View of Stereotypes and Identity Construction. Concepts as Tools

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Abstract

This article discusses the notion of the stereotype in relation to the concept of identity. After a brief presentation of the dominant tendencies in contemporary studies of the stereotype, it proposes a new, pragmatist definition of the concept that enables it to function as an analytical tool for texts and films of both popular and high culture. Special attention is given to the problem of change in the field of stereotype studies and to the way in which the legacy of post-structuralism can be taken into account in studies of the stereotype.

Resumen

Este artículo relaciona la noción de estereotipo con el debate más amplio sobre la identidad. Después de un breve panorama de las tendencias actuales en los estudios sobre el estereotipo, propone una nueva definición del concepto, inspirada por el pragmatismo, con vistas a incrementar el potencial analítico del estereotipo.

Este potencial se ilustra a continuación mediante un examen de textos y películas pertenecientes tanto a la cultura popular como a la cultura alta. Una atención espe- cial va a la problemática de cambio en los estudios del estereotipo y a la herencia del postestructuralismo para la cuestión de la identidad.

Nadia L

^ie

Stereotypes and Identity Construction Concepts as Tools

To refer to this article :

Nadia L^ie, “Stereotypes and Identity Construction: Concepts as Tools”, in: Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties, November 2012, 9, 183-191.

http://www.interferenceslitteraires.be ISSN : 2031 - 2790

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Geneviève Fabry (UCL) Anke GiLLeir (KULeuven) Gian Paolo Giudiccetti (UCL) Agnès Guiderdoni (FNRS – UCL) Ortwin de GraeF (KuLeuven) Ben de bruyn (FWO - KULeuven) Jan Herman (KULeuven)

Marie HoLdswortH (UCL) Guido Latré (UCL)

Nadia Lie (KULeuven) Michel Lisse (FNRS – UCL)

Anneleen masscHeLein (FWO – KULeuven) Christophe meurée (FNRS – UCL)

Reine meyLaerts (KULeuven) Stéphanie Vanasten (FNRS – UCL) Bart Vanden boscHe (KULeuven) Marc Van VaecK (KULeuven) Pieter Verstraeten (KULeuven)

Olivier ammour-mayeur (Monash University - Merbourne) Ingo berensmeyer (Universität Giessen)

Lars bernaerts (Universiteit Gent & Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Faith bincKes (Worcester College - Oxford)

Philiep bossier (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Franca bruera (Università di Torino)

Àlvaro cebaLLos Viro (Université de Liège) Christian cHeLebourG (Université de Nancy II) Edoardo costadura (Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena) Nicola creiGHton (Queen’s University Belfast) William M. decKer (Oklahoma State University)

Dirk deLabastita (Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix - Namur)

Michel deLViLLe (Université de Liège)

César dominGuez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostella

& King’s College)

Gillis dorLeijn (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Ute Heidmann (Université de Lausanne)

Klaus H. KieFer (Ludwig Maxilimians Universität München) Michael KoHLHauer (Université de Savoie)

Isabelle KrzywKowsKi (Université de Grenoble) Sofiane LaGHouati (Musée Royal de Mariemont) François LecercLe (Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne) Ilse LoGie (Universiteit Gent)

Marc mauFort (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Isabelle meuret (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Christina morin (Queen’s University Belfast) Miguel norbartubarri (Universiteit Antwerpen) Olivier odaert (Université de Limoges) Andréa oberHuber (Université de Montréal)

Jan oosterHoLt (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) Maïté snauwaert (University of Alberta - Edmonton)

C^onseiL^de^rédaCtion - redaCtieraad

David martens (KULeuven & UCL) – Rédacteur en chef - Hoofdredacteur

Matthieu serGier (UCL & Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis), Guillaume wiLLem (KULeuven) & Laurence Van nuijs

(FWO – KULeuven) – Secrétaires de rédaction - Redactiesecretarissen Elke d’HoKer (KULeuven)

Lieven d’HuLst (KULeuven – Kortrijk) Hubert roLand (FNRS – UCL)

