While I spent the past 72 hours writing a paper about the Native American war effort in the World War II, the only, and I mean ONLY, thing that kept me going was Keri Hilson’s video for her song “Pretty Girl Rock.” I mean that and the fact that I had a deadline. Anyway, I must have watched the video roughly twenty times at this point and given the fact that it’s a little over four minutes long, I’d say I’ve spent approximately 116 minutes (that’s like 2 hours for those who are counting) watching this fabulous clip.
In the video, Keri Hilson embodies famous black female figures over the past century. In the 30’s she’s Josephine Baker, in the 40's she's a Dorothy Dandridge type, in the 50’s she’s a Candy Girl ,in the 60’s she’s Diana Ross with The Supremes, in the 70’s she’s either Dina Ross sans the Supremes or maybe she’s Donna Summer, in the 80’s she’s Janet Jackson in her infamous “Rhythm Nation” video, in the 90’s she’s T-Boz from TLC in their “Creep” video, and in the 00’s she’s herself in a t-shirt and jeans. Now tacky as the concept is, it works for me for some reason. Maybe it’s because she fully inhabits the women she imitates or because I have fun trying to discern which female figure she’s embodying at any given moment. Whatever the reason, it’s definitely my new jam.
Actually, I think I do know the reason I adore this song/video so much: the lyrics fit in with a history of black empowerment and the visuals add a unique twist to that notion. If I could list my top three favorite lines in this song, I’d go with the following: “Don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful” (which can either mean "don't be jealous of my beauty" or "don't hate me and,if you try, I'm confident enough not to worry about it"), “Mad cause I’m cuter than the girl that’s with ya” and “all eyes on me when I walk in, no question that this girl’s a 10.” A close fourth might be the line “I know I’m attractive.” Now, normally arrogance is NOT cute but there’s something a little different about this song.
Here we have an attractive black woman not only affirming that she’s beautiful but reveling in it, laughing at it and mocking the fact she ought not be so boastful about it. Furthermore, she’s not saying she’s the first of her kind: as she shifts from one beautiful black woman to the next, she gives a little history lesson, and reminder that our society has encountered black female beauty before and that it’s done so with relish.
Watching this video over and over again reminded me of a talk I went to earlier this semester about Beyonce and Lady Gaga. Yes, Harvard does have a few fun things to offer me every once in a while. On this particular night, the question of the night was whether these two women represented the new faces of feminism. Students were quick to agree that there was an inner feminist in Lady Gaga. As I’ve mentioned before in an earlier post, they all noted that Lady Gaga was a feminist because of her ability to mess with all the rules of proper lady-like etiquette. With this, I wholeheartedly agree.
They all also agreed that in the “Telephone” and “Video Phone” videos, there was nothing particularly feminist about Beyonce’s performance. My heart almost popped out of my chest: I thought I’d finally found people who dug pop culture and who understand it the way I do but I was wrong. If you’ve ever seen the “Telephone” video in which Beyonce poisons her abusive boyfriend or the “Video Phone” video in which men’s heads are transformed into cameras (i.e. in which they embody the problems of Laura Mulvey’s “female gaze”), you might find at least an inkling of feminism in her performance. If these things aren’t the modern, extremist equivalents of bra-burning, I don’t know what is. I’m not directly saying that women should go out and poison those who treat them wrong or that they should look at men as perpetual objectifiers of women…..but those are options.
In any event, the students’ responses during this event frustrated me because I felt they tried to apply the same standards to black and white women and that simply can’t, I mean CANNOT, be done. Black and white women have two very different legacies in American history. While it’s definitely feminist (read: critical of the gender status quo) of Lady Gaga to defy the logic of how blonde artists ought to behave, we have to recognize that she has the flexibility to be a weirdo (and one I adore) because of the fact that she’s white. White women are already assumed to be attractive in Western society. Black women, on the other hand, are still in the position of trying to get their foot in the door on this front. While Hilson notes several famous examples, not enough people have given black women’s beauty due credit overall. Beyonce’s music and her presence as an undeniable sex symbol represents a sort of feminist progress for black women: she invites everyone to consider that black not only can be beautiful but that it IS beautiful.
This message has been lost on plenty of people,though, black men included. Go to any Harvard party on a Saturday night and you’re sure to see every last white girl at a black party pinned up against some black man whether she’s average-looking, elephantine or busted, rusted and disgusted. Beyonce and Keri Hilson, albeit in a pop, silly fashion, de-constructs the notion that being white and female is the only way someone could do the “Pretty Girl Rock.” What’s sad is that it’s taken so long for this to be a popular message that people can rock out to. Or at least one that I can listen to non-stop during reading period. Why aren’t there more songs about how pretty brown skin is? Have we become complacent about reinterating this message since the Civil Rights era has ended? What’s up with that?
