The problem with racial essentialism , as with gender essentialism , is that it “ naturalizes and dehistoricizes difference , mistaking what is historical and cultural for what is natural , biological , and genetic .” The diremption of the signifier “ black ” from its cultural and historical context ultimately enhances the foundations of racism . While racial essentialism in its pure early modern expression and the tragic policy consequences of the eugenics movement are widely considered patently racist and immoral today , the phenomenon of racial essentialism looms in subtler ways , and popular culture artifacts , including UnREAL , provide one way to disclose its legacy .
In a way similar to gender essentialism , the opponents of racial essentialism think race is a socially constructed concept . The category of race , for instance , did not operate as it does in contemporary American culture , in ancient Mediterranean cultures . Further , historians can identify times when race is legislated into being , including after Bacon ’ s Rebellion , such that race displaces status as a fundamental category . That said , the social constructionist finds herself in a new bind . If race is a mere construction and merely nominal , not a real universal category , to what concept are anti-racists referring when they advocate for racial justice ? One way out of this bind is to demonstrate the functional reality of race by recourse to C . S . Peirce ’ s pragmatic maxim , such that the meaning of any concept is found in its practical consequences , and there are functional consequences to being categorized as black , for better or worse . These can be empirically disclosed and popular culture artifacts can help highlight this consequential reality . Or as Tommy Curry wrote , “ To say that gender or race functions historically in some particular way — that our category is historical — is to suggest that the idea has empirical substance , and in the case of categories like race , class , or gender , a peculiar realness needing our immediate philosophical attention .” Darrius Beck , the first black suitor on Everlasting , knows the effects of race too well . Episode 1 reveals that his mother raised him “ to always know the rules would always be different for me . Couldn ’ t walk down the street with my hoodie on . Didn ’ t want people to get the wrong idea .” These functional consequences of the historically mediated concept of blackness demonstrate the reality of the socially constructed concept .
Gender Essentialism in Season 2 of UnREAL
Gender essentialism shows itself early in Season 2 of UnREAL . The most obvious instance , interestingly , is Chet ’ s rehabilitative program , which relies on the notion of an unchanging and natural male essence . Having returned from a wilderness retreat to reclaim his television empire from Quinn , he iterates
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