Female celebrities during award season: Keeping it (too?) real
I’m all for celebs getting real about what it takes to look as good as they do. Hell, I’ve even been known to enjoy me a little of US Mag’s “They’re Just Like Us!” section because it pokes holes in the perceived perfection of A-listers.
What I don’t like, however, is Oscar nominees Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy sabotaging their own moments of recognition and glory by dishing about their shapewear snafus.
It isn't terribly awful to wear Spanx, but it sure is to feel like you have to out yourself about it before somebody else does.
According to People.com (in an article that ran under the headline “Octavia Spencer Dons Triple Spanx For Red Carpet”), Spencer has “taken to reinforcing her red-carpet attire with Spanx and doesn’t always stop at one pair.” In fact, she announced to the world on the Ellen DeGeneres Show that she often “triple spanx.”
“Elle” makes a mockery of Gabourey Sidibe’s cover girl moment
Gabby's "Elle" cover faces off with red carpet Gabby. Notice anything different?
What do you call a top fashion magazine that features a plus-sized African American actress on its cover? Progressive? Revolutionary?
If you’ve read recent Internet reports of Gabourey Sidibe’s October Elle cover, you might call it “racist,” “offensive,” or, as Salon puts it, “a weird fetishization that borders on patronizing.”
Allow me to explain. In honor of Elle’s 25th anniversary, the magazine is featuring a photo portfolio on “a new generation of smart, talented, game-changing artists, filmmakers, actresses, and activists.” Four of these lucky ladies landed a coveted spot on Elle’s special series of covers: Amanda Seyfried (Caucasian, thin), Lauren Conrad (Caucasian, thin), Megan Fox (Caucasian, thin), and Gabby (none of the above).
While the inclusion of a dark-skinned, big-bodied actress sounds like one giant leap for womankind, Gabby’s cover portrait frankly makes it hard to tell that she’s either one of those things. Illuminated from every angle and cropped just below her chest, she’s almost unrecognizable.
By the time I received my issue in the mail (hey, it’s considered About-Face “research”), I had already heard the hubbub surrounding Gabby’s Elle controversy. But my expectations for fashion magazines are never very high to begin with (though Glamour has been full of nice, body-positive surprises lately), so I wasn’t entirely shocked by the ultra-altered picture. I was more appalled by Elle’s lame excuses for the photo fiasco. Continue reading
American Apparel’s Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late ’80s-Early ’90s-Racist-Sexist-High end brand
What appears to be AA's only model of color shows off her "trashy" and "classy" poses.
We’ve talked about American Apparel before. You all know how we feel about the company’s creeptacular history and about how AA ads constantly and consistently make women’s bodies into objects for public consumption.
Just when I thought they couldn’t get worse, something new and insidious surfaced.
Gawker wrote recently about AA’s looks-based hiring policies, leaking internal documents that discuss AA’s “New Standard”: “Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late 80s-Early 90s- Ralph Lauren-Vogue-Nautical-High end brand.” Their employees are the front line of the brand’s new image, and should represent the company 
accordingly.
So who are they looking for to help represent the new look? The more important question is (and always should be in cases like this), who aren’t they looking for?
“None of those trashy [black girls],” said one e-mail from corporate. “We’re not trying to sell our clothes to them. Try to find some of those classy black girls, with the nice hair, you know?”
Let me just repeat that for you for a second: “some of those classy black girls with the nice hair.”
Women of color have long been victims of a white beauty standard that others them. Black women in particular are generally represented as animalistic and hypersexualized. AA’s policy plays directly into those stereotypes, defining black women as either “trashy” (good) or “classy” (bad) based on outer appearance, as though a woman’s hair reveals all about her personality, politics, and ability to be a fashionable employee. Continue reading
Playing Housewife: Beyoncé in “Why Don’t You Love Me?”
Beyoncé’s new video for her track, “Why Don’t You Love Me?” has been a hot topic of debate recently on a bunch of blogs we read.
The clip features Beyoncé as “BB Homemaker,” a character that pokes fun at stereotypical depictions of both the pin-up model and the seemingly-happy-but-secretly-unhappy 1950s/1960s housewife.
“Why Don’t You Love Me” – Beyoncé on Vimeo.
