The Weaponising of a Name
I just can’t get past Chauncey’s mis-stress of ‘Blackbeard’ here. He uses a spondee - / / - emphasising both syllables equally, which is what causes the perceived ‘gap’, rather than a trochee /u, where the second syllable is unstressed.
This is the most notorious pirate in history. His name is spoken everywhere. Plus Chauncey pronounced the name correctly to Stede during the confession scene earlier.
It’s a microaggression. A distortion of identity. There’s historical precedent for deliberate mispronunciation of a person of colour’s name as a way of othering or exoticising or belittling. The mispronunciation of this moniker is difficult to pull off for Chauncey because it’s from an English lexicon. Only thing he can do really is ‘put a gap in there’, stress the wrong syllable. It’s still power-play in that a person of standing within the dominant culture is taking the name of someone of notoriety within a counterculture, and bending their identity out of shape by mocking their name as a flexing of authority.
Chauncey isn’t the only one. I’ve mentioned previously Izzy’s mispronunciation of ‘Edward’ in 1.10 . Although part of a counterculture, Izzy aligns himself all too readily with the methods of the dominant one when it suits.
I know others have their names mispronounced in the show. Iggy for Izzy, Steve for Stede. It’s done as power-play too. I would argue that the Steve/Stede game Jack is playing is horribly passive aggressive, and built around femmephobia and misogyny. Females are more likely to have names changed or mispronounced, partly because there’s a larger variety. But also because it’s seen as less significant to get it right because women are ‘secondary human beings.’ Rose / Rosie / Rosa - who cares? Stede/Steve… whatever. Just a big girl at the end of the day.
With Izzy, Stede is responding to their previous recent history and Izzy’s continued rudeness. Whilst Lucius is punching up at a bully, using Izzy’s own tactics of weaponising language back at him (seductress, anyone?). Plus, the Izzy insults are very deliberate and direct. No one’s saying ‘What is it you think I am doing?’ There’s nothing covert. They’re saying ‘I detest you, and I’m not even pretending’. These insults are also passed between white men. It just doesn’t have the same historic racial power-dynamics or undercurrents as when Ed has his names or monikers mispronounced.
But I’m glad Ed calls out Chauncey. Makes him look verbally illiterate at best, and racist to anyone paying attention. Ed’s definitely clocked the meaning, and even when in desperate straits, he reasserts his identity. It’s a racial punching down; they both know it. People deny it because it’s subtle, but this sort of thing always is.