Myriam wattHee-deLmotte (FNRS – UCL)

Interférences littéraires / Literaire interferenties KULeuven – Faculteit Letteren Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 – Bus 3331

B 3000 Leuven (Belgium)

C^omitésCientifique - WetensChappeLijkComité

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Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties, 9, November 2012

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Concepts as Tools

If there is such a thing as a poststructuralist definition of identity, then stereotypes at first sight represent everything that poststructuralist identities are not:

abstract, fixed and ahistorical phenomena. Researchers interested in the phenomenon of the stereotype, however, generally share quite the opposite conviction: they believe reality is not fixed but constructed; that it is historically made, and in some cases even ‘made up’. Constructivism, indeed, seems to be the shared conviction of researchers working on the topic, and this accounts for the rather paradoxical relationship between the researcher of the stereotype and the object itself. In a way one could say that the current boom in publications on the stereotype¹ reflects poststructuralism’s fascination with its internal Other: the essentialist definition of identity.

When discriminating the different guises in which we encounter this kind of research on literature and the arts (mainly cinematography), one notices two tendencies.² The first one concentrates on the stereotype in its relation to power: it invites the researcher to critically unmask the stereotype in its apparent naturalness as a specific and simplistic image of the Other that generally serves to justify a state of subordina- tion or marginalization. Studies belonging to this tendency range from Edward Said’s Orientalism,³ the founding text of postcolonialist theory, to the so-called representational studies as exemplified by Charles Ramirez Berg in his study on Latinos in Hollywood, Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance.⁴ The second group of publications focuses on the stereotype in relation to cognition: it insists on the inevitable and even necessary character of the stereotype in any form of communication and perception. This line of research includes publications on interculturality such as La conquête de l’Amérique, la question de l’Autre by Tzvetan Todorov⁵ and the work on “images” by Daniel-Henri Pageaux⁶ as

1. See in the past few years e.g. Charles ramirez berG, Latino Images in Film. Stereotypes, Subversion and Resistance, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2002; Ruth a^mossy & Anne HerscHberG Pierrot, Estereotipos y Clichés. Traducción y adaptación: Lelia Gándara, Buenos Aires, Eudeba (the original French ver- sion of this book has been re-edited in 2007 by Armand Colin in Paris), 2005; José Antonio GonzaLez

aLcantud, La fábrica de los estereotipos. Francia, Nosotros y la europeidad, Madrid, Abada Editores, 2006;

Henri boyer (ed.), Stéréotypage, stéréotypes: fonctionnements ordinaires et mises en scène. Actes du Colloque Inter- national de Montpellier (21-23 juin 2006), Paris, L’Harmattan (t. 1: médiatisations; t. 2: identités; t. 3:

éducation, école, didactique; t. 4: langue & discours; t. 5: expressions artistiques), 2007; Florent KoHLer

(ed.), Stéréotypes culturels et constructions identitaires, Tours, Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais, 2007;

Nadia Lie (ed.), “América Latina y los estereotipos”, in: Aleph. Revista de literatura hispanoamericana, 23, 2008; Nadia Lie, Silvana mandoLessi & Dagmar VandeboscH (eds.), El juego con los estereotipos. La redefini- ción de la identidad hispánica en la literatura y el cine postnacionales, Genève-Bruxelles-Oxford, Peter Lang, 2012.

2. For a more complete overview of the study of stereotypes, see: Nadia Lie & Dagmar VandeboscH, “El juego con los estereotipos y la identidad hispánica: pautas para un debate”, in:

Nadia Lie, Silvana mandoLessi & Dagmar VandeboscH (eds.), El juego con los estereotipos, 11-24.

3. Edward said, Orientalism, London, Vintage, 1978.

4. Charles ramirez berG, Latino Images in Film.

5. Tzvetan todoroV, La conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’Autre, Paris, Seuil, 1982.

6. Daniel-Henri PaGeaux, “Images”, in: La littérature générale et comparée, Paris, Armand Colin, 2004, 59-76; see also a more recent version of this text in Daniel-Henri PaGeaux, Littératures et

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well as Ruth Amossy’s Les idées reçues. Sémiologie du stéréotype⁷ and Jean-Louis Dufays’

Stéréotype et lecture,⁸ the latter two related to the specific field of literature and the arts.

