not walking, please, realize that we all, at one time or another, have lusted to walk a ballroom floor. So give the contestant…a round of applause for nerve” (00:06:32). The DJ spins in silence while the MC is in charge.
The tension in this environment is further explored in Pose as the character Pray Tell, who is considered to be based off of Junior, struggles with his own role. When Banks gives a “less academic description of the DJ as digital griot,” he draws on the tensions between making money, supporting your community, while being an admired figure (3). He asks: “do I use my craft to get the most money possible–is it really CREAM? Or do I keep pushing, looking for boundaries to break, continually searching for something new to connect with the old, for that old/new way to create another world, another universe, another text?”(5). In episode 6 of Pose’s first season, grieving and intoxicated, Pray Tell begins telling the DJ to play one song repeatedly. This leads to a confrontation, in which he expresses the pressure he is under with “When I’m standing behind that podium, I’m the one that keeps the crowd hyped. I’m the one that makes sure that there’s a flow to the proceedings! If you don’t like the music I’m playing, don’t show up!” (Love is the Message, 00:13:49).
As the episode progresses, we learn that his playing this song repeatedly represents his grief. Unlike LaBeija’s anger leading ultimately to a new world, Pray Tell is stuck in the old, unable to create something new. That “old/new world” Banks describes is present here in a tragic way, as he is living for a version of a community that no longer exists.
These griots and the communities they come from represent a positive version of hyperculture and one that is particularly advantageous for marginalized people. Rather than accepting rejection and the hierarchies they were placed in, those involved created their own system in which they could excel using the roles of their own culture, rather than those of the dominant.
Works Cited
Banks, Adam. Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age. Southern Illinois University Press, 2011.
Han, Byung-Chan. (2005). “Hypertext and Hyperculture,” pp. 7-11. HyperCulture: Culture and Globalization. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Polity Press, 2005
“Love is the Message.” Pose, created by Ryan Murphy, Season 1 Episode 6, Color Force, July 8 2018.
“Our History.” https://www.royalhouseoflabeija.com/. Accessed 09 Oct 2023.
Paris is Burning. Dir. Jennie Levingston. Off White Productions, 1991.
The Queen. Dir. Frank Simon, Grove Press, 1968.
“Something Borrowed, Something Blue.” Pose, created by Ryan Murphy, Season 3, Episode 5, Color Force, May 23 2021.