Because you're not quite privileged enough....

As Richard Dyer said, "White people create the dominant images of the world and don't quite see that they thus construct the world in their image". What happens when people are fully aware of their ‘whiteness’ and use it to help boost their career? Elvis is one of the people who instantly springs to mind when discussing this blurring of racial stereotypes, but he is far from the only one. Indeed there are some actors and music artists who have forged entire careers around their ‘whiteness’, both Vanilla Ice and Eminem used the fact that they were white to their advantage to reach a broader audience with their music, and in doing so both received a lot of negative feedback through the press and potential fan base. And while Eminem used this negativity to create more ‘hype’ and help push his career forward, Vanilla Ice or Robert Van Winkle (his actual name.... very hip hop....) as he is also known had his career taken away from him because of the negative feedback. In fact Vanilla Ice only has the recognition from his former glory days to help push his career through a series of reality show appearances, thanks to his whiteness he has become no more than a caricature of his former self.

And while these two examples are easily recognised, the example set by Jim Carrey is perhaps for New Zealand audiences, one that is less well known. Despite having steady but unimpressive television and film work during the beginning of his career, it wasn’t until he became the ‘token white guy’ of the cast of ‘In Living Colour’ in 1990 that his career really began to skyrocket with films such as ‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’, ‘Dumb & Dumber’ and ‘The Mask’. As Giroux explains “Whites have to learn with their Whiteness by rearticulating it ...[in ways] that allow them to cross racial lines not in order to become Black, but to begin to forge multiracial coalitions based on critical engagement rather than a denial of Whiteness”. And for people like Elvis, Eminem & Jim Carrey who were already at an advantage simply because they had the whole ‘White Privilege’ shtick going for them, the decision to take things a step further and use their whiteness as a tool to enhance their careers is a fascinating and controversial one at that.