Blackness: The Color of Otherness in Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro and Genet’s the Maids

Abstract

Adopting the perspective of critical race theory grounded in Black Existentialism, this article argues that we should consider Black Drama beyond conventional conceptions of author, identity, or content, expanding the category to consider abject human life and misery beyond the color line as exemplified by Kennedy’s ‘Funnyhouse of a Negro’ (1964) and Genet’s ‘The Maids’ (1948). The paper argues that both texts dramatize an existential conception of Blackness through the construction of essentialized otherness. The two plays present otherness as constructible rather than biological. By doing so, Kennedy and Genet contest the authenticity of the racial construction of identity. Consequently, Sarah’s experience of absorbing the symbols of power in Funny House speaks to the existential experience that Claire and Solange undertake in The Maids as “Black” human beings. The paper shows that the Blackness portrayed in the works of Kennedy and Genet is a “trapped identity” which results from being entangled between two opposed ontological poles: being and non-being. Therefore, the failure of establishing balance between human agency and their new existential situation leads to an inauthentic identity and a false mode of existence. Oscillating between Blackness and whiteness results in fragmented selves, embodying the existential notion of no exit, but is the liberator that is necessary for the Black Existentialism.