Month: April 2020

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.

Beyond just the music played by the titular band, The Commitments also shows the variety of other ways in which the group adopts black identity, which can lead to issues of appropriation and misinterpretation of African-American culture.   In Joey the Lips’ insistence that the female back-up singers wear black when they perform, this literal costume shows both the band’s donning of the cultural facade of African-American identity and culture and hints towards Joey’s deep desire to possess and fetishize black bodies.   He constantly attempts to take leadership of the band because of the persona he creates for himself as a session player for countless blues and soul acts.  His sort of artificial blackness which he uses to gain the position of de facto leader is later revealed as a possible sham, touring with a dead musician in America. His seduction of the Commitmentettes despte their considerable age difference shows what lengths he will go to posses the image of blackness, both sexually and in his knowledge of soul music.

His criticism of Charlie Parker also shows Joey’s deep envy of “blackness,” feeling that Parker wastes his race and identity creating jazz music, whichb Joey feels is inauthentic to black culture and art because it is not simple enough.  This effectively exposes Joey’s love for “blackness” as superficial, without much concern for the artists themselves and only focusing upon how he can take what they have created and make it his own.  This performance acts as a kind of microcosm of Doyle’s subtext of the novel, in which these Irish characters can find connections to African-American art and expression but soon their wish to possess it more fully and place their own troubles upon the same level as that of African-American leads to failure, seen in the band’s quick ascent and later dissolution.

When Jimmy first starts working with the Commitmentettes, he also shows  desire to put on an authentic portrayal of soul music, even to the extent that he strips the girls of their distinct Irishness.  As he insists “An’ yis shouldn’t be usin’ your ordin’y accents either.  It’s Walking in the Rain, not Walkin’ In De Rayen,” this push for artistic authenticity poses threats to both the band’s Irish background and also the African-American songs which they perform.  By consciously switching their voices in order to fit the appropriate form for the song, they strop themselves of their Irish background for the sake of adopting another culture for their own.  Likewise, their goal to repurpose these songs for their own artistic performance suggests that black identity is something that can merely be switched on or off if you practice and learn it, which also severely undercuts the racial burdens of African-Americans.  Despite the clear love and admiration Doyle has for this culture, he shows in The Commitments that trying to quickly and effectively adapt a foreign identity and experiences has many problems, approaching the territory of appropriation.

Even though Doyle approaches this comparison from an economic and political lens, as African-Americans and Irish both suffer from broad societal issues of poverty and oppression, his use of the band’s efforts to bridge this transatlantic gap show that despite the great connections brought about the exchange of ideas, commodities, and identities, it opens up even more room for differences and inappropriate comparisons.

While Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments show us the different ways Irish and Irish-Americans understand the black experience, I begin to think about the influence of black culture on other cultures. For example, through Jimmy and Joey, they are without a doubt influenced by soul music, and are moved by it. And even though a genre of music may have been created by a specific group of people, it does not belong to any one person/ entity. With that being said, in class discussion there were a lot of questions surrounding Joey and his legitimacy within the group. While we have come to the conclusion that his role was more deceptive than reliable, I would argue against that position. I don’t argue that his tendencies and actions were problematic, but I am not quick to label him as a fraud.

We come to understand that there is a difference in status between Joey and other members of the group. Therefore, their understanding of the music, and of black culture will naturally be different from each other. Joey seemingly is in a better financial situation than Jimmy and the others, which not only alters his experience of black culture, but of Irish culture. In addition, aside from the knowledge of the music, Joey has been in direct contact with, and has experience first hand the impact of soul music, which should mean that he is legit. Arguably, just because he surrounded himself with “those people” doesn’t mean he knows anything about them or their experience (but the same could be said for the band). Nevertheless, he is impacted by the music in some way. Even if his facade is in fact pretend behavior, it was most likely influenced by American culture. I say this because, although we have discussed the disconnect between Irish and Irish-Americans, if in this instance Joey represents the Irish-American perspective, he doesn’t seem to be in conflict with the other members. By conflict I am referring to a misunderstanding of each other’s Irish background.  Because it doesn’t seem that their issues are about their Irishness, rather their understanding of black culture. 

Along those lines, we see through The Commitments that the connection was being made from class and struggle. Jimmy and the other members were not black but yet connected with the music and with the culture. They were trying to associate with it, while maintaining their Irishness within the music. Yes, Joey formed a false-connection with the culture, but his lack of knowledge does not determine whether or not he actually liked the music. He doesn’t have to be able to recite all soul artists, or know everything about black culture (even though he pretends to). Even if he just liked one specific song, it is clear that he was impacted enough to want to put on a “charade”.  Whether it was joy, hate, or envy, the music makes you feel a certain way, and in that way you are impacted by it. 

In addition, I would argue that many cultures misunderstand the black experience, including blacks. For example, was InDahomey a misunderstanding of black identity or a redefining of black identity? The backlash that they received from the black community would suggest that they were wrongfully altering the black experience. Nevertheless, how is what Joey doing different? Maybe because he’s Irish and the two experiences are not the same. This may be true, but when you involve the arts (theater and music), the lines definitely get blurred.

1. “Ethnicity is not something that influences Irish American’s lives unless they want it to” (Eagan 28). How does the meaning of gesturing to the African American experience change when it is out of want rather than need?
2. Specifically looking at Onkey’s discussion of the the 1863 New York draft riots (or applied to other instances), how can we reconcile the circum Atlantic identity with the direct interaction between Irish Americans and African Americans?

1. Since art (specifically music) is meant to be expressive and have “creative freedom”, should artist be exempt from misidentifying with African American culture.
2. Does the African-American/Irish analogy degrade both cultures because of the comparison between Black-Americans and Irish-Americans?  Also, do these analogies  connect the Irish to whiteness more than to blackness?

1.  Briefly throughout the film, especially in the beginning, we see other forms of music played which appear to be more authentically Irish.  Does the inclusion of other types of music mixed within scenes of The Commitments playing add dimensions to the culture of Ireland seeking definition at this time?
2.   How do the articles approach the ideas of “readiness”? Does the blunt statement that “The Irish , when all is said and done, are no black” show that their apparent ability to at some point be ready to enter modernity exclude them from any comparison with non-white oppressed peoples?
3. How does Onkey’s article directly show the issues of representation seen in both The Commitments as a novel and film?  Does the issue of minstrelsy, often adopted by Irish immigrants to America, complicate the broader social contexts of The Commitments and what it is trying to say about the potential to adopt an identity?