This essay suggests that the current state of affairs in the academic study of the stereotype might be read as a reflection of what has been called, after Ruth Amossy’s seminal study of 1991 the bivalent nature of the stereotype: stereotypes function either in a positive or in a negative way. To avoid falling into the trap of selective, ‘stereoty- ped’ views of the stereotype, then, one should resort to a neutral definition which dissociates the actual effects of the stereotype from its dimension as a scientific concept. The work that is most commonly referred to in this respect is Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion,⁹ in which stereotypes appear as mental “pictures in our heads” that structure our perception of reality.¹⁰

But if bivalence is a feature of the stereotype as a concept, why then do we see this bifurcation in publications on the topic? Isn’t there a way to bridge the gap between both, since the stereotype by itself contains both possibilities? And isn’t there a way to bridge another gap that runs through the field: the one between theory and practice? For indeed, if publications such as Stéréotypages, stereotypes. Fonctionnements ordinaires et mises en scène¹¹ contain no less than five volumes of case-studies from different disciplines but lack any theoretical overview, other books, such as the aforementioned Stéréotype et lecture by Jean-Louis Dufays, quickly discourage the interested reader by their very abstract, exclusively theoretical, dimension.

Trying to bridge these two gaps – between the two approaches to the stereotype, and between theory and practice – is the aim of this essay. This aim does not only require a neutral definition of the stereotype, it also entails making explicit how the researcher perceives the relationship between theory and practice. The following quotation is a good expression of the position taken on in this essay: “Theo- ries are nets”, Novalis wrote, “and only he who casts will catch.” “Yes, theories are nets, and we should evaluate them, not as ends in themselves, but for how they concretely change the way we work”.¹² This quotation summarizes what is generally known as the pragmatist stance towards theory, which relativizes the theoretical framework adopted, even as it values its instrumental, heuristic function. Another way of putting this is that we should not fetishize the concepts with which we work, but rather evaluate them as tools for our practice.¹³

By adopting this pragmatist view, we do not pretend to revolutionize the field of stereotype studies.¹⁴ In fact, we believe it is fully in line (only more consciously so)

cultures en dialogue. Essais réunis, annotés et préfacés par Sobhi HabcHi, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007, 27-57.

7. Ruth amossy, Les idées reçues. Sémiologie du stéréotype, Paris, Nathan, 1991.

8. Jean-Louis duFays, Stéréotype et lecture. Essai sur la réception littéraire, Bruxelles/Oxford/New York, Peter Lang, 2010 (first edition: Liège, Mardaga, 1994).

9. Walter LiPPmann, Public Opinion, London, Allen & Unwin, 1954 (1922), 3-32.

10. See especially chap. 1 “The world outside and the pictures in our heads”, in: Walter See especially chap. 1 “The world outside and the pictures in our heads”, in: Walter especially chap. 1 “The world outside and the pictures in our heads”, in: Walter LiPPmann, op. cit., 3-32.

11. Henri boyer (ed.), Stéréotypage, stéréotypes: fonctionnements ordinaires et mises en scène.

12. Franco Franco moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees, London/New York, Verso, 2005, 91.

13. “Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. �� “Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. ��

Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them up and sets each one at work.” (William james,

“What Pragmatism Means”, in Pragmatism, New York, Dover, 1995, 21).

