10
Popular Culture Review
Some reporters for the African-American media also buy into the idea
that a genuine identity reflects a single racial heritage. The unattributed article in
Jet about Diesel and his XXX alter ego, Xander Cage, is subtitled “Buff, Bold
and Bad: Hollywood’s Black Action Heroes.” Gil Robertson’s opening question
in Savoy is “so who’s Vin Diesel fooling anyway?” He adds that “. . . maybe
he’s tricking all of Hollywood and much of the fast and furiously growing fan
clan, few of whom may know that the actor who portrayed Pvt. Adrian Caparzo
brings a little more color than your average paisano. Whatever” (57). The hook
is provocative, with its hint of an attempted deception, superior or arcane
knowledge on the part of the reporter, and more generally a suggestion that
Diesel is actively obscuring important information. Bonz Malone “claims”
Diesel as one of Vibe's own, remembering their shared days in the club scene,
describing a conversation that wavers between intellectual discourse and street
slang and catching a moment with Diesel when he says, “Hey Bonz, what up?”
(Apr. 2001). James Hill on BET.com, attempting to temper his biting
commentary with humor, has the following “advice” for the actor: “Vin Diesel,
you need to be careful. Don’t worry about fighting evil spies or ferocious flying
aliens. You need to keep your eyes out for. . . THE BLACK COMMUNITY!
You know the old saying, ‘it takes one to know one’? Well, you are one. One of
us, that is. The Rock, Jennifer Beals, Tiger Woods—none have been able to
escape! And you’re next.” Hill’s comments may be tongue in cheek, but his
“targets”—a list of biracial or multiracial celebrities—may not find them
amusing, for they effectively devalue the entertainers’ self-chosen identities, and
more tragically, willfully negate any of their ancestral lines other than those
which are African. It might be noted that there is a distinct difference in
demographic among all these magazines, and that each characterization is at
least partly a response to the particular market towards which the magazine is
directed. Jet, for example, has been published for decades and has a middleaged, middle-class subscription base; it makes sense that their readers are more
comfortable with the “one-drop” rule which would dictate that Vin must be
African-American. Savoy is more upscale, with a more cosmopolitan audience;
that audience, it seems, would be more open to the presentation of questions
surrounding racial identity. Vibe, with 14- to 24-year-olds as its demographic, is
left to claim through example; without prior knowledge of the subject, it would
appear obvious to anyone who is reading the article that Vin is a young Black
man similar to the majority of the audience to whom the article is directed.
BET.com’s audience is especially varied and the site speaks to its many
demographics, with its tacit acceptance of the “one-drop” rule and its parallel
play on African-American pride. With articles such as “‘Outing’ Diesel,”
however, it also locates a center of debate within the African-American
community itself, as those who live by the “one-drop” rule and argue on the side
of a historically-based identification of Blackness claim that the wholeness,
perhaps, of African-American identity is lost once those non-African roots so