The forgotten Kelly Dodson: viral performance and the interplay of excess and erasure

Abstract

This essay uses a critical discourse analysis of the newscast video uploaded to YouTube, “Woman wakes up to find intruder in her bed,” in which a local news station interviews Huntsville, Alabama residents Kelly and Antoine Dodson about the invasion of their home and the attempted rape of Kelly Dodson. The analysis focuses on what is and is not being said about the Black bodies that are central to the video. What unfolds is a process of the erasure of Kelly Dodson, the Black woman whose sexual assault is the catalyst of the media event, while her brother, Antoine Dodson, becomes excessively centered as the person who helped to thwart the assault. The essay argues two things: Black women who experience sexual violence are often marginalized through what I call viral performance; however, attached to the excessive moments of visibility that result, that which is not generalizable and resists commodification, or “the non-iconic,” is also revealed.

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