Beyoncé prances around in the video doing all the activities a housewife or pin-up model might do. Except, as a housewife she is quite inept. At one point she is doing some dusting in a sexy dress, but when you look closer, you realize she is dusting off a row of gleaming Grammy Awards. Then she’s trying to bake some cookies, but she’s actually just throwing flour around in her underwear. She also burns some kind of roast she’s cooking. And gardening seems to be more about looking fabulous than anything else.
It’s hard to criticize this video. My first instinct is to just enjoy and not analyze. But there are a few interesting issues that arise, whether Beyoncé intended to address them or not. Continue reading
“When your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed.”: “Good Hair” and the black community
A few months ago, comedian Chris Rock released a documentary that investigates the fanatical preoccupation with “good hair” in the black community. It’s a film that takes the viewers from neighborhood salons in Atlanta to rural villages of India, investigating the multibillion-dollar haircare industry. I’m a big fan of any documentary that examines the media and its influence on young women, and “Good Hair” was insightful, provocative and entertaining.
Just as Darryl Roberts’ documentary “America the Beautiful” comically tackled America’s obsession with bodily perfection, Chris Rock’s “Good Hair” comically tackles the black community’s obsession with impeccable locks. Rock talks to a wide variety of people, from celebrities like Raven Symone and Maya Angelou to everyday men, women, and high schoolers—none of whom think twice about getting a thousand-dollar weave or using relaxer in their hair. According to the documentary, worrying incessantly to make your ‘do “less black” is not just common in contemporary African-American culture—it’s expected.
The film focuses its attention on relaxer, the chemical used to make curly hair flawlessly straight. Celebs, like rap duo Salt ‘n Pepa and even the Reverend Al Sharpton, openly admit to using it. Relaxer has so much sodium hydroxide in it that it could potentially burn through one’s scalp, yet people continue to use it to achieve stick-straight hair. The documentary also explores the industry of weaves—wigs made of real hair that cost upwards of several thousands of dollars. These hair pieces, as the film points out, overwhelmingly come from Indian women who sacrifice their hair for religious purposes. The women who admit to wearing weaves show no shame around spending a month’s paycheck (or more) on a vanity item. Continue reading
Black Barbie Dolls Leave Much to Be Desired
As we found out from The Root, Mattel is releasing a new line of Barbie dolls that are getting a lot of attention. The new line, called “So In Style,” or “S.I.S.” are supposed to be African-American and to have more “authentic” facial features. The S.I.S. dolls are sold in pairs, with one adult doll and one young doll, in order to model a mentor relationship.
What makes this new line of black dolls interesting is that each character has a different skin tone, representing the variety of skin tones that black women have. Also, the dolls have straight, wavy, and curly hair. Props to Mattel for including these differences, but while it may be a step forward in representing racial diversity, it is far from far enough.
Michelle Obama: A Political Body
Michelle Obama, showing off those famous guns.
From the moment the Obama family moved into the White House, our newest President and his wife became instant American icons. A beautiful and intelligent African-American couple, the Obamas exist under a social microscope with the media reporting on virtually every aspect of their lives.
In the midst of all the Obamamania, one of the most interesting news trends is the increasing interest in Michelle Obama, often subjecting her to a level of attention beyond the normal scrutiny reserved for a first lady.
A Brave Step for Mainstream Rap: Webbie’s “Independent”
Webbie's album cover: Savage Life 2
If you have seen popular music videos recently, you know that women are often wearing little clothing and dancing provocatively around men. The lyrics to these songs can be just as oversexualized, if not more so. Although there is no shortage of music featuring women in these second-class roles, there is a brave new popular rap song and video that goes in a new direction.
Continue reading
“America the Beautiful”: Why beauty is out of control.
You’re reading the About-Face blog, so I’m gonna guess that you’re interested in the various messed-up ways women and girls are portrayed in media, and how it can really damage our self-esteem and self-respect. Well, now there’s a movie about it! It’s the new documentary “America the Beautiful,” and you should really go see it.
I saw the documentary last night in San Francisco, Continue reading
Do light-skinned black women have life easier than dark-skinned black women?
Speaking of body image and stereotypes of women, it’s not all about thinness/fatness, is it? Take the Tyra Banks Show from today, April 24. Black women of various skin shades were on the show talking about whether light-skinned black women have things easier, and the answer seemed to be “yes.” Continue reading