Liberation from Race in Dis/Utopian Future of 'The Private Eye'

In March 2013, graphic novelist Brian K. Vaughan and illustrator Marcos Martin self-released a name-your-price episode of a comic project (a 'maxiseries,' according to the creators) called 'The Private Eye', hosted on their website Panel Syndicate. They describe the series:

"It’s a detective story set in 2076, when everyone in the United States has a secret identity. Our protagonist is a member of the paparazzi, outlaw private investigators who dig up the kind of personal dirt no longer readily available through search engines. It’s a mystery with lots of masks, but no superpowers. We know how the story ends, and we think it will take about 10 issues to get there."

As of September 2013, The Private Eye is three issues deep and seems like an intensely manicured masterwork in the making, a thoughtfully curated collection of visual ideas within a fun plot.

So far, the story has been driven more by its presentation than its themes, but the authors seem to have lofty goals for the latter, which constitutes the basis of the majority of their commentary. The authors haven't held back w/r/t commentary, and in fact released an entire 'The Making Of' issue after the third episode. The theme I'm addressing hasn't really fleshed itself out in the comic yet, so I'll mostly be taking the authors' words on liberation from identity in the series at face value.

"What if, just like women in some fundamentalist Islamic societies donning burqas before leaving the house, nearly every adult American put on some form of DISGUISE before stepping outside. But unlike burqas, these masked costumed are extremely varied, ranging from drab and conservative to vibrant and hyper-sexual. Everyone has at least one, most have many.
In short, Americans are now allowed to safely and anonymously explore new ideas and new identities in the REAL WORLD, in the same way we could online way back in 2011. ...
Masked citizens regularly sample new political meetings, cultural events, sex clubs, and places of worship, no longer afraid of being judged by their community. Some alternate identities are revealed to like-minded friends, while others are kept even from significant others. Rather than destroying marriage, this new union of liberty and discretion has only strengthened the institution, bringing divorce rates to new lows."

The benefits conferred on blackface performers by blackface seem to be achieved by costumes in this vision of the future. David Roediger's `The Wages of Whiteness' (read for class) cites that "according to Stowe and Grimsted, the black mask helped allow `deep expressions of emotions of loss and longing, as well as ridicule of social and intellectual platitudes and the discrepancies between American dreams and American realities' among whites" (123). Roediger pinpoints a shortcoming of the social commentary of blackface minstrelsy: "when arguing that blackface was a slight veneer providing the `distance' necessary to do effective social satire, they minimize the extent to which the mask seemed real to the audience and subverted the social criticism being expressed." The costume-disguises worn by citizens of 2076 U.S.A. are highly expressive and personalized, and can serve to emphasize what their wearers communicate. A world of costumes conditions its inhabitants to evaluate others by merit without the pressure of being judged at all. Blackface just forces anything worthy of merit or scorn to be taken with a large grain of salt, lessened.

The post-identity society of `The Private Eye' is also apparently post-race, and the main character is, as most people are according to the authors' notes, of an ambiguous racial mix. Though it remains to be seen, race is definitely on the authors' radar and has a claim to being a main theme of `The Private Eye'. I think race had a lot to do with their decision to use costumes. Again Roediger quotes Stowe and Grimsted in that the "'distance' provided by blackface made for social and cultural criticism able to present 'truths…which would have been profoundly troubling or socially dangerous if presented or taken in serious form.' Sometimes the distancing was very elaborate indeed" (126). This comic really sells the idea that (ELABORATE!) distancing can be a huge boon to communicative liberty, and offers a uniquely followed-through idea of how that could actually be achieved in the Western world.

The authors note "there are no mythical super-powers, just plausible (though fun and wildly imaginative!) science fiction." Even the most sagely commentary could be discredited by its coming from a (unrealistic, inhuman) superhumanly perfect source (like a superhero), just as it is largely discredited by coming from a caricature of a subjugated group of people (as in blackface minstrelsy). `The PI' involves neither and hopefully will use this position to lay down some powerful social insight!