At first, Joey “The Lips” Fagan seems like the savior of The Commitments. Joey brings a sense of genuine Soul artistry to the group of Irish misfits, being that he claims to have toured in America with professional Soul artists. But when he brings his talent to The Commitments, the reader starts to see that he may not be the genuine Soul artist he claims to be, and rather, is a poser attempting to appropriate black culture. I believe that Doyle intended for the reader to doubt the authenticity of Joey’s character and his music because he does not believe that the Irish and African American experiences are comparable.
Joey acts as a vessel that brings American Soul to Ireland. He is able to transmit the basic tropes of Soul to the band, but does not seem genuine in his performance of the music. He specifically sets boundaries in what the band can perform, describing them as “corners.” He claims these corners are to prevent the band from delving into the realm of Jazz, a music that he believes is too intellectual and against the working man. This is troublesome because Jazz was created by working-class American blacks. He intentionally sets limits on the black music he is able to perform, showing that he worships black music but cannot access it entirely due to his distance from American black culture. Hints that point toward Joey being a wealthy man also lead to this conclusion because they show he is not a member of the working class, and therefore cannot properly connect with the music of the working man. He also seems to believe that he cannot genuinely perform Soul music due to his own lack of blackness.
Joey’s frustration with not being born black penetrates the novel in often uncomfortable ways. He describes some of the greatest Jazz musicians as not genuinely black and even goes as far to say Charlie Parker had “no right to his black skin.” This shows that he believes the ability to genuinely perform black music comes from having black skin, not entirely from musical talent. When the band inevitably breaks up, Joey comes to the conclusion that Soul just wasn’t right for Ireland, revealing that he does not believe non-blacks can have a genuine appreciation of black music. When Joey tells Jimmy that he is going back to America to perform with a dead artist, this implies that he has realized he is nothing more than an appropriator and ultimately cannot live as the great Soul artist he formerly saw himself as.
I actually got a slightly different sense from the novel. I assumed that in the novel, despite Joey’s rant about Jazz musicians and his higher class status, he was meant throughout the book to be someone to look up to. It isn’t until the very end until Imelda reveals she had told Joey that she was pregnant that it seems the characters in the novel seem to find fault with him. Jimmy in the novel is shockingly condoning of Joey’s rant about Charlie Parker, and about his wish to have been born black. Whereas, the way I saw it in the movie, Joey seemed far more odd and perhaps untrustworthy than he had in the novel.
Do you think that Doyle does not believe that the Irish and African American experiences are comparable? Or the Irish American and African American? I agree with a lot of what you had to say about Joey, but I believe that Doyle uses him to show that the Irish American experience, specifically, is not comparable. This can be seen through all of the points that you have made above about Joey. Doyle seems to think, however, that comparisons can be drawn between the Irish American and the African American experience. I talk about this a little bit more in my forum post for this week, but the other band members seem to be able to access the music and gesture towards the African American experience in a deeper and more appropriate way. If Joey fails, does that mean the other Commitments have to as well? I don’t think so and I think that Doyle would argue that they are different from him.