14. Pragmatism is also advocated by Joep Leerssen in his seminal article “The rhetoric of na- Pragmatism is also advocated by Joep Leerssen in his seminal article “The rhetoric of national character: a programmatic survey”, in: Poetics Today, 21, 2, 2002, 276-292. However, he focuses

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with the already mentioned constructivist conviction of most researchers dealing with the topic, and even with the original inspiration of the ‘founding father’ of the field, Walter Lippmann. For indeed, when we return to Lippmann’s original text, we notice the author’s insistence upon the relative, and even fictitious nature of reality, and the presence of references to the work of pragmatist thinkers such as William James.¹⁵ Rather than elaborating upon the affinities and possible divergences between pragmatism as a philosophical current and the academic study of stereotypes, we would now like to make an attempt to bridge the two gaps mentioned above. We will do so by focusing on two cases, pertaining to what Bourdieu has called the ‘champ de production restreinte’ and the ‘champ de grande production’ respectively. In practice, indeed, the bifurcation between studies of the stereotype from the perspective of power on the one hand and that of cognition on the other corresponds with a clear – and again unjustified– preference for cases drawn from mass-media culture in the first case, and high literature and culture in the second. It is therefore of strategic importance not to limit oneself to either of these cultural spheres.

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Our first case is “Emma Zunz”, a famous short story by Jorge Luis Borges, first published in 1949.¹⁶ This story has never been studied explicitly in terms of stereotypes, though related approaches, mainly dealing with Borges’ attitude towards the Jewish community, exist. In these approaches, Borges is accused of anti-Semi- tism because of his negative portrait of the Jewish entrepreneur Aaron Löwenthal in the story. Löwenthal indeed appears as the ‘bad guy’, who, out of greed, betrayed his own friend by falsely accusing him of fraud. This element sets in motion a plot in which the daughter of the victim, Emma Zunz, tries to revenge her father, falsely accusing Löwenthal of rape after she has killed him. Even though this accusation is accepted by the police, her original plan fails because at the crucial moment of killing Löwenthal she is not capable of distinguishing between the true motive for the murder, about which she wanted to tell Löwenthal – the false accusation of fraud –, and the one she invented. Having provoked intercourse in a bar herself, and in times before the concept of DNA would have prevented her from doing so, she is so outraged by the humiliation she has suffered, that she actually kills Löwenthal for having raped her and not for betrayal of friendship. This confusion between the

‘true’ motive and the ‘false’ one, between the ‘real’ betrayal and the ‘invented’ crime, explains why this story has been read – and even predominantly so – as a meditation on the power of fiction as well.

When confronting these two readings with the bifurcation sketched out ear- lier, one could say that the first reading of the story, the reading concentrating on

on larger evolutions in society and inserts this study in a wider search for the hidden patterns of a universal grammar of interculturality. His approach hence attributes more importance to invariable elements in intercultural perception than the one which is presented here.

15. See, for instance, the following quotation from See, for instance, the following quotation from Public Opinion: “For certainly, at the level of social life, what is called the adjustment of man to his environment takes place through the medium of fictions. By fictions I do not mean lies. I mean a representation of the environment which is in lesser or greater degree made by man himself ” (Walter LiPPmann, op. cit., 15) and the reference to William James on p. 16 of the same book.

16. Jorge Luis Jorge Luis Jorge Luis borGes, Prosa completa, Vol. 2, Buenos Aires, Emecé, 1980, 49-53; translation by Donald A. yates, in: Jorge Luis borGes, “Emma Zunz”, Labyrinths. Selected Stories and Other Writings.

Donald A. yates and James E. irby (eds.), London et al., Pinguin, 2000, 168-173.

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the Jew’s motive, connects to the stereotype as a deformative image of the Other, whereas the second one, interested in the way in which a literary work reflects upon its own condition as fiction, and hence, upon its intelligibility with respect to the reader, points at the cognitive aspect of the stereotype. The use of the word ‘stereotype’ might be less evident in this second case; in fact, we here touch upon the relationship between stereotypes as instruments of cognition and the notion of ‘doxa’, which refers to the socially accepted views on reality, and also – as explained by Ruth Amossy – to verisimilitude, the game of make-believe that makes literature possible.¹⁷ Verisimilitude, indeed, is what is at stake in Emma Zunz, as is also clarified in its closing lines that almost contain a literal definition of ‘mimesis’.¹⁸ However, an explanation of the precise connection between verisimilitude and the stereotype is not the purpose of this article. Rather, I would like to show how the two lines of research on the stereotype, instead of leading to two separate readings, can be synthesized without either of them losing its specificity.

