Notting Hill Carnival (nhc)
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The Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) has been held in West London every August Bank Holiday since 1966. Its contribution to British contemporary arts and culture has given it international acclaim making it a suitable choice for this particular project. With its celebratory message of multi-cultural diversity, colour and sound, we thought it would be interesting to critically analyse the meaning the carnival contains from various perspectives and whether this has changed from its humble beginnings.
We each chose to cover different aspects of NHC in order to derive meaning from it so that the final portfolio would be substantive for the purpose of critical analysis of the Carnival from various points of view. Within the group Taylan will be exploring the topic in relation to the media industry to examine how much affect the media has had in creating and changing the symbolism of NHC and the significance that this may have on the cultural manufacturing of a free market economy. Kevin will be exploring the concepts of “Blackness” and “Otherness” to generate a degree of understanding of how these concepts are internalised in the cultural meaning of NHC, the relevance it has on NHC today and the degree of influence it has had on NHC in the past. I will be exploring NHC from the perspective of gender roles and the male gaze, in order to establish whether roles within the carnival are assigned according to gender in the development and organisation of NHC and whether the significance and cultural experience of this event differs between men and women throughout. The study of NHC from these varying perspectives will establish an understanding into the history and significance of NHC, the meaning it contains and its relevance today within multi-cultural Britain.
Research by the British feminist film theorist Mulvary (1975:11), suggests that we live in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, [where] pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. In other words, women are passive objects who fall victim to a gaze of sexual desire, while men are seen as the bearer of such a gaze. This psychoanalytical approach can be adopted when studying NHC as women are seen as the objects of the male gaze, of his cultural determined subconscious. The sexual ideological representations of women are visible in the extravagant costumes they wear and provocative dance routines displayed throughout the masquerade ensemble, and it is this that exemplifies the idea of woman as image, man as bearer of the look (1975:11). All throughout the history of NHC, women and masquerade have played very important parts in it and is viewed partly as an expression of sexuality, explored with freedom and embraced because of its ability to reflect what people were thinking and their desires in a society that was sexually repressed (The Notting Hill Carnival 2011).
Mulvarys study is primarily based on Hollywood Cinema but it is interesting to identify the relevance it has with reference to NHC. The women are the main attractions, who are aware of their own presence and sexuality; aware that on one hand they symbolise freedom of a range of complex ideological and emotional issues, whilst also being the very apparent object of the male gaze. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness (1975:11). In this instance, females are considered the spectacle of the carnival as it is very much a visual experience, seen through the male gaze as well as attracting admiration from the female observer. Although women are exhibited on floats that drive around the area on show for all to see, NHC neatly combine[s] narrative and spectacle (1975:11).
Mulvary states further that:
According to the principles of the ruling ideology and the psychical structures that back it up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like. Hence the split between spectacle and narrative supports the mans role as the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen (1975:12).
Within NHC it is the women who predominately perform in the masquerade – although men can partake, their clothes are symbolic of the mood and anxieties of the cultural history NHC embodies. Identification of social class and status, the bold colours of Caribbean and African flags the women wear with pride that represent their race and ethnicity, as well as expressing courtship and sexual interests, all demonstrates expressive behaviour consciously and subconsciously. Men on the other hand participate mainly as musicians either through the sound systems or on the steel bands and so they control the mood, the narrative through the tone, rhythm, speed and volume of the music.
On the surface NHC can be seen as a Caribbean street carnival where many come every year to eat, dance and embrace the vibrant atmosphere. In fact, it is steeped in black history, which began in Trinidad in 1833 to signify the end of slavery in the Caribbean. 1948 saw the Empire Windrushs voyage from the Caribbean to Tilbury marking the start of Caribbean immigration to Britain (BBC 2009).
Growing tensions and unrest between the white British and black Caribbean immigrants began to surface over the next 10 years as the British opposed immigration and demonstrated to the immigrants that they were not welcomed in the country. The local youths began creating gangs consisting of white working class Teddy Boys in West London which far right fascist groups targeted and exploited with the message to Keep Britain White (Itzcaribbean 2011). This was the start of a string of race related attacks and following the Notting Hill Race Riot which happened between August 30th and September 5th 1958, encouraged Communist Claudia Jones a black Caribbean who previously lived in the U.S. to set up Notting Hill Carnival in January 1959.
It started as an indoor event becoming a full scale street festival in 1965 for all races and ethnicities