Are Two Heads Better Than One?

 

    In class yesterday, I thought there were some very interesting connections between our reading, "Race as Technology" and the cinematic clips we watched in class. The Thing With Two Heads, made in 1972, particularly caught my attention as it was a very blatant example of racism and a literal example of the intersection of race and technology. Although the clip we watched in class was a tad silly due to, ironically, the lack of technology at the time that made the concept of transplanting a head onto another person's body with the existing head still attached pretty unfeasible. We talked about how the doctor was not happy with the black body he was given, yet without him, Jack Moss the man he was attached to, the doctor would not have survived. He needs him. In Coleman's "Race as Technology" she talks about how technology is an extension of the self, and if race is taken outside of its genetic, physical context and put into a technological context, it can be utilized in a positive way to "liberate race". Being connected to one another Jack and the doctor must have to sort their differences out due to their inseparable condition. Jack's black body is a technology in the sense that he did utilize it to liberate himself from racism in the sense that now he has this self-important, old white guy stuck on him (my worst nightmare) and now Jack's importance and value have gone outside of his race to what he provides as a person.