If the game of make-believe itself is the theme in “Emma Zunz”, who gets caught in her own lies, then one should look at how the stereotype of the Jew contri- butes to or rather deconstructs these lies. As has been convincingly demonstrated by Jean-Louis Dufays¹⁹, stereotypes can work in different ways in a work of fiction:

they can invite the reader to ‘participate’ in the fiction of the stereotype, by inducing him to accept them, as happens in most works of popular literature, but they can also encourage a more critical or ironic attitude towards the phenomenon, making the stereotype visible as stereotype, drawing attention to the discrepancy between the stereotypical image and what counts as reality. Dufays calls this second attitude ‘distancing’.

In the case of “Emma Zunz”, we find a combination of attitudes of ‘par- ticipation’ and ‘distancing’ with respect to the stereotype, a possibility explicitly recognized by Dufays under the label ‘va-et-vient’ (‘come and go’).²⁰ The image of the greedy Jew makes acceptable that Löwenthal first committed the original crime and is then worthy of the act of revenge that is undertaken by Emma: he is the bad guy, she the good daughter. However, this first reading is unsettled by with another one that deconstructs it. Indeed, the story also contains the figure of the reversibility of extremes in the form of the very name ZUNZ, which pro- vides the title of the story and, when reversed, still reads as the same name. This material aspect of the name of one of the characters already hints at the material, artificial and constructed nature of the stereotype of the greedy Jew, of its being part of a game of make-believe, which is Emma’s in the short story, but which is also Borges’ as a writer of fiction.²¹ Moreover, it complements and contradicts the

17. Ruth Ruth amossy, “Introduction to the Study of Doxa”, in: Poetics Today, 23, 3, 2002, 369- 394.

18. “Actually, the story “Actually, the story was incredible, but it impressed everyone because substantially it was true. True was Emma Zunz’s tone, true was her shame, true was her hate. True also was the outrage she had suffered: only the circumstances were false, the time and one or two proper names. [La historia era increíble, en efecto, pero se impuso a todos, porque sustancialmente era cierta. Verdadero era el tono de Emma Zunz, verdadero el pudor, verdadero el odio. Verdadero también era el ultraje que había padecido; sólo eran falsas las circunstancias, la hora y uno o dos nombres propios.]” (Jorge Luis b^orGes, op. cit., 51; translation by Donald A. yates in: Jorge Luis borGes, “Emma Zunz”, op. cit., 169).

19. Jean-Louis duFays, Stéréotype et lecture, 179-196.

20. Ibid., 196.

21. The fact that Emma Zunz is both the name of a character of the story, as well as the name The fact that Emma Zunz is both the name of a character of the story, as well as the name of the story itself is telling in this context.

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first image of the Jew by pointing at Borges’ fascination with the Jew as the best possible reader, the one who decodes the Kabbalah, the one who understands that signs are not windows onto reality, but merely signs, which in their materiality can stand for different things. The one, also, who understands that stereotypes are not simply true or distorted accounts of the Jewish ethnic community, but elements of which more complex fictions are made. This double image of the Jew, perhaps indicative of the bivalence of the stereotype as such, also invites us to reread the beginning of the story. If the lines between the good and the bad guys are blurred, then just how sure are we that Löwenthal really committed the crime of which Emma suspects him? Isn’t this also a belief, based upon the supposed credibility of a story told by a father to his daughter just before his departure? Is this belief so different from the one that characterizes the attitude of the police when they decide to let Emma go, because her story is so convincingly told that it must be true? And haven’t we accepted, just like Emma and later on the police- men, just one possible version of reality that counts as truth, but appears as doxa?

