Your point about body fat probably stands, but I should clarify that they did not look the way teenagers looked during the time that I was a child or a teenager. (EDIT: which was a while ago)
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Thanks for that link! It doesnât make me all that much more hopeful, though, that white gets labeled as such in the movie. Itâs nice that this film on teenagers âaddresses multicultural perspectives.â I wonder, though, if African American, say, is one such labeled âperspectiveâ in the film, is âEuropean Americanâ or maybe âmiddle-class whiteâ another one?
I also read this in the linked article:
Though the film is a directorial achievement on its own, another notable aspect of Wolfâs project is his choice of music. An intoxicating original soundtrack by Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox establishes the setting of the film through recognizable beats and also blurs the line between past and present, establishing a poignant and lasting connection with the viewer.
I havenât heard this filmâs music yet (and Iâd still love to see the film), but if the frontman of (white) Indie band Deerhunter did music for it that strikes some as intoxicating, helping to create a âpoignant and lasting connection with the viewer,â I would bet cash money that the viewer here is a white one (whether the filmmakers are consciously thinking so or not).
Oh sure, others could feel this connection too, but just as Laura Mulvey pointed out long ago that thereâs a presumed male gaze in cinema, thereâs usually a white one too. And again, part of how it works (and Iâm not assuming that you donât know this) is how white stands in as, instead, a norm, and how âmulticulturalâ add-ons mean that weâre suddenly talking about race, but mostly just the racial experience of people who arenât white. As if white people donât have a race, as if it doesnât matter in their lives, when it does in so many ways. They just tend not to see that most of the time.
Which is less about this movie in particular than about the way that movies by white filmmakers tend to be when it comes to race, and when filmmakers address such supposedly âuniversalâ experiences as life as a teenager. If this movie actually addresses middle-class white kids AS middle-class white kids, recognizing as it does so how their experiences tended to differ from others (instead of just saying it was those others who had some that were âdifferent,â which would mean different from ânormal,â that is, actually, different from âmiddle-class whiteâ), then yay! But I doubt it does.
I was in the same checkout lane as Bradford Cox at the Hipster Kroger not long after it opened. It was like 2am and he looked paranoid as fuck. And yes, heâs as skinny as they say. Iâm a 6â3"/150 stick man, and I can say heâs skinny without it being hypocritical.
/useless, idle gossip
But anyway, you guess correctly, Deerhunter is super white-people music.
You make a lot of great points that we as a culture fail to understand/choose to ignore. I agree itâs both true and also annoying and troublesome.
But it bears mentioning thereâs also the tendency of whites to pick apart our own behavior under a microscope in an effort toâas a black teacher of mine used to sayââgo to heaven,â which is equally wack. To whatever extent Iâve stopped doing this is because, one, it has been pointed out to me; and also that my social circle has expanded beyond the mostly white one that was available to me before I moved to Chocolate City. We honkys play this game of âgotchaâ with each other in an effort to feel good about ourselves and prove how not-racist we are. A white who dares call this ridiculous is a redneck (which, unfortunately, may also be trueâŚ.) Meanwhile, non-whites donât obsess over our failings nearly as much because they assume white folks are all nuts anyway (me writing all this tends to support that view 
)
I suppose thereâs no getting around the fact that Iâm assuming youâre white, too. Which I may well be wrong about (and: sorry!) But surely this is something youâre familiar with. Speaking for only myself, the pitfalls Iâve fallen into, seeing other whites fall into these games, and seeing the reactions of non-whites when we do it, this is definitely a thing.
But then, does this mean the burden of fighting our bullshit falls on non-whites and we just get off scot-free? I donât mean to imply that, either, although it seems that I may have. If we donât tell each other, then a merely clueless white may remain so, and an out-and-out racist can just wholly write-off any criticism as the provenance of someone they donât give any credit to in the first place. I cannot really determine what the line is, but there must be one, if for no other reason than that I personally know black people who get annoyed when we fuck it up.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but itâs something I think about and seldom see expressed. Your wall-of-text tangent (which, again, I agree with) spurred me to voice this particular conundrum with you (also as a wall-of-text : P ) I guess as a âclearing the airâ gesture.
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Thank you for your thoughtful reply, which is refreshing.
I do recognize, and have often seen, that âgotchaâ tendency, and the often accompanying motive of doing it merely to make oneself feel superior to other supposedly clueless white people, and thus the narcissistic circle jerk back into the belly button of whiteness that such gestures ultimately peter out into. Iâm so glad you didnât stop there, and I hope my comments about this film donât come across that way.
I agree with what you seem to go on to say, which is that itâs good to call out whiteness, to label it, to recognize that being white has a lot to do with oneâs perspective and, probably, with oneâs place in the order of things. People of color often see white people AS white, and simply doing so is not racist; clearly (and we seem to agree on this), white people should see themselves that way more often too. Then they could learn how to fuck up less often, for starters, which they usually do a lot more than they realize, and maybe some of them could even work against what remains a racist social order. Perhaps, for instance, by making a film that speaks explicitly about the whiteness of teenagers while also speaking of of the blackness or brownness and so on of other teenagers. 
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right. letâs say for example that a doc was exclusively about the young Sinatra phenomenon. there shouldnât be anything wrong withâand to leave it out is a lie of omissionâsaying that it was tied to how the concept of âteenaged-nessâ emerged in the white community. but, you know, white folks get paralyzed by the self-doubt of âwait, is that racist? iâm excluding blacks/non-whites,â so they donât address it or they just donât consider it at all. double whammy.
but then, if it were a doc on James Brownâs impact a couple decades later, there would be a lot of forthright talk about how important he was to the black teens then.
this culture is so convoluted, itâs a wonder anything gets done at all, you know?
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Also 100% less hoodies.
Yes, itâs like most white people want to get to âpostracialâ by skipping over all the facts about whiteness. Convoluted indeed, though in these terms, whites are generally a lot more blind to the convolutions, not having been forced to navigate them, allowed to sail right past them, etc. So, I label whiteness a lot. When I mention white people, I say things like, âThis white guy I know,â and so on, instead of just This guy I know. I also say âhistorically white collegeâ (or university). Raises white eyebrows, which is a good thing I think.
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