Post-identities: sexuality and the colonial subject

Abstract

In the last chapter we began to explore how the ‘Other’ forms the basis of media representations of psychopathology and criminality. The way in which we analysed these representations is similar to Bhabha’s concept of the ‘colonial stereotype’. The ‘stereotype’ does not denote a misrepresentation or distortion of a pregiven reality. Instead, it is given a semiotic and productive role in which the ‘Other’ as a sign repeatedly signifies in a particular way. The same old stories about racial difference as pathological are endlessly told and retold… We feel that how Bhabha uses the concept of the stereotype is useful when thinking about the status of representations of psychopathology and criminality, especially within the mass media.

Negro — his race becomes the ineradicable sign of negative difference in colonial discourses. (Bhabha 1994: 75)