Ultimately, the workings of the stereotypical image of the Jew, in combination with its manifest ambivalence, prompt the reading of the work as a meditation on fiction (while the ambivalence presupposes the recognition of stereotypes as stereotypes in this little piece). The two approaches of the stereotype join and merge. The original bivalence of the phenomenon is restored, not in an orthodox way (this is what the stereotype really is), but in a way that influences our reading and makes it more productive.

This first case, then, shows how a representational rather than a cognitive approach of the stereotype in the predominantly literary reading of this masterpiece can be enriching. In the second case, we will discover that the use of the cognitive approach in an area dominated by representational studies – mass media culture – can yield the same interesting result. At the same time, this essay proposes a more flexible definition of the stereotype that intends to solve a major problem encoun- tered in this field, namely the problem of change. After this second case study, we will reflect on the implications of this alternative definition of the stereotype for the concept of identity or subjectivity outside literature and the arts.

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The second case comes from the area of mass-culture entertainment, more specifically film. In his book on the representation of Latinos in Hollywood, the aforementioned Charles Ramirez Berg lists six basic stereotypes. By itself, this lis- ting is typical for the approach to stereotypes in a wider corpus of texts or artistic products. Presenting the stereotype as a notion closely associated with the idea of repetition, these representational studies tend to focus on repetitive patterns in wider corpuses of texts to distil a paradigm from these. However, this approach falls short in the indication of changes in stereotypical images over time. If stereotypes are approached from such a fixed perspective, then, studies of several texts will only confirm this fixity, since the researcher focuses on what the different images have in common, not on what might be different between them. Though the constructivist focus of the stereotype should lead the researcher to a sensibility towards the historicity of the stereotype, the actual analysis ends up ignoring it in favour of the

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construction of a series of similar images that should most of all confirm just that:

that there is a stereotype, since there is identity and repetition.²²

What lies beneath this practice and what is sometimes made explicit, is a definition of the stereotype as a figure of thought that attaches in a rigid way one or more attributes or predicates to a certain object or thematic kernel: the greedy Jew, the dumb blonde etc. After having worked on the stereotype of the Latin Lover, who is defined in Ramirez-Berg’s study by the features of exoticism (the ‘latin’

element) and eroticism (the dimension of the ‘lover’), I am convinced that a truly historical study of the stereotype should depart from another definition, which considers the stereotype to be a complex phenomenon best represented as a cluster of loosely associated characteristics in ever changing constellations. Context will determine which characteristics are temporarily relegated to the margins of the cloud, to the benefit of others that are temporarily foregrounded. A similar view of identity, in this case the identity of the stereotype itself, can be found in Wittgenstein’s definition of family relationships. “We tend to think that, for instance, all games should have something in common, and that this shared quality justifies the application of the general concept of ‘game’ to all the different games; whereas one could state that games constitute a family, of which the members show a family resemblances.

Some have the same nose, others have the same eyebrows and others again share a similar way of walking; and all these similarities intersect at unpredictable points”.²³

Now, in order to describe the elements that belong to the prototypical cluster of family resemblances, one might take a great profit from (and here is where the other line of research comes in) Dufays’ distinction between the levels of inventio, dispositio and elocutio. The author of Stéréotypes et lecture indeed refers to this classic distinction in rhetoric to distinguish between three types of stereotypes: the ideological ones (at the level of inventio), the thematico-narrative ones (dispositio) and the linguistic ones or clichés (elocutio). In this essay, however, we prefer not to use this tripartition for taxonomical ends (what kind of stereotypes exist?, which ones appear in this specific text?), but rather as an analytical tool: his model helps us to describe a stereotype in its complexity by considering the three aspects just indi- cated as levels on which one particular stereotype can manifest itself and start to function. In the case of the Latin Lover, for instance, the level of the inventio refers to the ideological background of the icon, which was inspired by the idea of the superiority of Southern cultures with respect to Northern ones, especially in the area of love and erotics. This opposition harks back to a more systematic opposition between North and South in 19^th century European discourse, contrasting a modern but cold North opposite with a traditional but warm and creative South.

