ABSTRACT
In this paper, I argue that the representation of black subjects inWaiting for Superman must be viewed in the context of a global cultural-political shift toward what Jodi Melamed (2009) has called neoliberal multiculturalism, a period in which we no longer have to consider race or pursue racial equality in any direct way, because neoliberal policies and subjectivities are seen as the guarantors of multiculturalism. Neoliberal multiculturalism is able to account for continued racial disparities by insisting that racialized subjects who still suffer are either unable to access race-transcending neoliberal opportunities, or more damning, are unwilling to surrender their racial allegiances in favor of neoliberal ones. I contend that Waiting for Superman and similar cultural products sentimentalize the lives of people of color, and thereby offer white consumers a kind of racial redemption, available for purchase largely through reading of the text and softening of the heart. However, I also suggest that the sentimentality that used to be readily available now exists in tension with a more recently intensified antipathy toward black bodies, identities, and cultural politics, all of which are increasingly viewed as impediments to a more advanced postracial, but (neoliberal-), multicultural nation and world (Sexton, 2008).
