White Boy Shuffle is funny. When the first line of the entire book threw around a level 3 expletive like it was nothing, I knew automatically that I would love it. Granted, the expletive in question is a super gross and misogynistic one, but for some reason I was kind of okay with it in this context. Maybe I'm wrong for that - let me know. But either way, the humor throughout the book is exactly the kind of humor that I love. It sarcastic and dry but at the same time it's fun. It's exaggerated and unrealistic, but it knows that and it doesn't care. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it it's also conscious - it calls out things that are important, like police brutality or the issues with "multicultural" education. It sometimes feels like Beatty is writing just to write or like he gets caught up in his own imagination. The book is filled with details that are just unnecessary - it seems like their only function is to screw with us. But that's what makes it so funny to me. I usually take notes in the margins when I read books for school, and so far my notes in this book have consisted entirely of 'LOL's and 'lmao's.
The humor of the book is probably the most obvious aspect, and thus far in class it's been pretty well established. At the same time as it's light-hearted and fun though, there are some parts of the book that are uncharacteristically dark and these are parts we haven't really talked too much about yet.
The first scene I'm thinking about is the brief mention we get of Gunnar's experience with molestation as a little kid. It's in chapter two, where he's describing different colors and what they mean to him. Under the color "black" Gunnar describes being sexually assaulted by his drunk father. It's heartbreaking for a number of reasons (that he's such a small child, that it's his literal father, that it's happening at all), but one of the things that stuck out to me was the fact that it's his father's "weekend custody" (pg. 36). It's his father's weekend - it's supposed to be a time for them to bond. Whether or not he wants to spend time with his father is questionable, since he seems almost to be ashamed of him, but the point is, he doesn't see his father every day, and when he does he gets molested. I guess maybe it's part of why we're supposed to understand that Gunnar's time at Hillside is so important; it gives him a chance to redefine what "black" means to him. Instead of "black" being molestation and trauma, at Hillside it becomes companionship, even friendship (ex. when Scoby calls him the n word for the first time).
But chapter two isn't the only place that Beatty does this - even in Hillside Gunnar falls victim to sexual assault when Betty and Veronica literally rape him. It's never described as what it is though (rape!), and if Gunnar has any reaction at all, it seems almost positive. He walks home singing. Are we supposed to believe he liked it and so therefore it's insignificant? I'm honestly not sure. And just recently we saw Gunnar get brutally beaten by (if I understood it correctly at least) his own father - the same one who molested him as a kid. He almost dies at the hand of his father's "nightstick" and yet, this fact is mentioned only in passing.
To readers it seems like all these things should be a huge deal - like they should come back to haunt Gunnar or impact the outcome of the rest of the book. But they don't. After each incident the chapter and Gunnar's life immediately move on, and there's no more mention of it. Beatty throws us some really dark, twisted stuff in White Boy Shuffle, but just as quickly as it enters, it's gone.
The humor of the book is probably the most obvious aspect, and thus far in class it's been pretty well established. At the same time as it's light-hearted and fun though, there are some parts of the book that are uncharacteristically dark and these are parts we haven't really talked too much about yet.
The first scene I'm thinking about is the brief mention we get of Gunnar's experience with molestation as a little kid. It's in chapter two, where he's describing different colors and what they mean to him. Under the color "black" Gunnar describes being sexually assaulted by his drunk father. It's heartbreaking for a number of reasons (that he's such a small child, that it's his literal father, that it's happening at all), but one of the things that stuck out to me was the fact that it's his father's "weekend custody" (pg. 36). It's his father's weekend - it's supposed to be a time for them to bond. Whether or not he wants to spend time with his father is questionable, since he seems almost to be ashamed of him, but the point is, he doesn't see his father every day, and when he does he gets molested. I guess maybe it's part of why we're supposed to understand that Gunnar's time at Hillside is so important; it gives him a chance to redefine what "black" means to him. Instead of "black" being molestation and trauma, at Hillside it becomes companionship, even friendship (ex. when Scoby calls him the n word for the first time).
But chapter two isn't the only place that Beatty does this - even in Hillside Gunnar falls victim to sexual assault when Betty and Veronica literally rape him. It's never described as what it is though (rape!), and if Gunnar has any reaction at all, it seems almost positive. He walks home singing. Are we supposed to believe he liked it and so therefore it's insignificant? I'm honestly not sure. And just recently we saw Gunnar get brutally beaten by (if I understood it correctly at least) his own father - the same one who molested him as a kid. He almost dies at the hand of his father's "nightstick" and yet, this fact is mentioned only in passing.
To readers it seems like all these things should be a huge deal - like they should come back to haunt Gunnar or impact the outcome of the rest of the book. But they don't. After each incident the chapter and Gunnar's life immediately move on, and there's no more mention of it. Beatty throws us some really dark, twisted stuff in White Boy Shuffle, but just as quickly as it enters, it's gone.
I'm also really confused about those scenes in the novel. One minute I'm laughing, the next I'm like oh my god this is gonna affect him for the rest of his life. But then Beatty never brings it up again. It's almost the opposite of "Beloved," in that the past seems almost eerily absent from Gunnar's present.
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