At the level of the dispositio, we notice that the Latin Lover appears in certain fixed settings: generally, a triangular plot is designed, in which the Latin Lover directly or indirectly confronts the legitimate Northern lover or even husband. To the level of dispositio, we can also count the fixed scripts and motifs that the Latin Lover

22. That stereotypes can change over time is occasionally admitted, as happens in the 1994 That stereotypes can change over time is occasionally admitted, as happens in the 1994 proceedings of the Cerisy colloque on stereotypes, prefaced by Alain Goulet: “Le stereotype n’existe pas en soi, et on le croit à tort fixé: il échappe, se métamorphose, produit du neuf avec du vieux”

(quoted in: Florent KoHLer (ed.), Stéréotypes culturels et constructions identitaires, 21). This assertion, however, contrasts with the huge amount of publications that stress the stereotype’s repetitive and fixed nature.

23. Ludwig wittGenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Blackwell, 1995, 32.

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implies: the scenes of seduction but also of desperate rejection by the woman, the suggestion of male superiority by the insertion of scenes of rescue from real dan- ger, but equally by the suggestion of the possibility of tempestuous or even forced sex. At the level of the elocutio, we find the exoticism of the language, including the strange accent and its melodious, eroticizing sound of it, but also the importance of music, the use of poetic or even cliché-ridden language by the Latin Lover (the paleness of the skin, for instance). Etcetera. This list of characteristics should be complemented by a study of the visual features of the stereotype: in the case of the Latin Lover, the darker skin and manly attributes (e.g. the boots, the suit) are coun- terbalanced by the softness of the face and the stress on the hips, for example. The sensuousness of the Latin Lover is further deduced from his movements, especially during dancing scenes.

One easily notices how adopting the threefold model proposed by Dufays leads to a much more complex view of the stereotype while it permits, at the same time, to detect shifts in certain respects and not in others. In the specific case of the Latin Lover, we found that there has been a considerable evolution between the first appearance of the icon, under the name of Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1919), and its more recent representations by actors such as Antonio Banderas in The Mark of Zorro (1998) or Ricky Martin singing “La vida loca”.²⁴ Accepting that these examples are heavily associated with the concept of the “Latin Lover”, as can be deduced from statements in the popular press, we can describe in more detail how they represent and revise the figure of the Latin Lover. Generally speaking, our research demonstrated that, at the level of invention, the traditional opposition between North and South is incorporated into North-American society: the exotic falling into the categories of the Self and receiving, in that context, a stronger His- panic ring than it originally had. At the level of the dispositio, Latin Lovers now often appear in the role of the married husband themselves, as is the case in The Mark of Zorro (1998) or in other movies, such as Benicio del Toro’s appearance in 21 Grams (2003). Ricky Martin, on his part, shows that exoticism is not the predominant feature anymore, since this singer of Puerto Rican descent has fair hair and bears an English name; however, his dancing and the themes of his songs still appeal to the

“amor loco” that is typical of the figure of the Latin Lover.

This brief comparison suggests a certain systematic change that could be described as the integration of the Latin Lover into North-American society and raises questions about the way in which stereotypes (and their changes) mediate between culture and society. However, this essay does not want to suggest that these changes always occur in a systematic way. Rather, our intention was to show the productiveness of a comparison that does not depart from one or two fixed attributes, but from a cluster, because any definition of a Latin Lover (and stereotype a fortiori) is always relative, dependent upon the terms of comparison. Rachel Green, a character in Friends, the most popular sitcom ever, falls in love with the Italian Paolo, who is associated with exoticism through his name, his looks and especially his inability to understand English. But he doesn’t dance. The strange exotic count Sandor Szavost, with whom Alice Harford (played by Nicole Kidman)

24. Nadia Lie, “Cet obscur objet du désir. Andy García como Latin(o) Lover en Internal Affairs”, in: América. Cahiers du Criccal, 34, 2006, 129-136 & “From Latin to Latino Lover. Hispanicity and Female Desire in Global Culture”. Forthcoming in: Beatriz GonzaLez stePHan (ed.), Rewriting Hispanicity in Times of Globalization, New York, SUNY Press.

