As soon as Gunnar moves to Hillside, the police are at his house to practice their “‘preventative police enforcement’” (Beatty 47). Of course, they need to know Gunnar’s gang affiliation first to fill in a few gaps in their knowledge. Obviously, Gunnar doesn’t have one because he just moved to Hillside! (but they don’t know that.) Instead, he wittily answers.
“Oh I see. Well, on weekends I’m down with the Gang of Four.”
“Who?” To his partner, “Geez, these fucking turds are incredible, there’s a new gang every frigging week.” Then he turned back to me.
“So, Gunnar, who you banging with in this Gang of Four?”
“You know, it’s me, my homegirl Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chuqiao, and my nigger even if he don’t get no bigger Yao Wenyuan. Sheeeeit, we runnin’ thangs from Shanghai to Compton.” (Beatty 47)
The police officers obviously don’t know, but I’ll give them a break for this given that most Americans know nothing about Chinese history nor can correctly pronounce even one major city name in China (unless they’re smart like Gunnar). Given that they don’t get the joke, they let him off. Still, the scene highlights the officers attitudes toward gangs. Gangs are commonplace to them and they’re not scared of them either given that they’re white officers from the LAPD, a systematically racist corrupt police force, who can unjustly use violence against innocent people.
At first this was just another quip that had me laughing awkwardly, but knowing the full course the novel takes did make me recognize some eerie connections. As you may know, the Gang of Four was one of the biggest forces during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (alongside our man Mao of course). Before 1966, the four were relatively low ranking officials. They all gained and kept power by manipulation of mass media and good relations with Mao. Leading up to their fall a month after Mao’s death, they were labelled by the Chinese government one of the “counter-revolutionary forces” of the Cultural Revolution.
When I think of Gunnar and Communist China, I think about his “messiah gig”. In essence, he’s a cult personality just like Mao. However, he’s also “counter-revolutionary” just like the Gang of Four. Convincing people to commit mass suicide by waiting for an atomic bomb is pretty anti-revolutionary I’d say. Gunnar didn’t really outwardly try to convince them, but the fact that he brought about the idea is still relevant. Furthermore, I’d say Psycho Loco’s question about whether or not it’s better to go out fighting strengthens my belief that Gunnar’s plans are perceived as anti-revolutionary.
Nice job explicating Gunnar's joke in this scene, which clearly goes "over the heads" of these LAPD officers, who seem to take this "Gang of Four" as valuable intel about a new gang in the neighborhood. The other joke he makes in this scene alludes to the Little Rascals (or "Our Gang," as it was also known), when he admits membership in the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club"--a reference to a famous episode where Spanky and the boys form a gender-exclusive "club" that Darla and the girls all try to join. Gunnar (and Beatty) are clearly messing with these cops, and Beatty seems to be playing with the loose definition of "gang"--it could be West Side Crips, or the Little Rascals, or the Cultural Revolution! So the idea that a young black man like Gunnar would be profiled in this way, once again, looks absurd.
ReplyDeleteI think Gunnar's reference to the Gang of Four kind of foreshadows the rest of the book, but even within the chapter, it builds up precedent of Gunnar's defiance of authority and how he uses his intelligence to undermine officials. Even before Gunnar's huge speeches and bestselling book, he uses humor and oblique references to confuse and one-up people around him. In this case, it's not just Gunnar but Beatty who is running in circles around the reader by putting in so many easter eggs.
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