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dances in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), the last movie by Stanley Kubrick on deception in marriage, may carry this exotic name, but his English is fluent. However, he dances throughout his scene with Alice, an element he shares with General Arroyo in Old Gringo (1989), where the Latino actor Jimmy Smits seduces Jane Fonda alias Harriet Winslow during a dance and switches from English to Spanish to enhance his erotic appeal. Similarities and differences appear and disappear depending on the terms of comparison, making it impossible to see the stereotype in terms of fixed attributes, but granting it, nevertheless, a relative identity, as the Wittgenstein’s definition of family resemblances did.

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What now are the implications of all this on the concept of identity? Has the pragmatist approach and definition of the stereotype in literature and arts widened the prevailing, narrow conception of what a stereotype is, and thereby our vision of identity itself? In order to answer this question, we should briefly return to the study of stereotypes and identity. The importance of the stereotype with respect to the academic question of identity is in fact easy to summarize. Whether we adopt a psychological, a sociological, a psycho-sociological or a socio-psychological perspective, in academic literature the stereotype appears as a powerful device to draw lines between the Self and the Other, between the ingroup and the outgroup. In both cases, so these disciplines tell us, the need to have a positive self-image, or – in sociological terms – the drive for positive distinctiveness is what turns this dichoto- mizing strategy into a value-based pattern, the Other appearing not only as radically different from the Self, but also as inferior. Stereotypes, then, these disciplines tell us, are not really about the Other; stereotypes are rather about Us, or even better, about the lines and borders that we claim to exist between Us and Them, between You and Me.

However, if we accept a definition of the stereotype as a cluster of free-floa- ting characteristics, if we grant it the variable shape of the cloud, then it shares with the clouds the diffusiveness of their borders. This diffusiveness appears when we realize that positive distinctiveness occurs in contexts of multiple (and not single) group affiliations and that dividing lines consist of groups of multiple points that can also work as points of intersection, expandable, at any moment, into wider zones of contact. To return to the case of the Latin Lover, for instance, one could say that this stereotype is not only the set of characteristics that was described above after incorporating the semiotic input of Dufays’ model in the representational brand of thinking. It is not only about the opposition between North and South, between the boring husband and the imaginative exotic lover. It is also about the fact that I can get attracted to this Other, precisely because I share something with Him. In the case of the Latin Lover, scenes of seduction tend to be followed by a process of self-investigation on the part of the woman, who – through the encounter with the Latin Lover – comes to terms with her own repressed sexuality, which is different from a male sexuality, but close to the one that the Latin Lover incarnates. In fact, the Latin Lover speaks to the desire of the woman in its very specifically feminine dimension (he brings her flowers, he talks to her, he surprises

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Nadia Lie

her with presents etc. in short, he knows what she wants). Hence the accentuation, in the visual appearance of the Latin Lover, of the traits he has in common with women: his hairless face that appears in numerous close-ups, his extravagant clo- thing that covers up what would appear as a too distinctly masculine, muscled body, the visual stress on his eyes, his lips, his hips� The Latin Lover, then, is not just a figure of (cultural) opposition and distinctiveness, but also an icon of intercultural and intersexual affinity. It not only draws a line, it also connects. And the cultural- geographic opposition is connected to a gendered one, between men and women.

As has become evident, a pragmatist approach to the stereotype not only alters our reading practice in literature and the arts, but goes one step further in that it revises identity as such, which allows us to describe – through the variations of the stereotype that have now become traceable – up to which point we remain the same when we change, up to which point we recognize ourselves in the sym- bols of otherness we ourselves create. Seen from a pragmatist perspective, studies of the stereotype not only deal with the lines and borders between ingroups and outgroups, between ‘you’ and ‘me’, but also between an essentialist and a contex- tualized understanding of identity, between a form of identity that comes before and after poststructuralism.

Nadia Lie

KULeuven nadia.lie@arts.kuleuven.be

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