A Woman's Worth

I am one who believes in the power of media to socialize us, particularly children.  So, when I saw this "cartoon" I first laughed and then was taken aback at how true it rings. It's interesting to think that most (if not all) of the Disney classics featuring female lead characters are about the pursuit of a man. And while it'd be foolish to think that children (and specifically girls) think about femaleness and marriage in these terms, they still internalize its messages and start to play those out in life. 

I think there could also be a correlation between some of these characters/cartoons and the way in which modern day weddings have become expensive spectacles that are removed from the initial intent of a marriage ceremony -- which is simply to join two people in a legally binding contract in front of family and friends.

So, the next time you sit your son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild or the kid you're babysitting down in front of a Disney film to keep them entertained for a couple of hours, think about the unintentional message they may be absorbing.  

Where's the Rainbow?

I watched a documentary on LOGO called The Butch Factor on logo which purported to examine ideas (and ideals) about masculinity among gay men.  What struck me when watching was that the documentary presented a monolithic idea of masculinity, or to speak in the film's terms, butchness.  The masculine men played sports, participated in rodeos and were police officers while the less butch (read: feminine) representations were of men who had more artsy professions.

WWW: The White Women's Workout; or So Funny, It's Kinda Sad

I saw this video and was torn -- it's actually laugh out loud funny, but also incredibly sad, particularly as I inhabit my black male skin daily.  Certainly media, including music, movies, television (both the news and television shows) and even art to a certain degree (and the Reagan administration) has helped to perpetuate the idea of the menacing black man.  But at the same time, this manages to skewer the sheer absurdity of a monolithic idea of black male menace (as well as monolithic ideas about any group of people).

Framing Homosexuality via Archie

The comic strip Archie announcing that it would introduce a gay character to Riverdale was met by me with a yawn. But then I saw this video and this video



and then I realized the damage that media can do and that homosexuality is (and will always be) othered in our allegedly unbiased media culture.

Why is the Prophet Mohammed Sacred in Media?

The question about the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad in media is a fascinating one.  That is in no way a slam to Muhammad, but rather, it is interesting given the lack of scrutiny that has been given to other things on South Park including God and the Devil.  I don't know the answer, but this New York Times editorial is certainly worth reading.  It questions why the Prophet Muhammad is off limits (and many would argue that he should be) but God or the Devil or even Barbara Streisand and Tom Cruise, are/have been skewered by South Park.

Whose Side Are You On? Celebrity and the Culture of Binaries

We live in a world that is often black and white with no shades of gray. You're either for health care reform or against it. You either support war or you're unpatriotic. We are constantly asked to choose sides in our culture. But never is choosing sides more absurd than when it comes to celebrities. I was reminded of this penchant for the news media to choose sides and then in their reporting make us chose a side as well when I (begrudgingly) watched CNN last week. The "impartial, just delivering the news" anchor Kyra Phillips decided to call Jesse James, Sandra Bullock's husband, a jerk in the course of delivering the news that Sandra Bullock had moved out of the family home in Los Angeles. Kyra Phillips was definitely on Team Sandy.

It's not just limited to coverage of marital/relationship discord (although there are many examples like Team Jen or Team Angie) but also reared its head when we were to chose between Team Coco (Conan O'Brien) or Team Jay (Leno). What's puzzling is that we make these decisions in a knowledge vacuum. As Chris Rojek says in his brilliant book Celebrity "one peculiar tension in celebrity culture is that the arousal of strong emotion [for celebrities] is attained despite the absence of direct personal reciprocity." In other words, we refer to celebrities by first name or by nicknames yet we have so little knowledge about them that would offer us the license to refer to them on friendly terms. For example, Mariah Carey is Mimi, Jennifer Aniston is Jen and Sandra Bullock is Sandy (maybe it's a female thing?). In addition, we have unimonikered people in our culture who go by their first name only: Beyonce, Madonna and for some (or most) gay men when you hear Liza, Bette, Diana, Tina, or Barbara, there can be no doubt about the person being discussed.

There have been some pretty nasty things written about Tiger Woods in light of his extramarital affairs (as well as Jesse James and many other celebrities who have admitted to having sexual relationships with people with whom they are not attached). But the fact remains that we know nothing about them. Perhaps Tiger Woods and his wife had an agreement that sexual monogamy is not an important aspect of their marriage (like Mo'Nique and her husband) and the media's focus on the relationship is really about Elin being embarrassed that the sexual dalliances of her husband have come to light. Maybe Sandra Bullock isn't really America's Sweetheart and is a bear to live with who refused to have sex with her husband. I doubt this is the case with either Tiger Woods or Sandra Bullock, but it illuminates that we just don't have enough information to be able to make the call about who wins when Team Sandy is going head to head with Team Jesse, or Team Tiger vs. Team Elin.

This binary also speaks to the way in which our culture has socially constructed marriage and monogamy. Culturally, we give Mo'Nique the collective "side eye" when she says that one of the partner's "infidelity" is not necessarily a reason to dissolve the relationship -- particularly if we believe that about 50 percent of marriages in the US end in divorce. Who said marriage (or serious relationships for that matter) had to be based on monogamy? We have culturally tied something carnal (sex) to something emotional (love) when the two are not really related. Maybe it is for the best that we live in monogamous relationships, but it's our modern creation and it hasn't been around "forever." And even in the Mo'Nique monogamy situation, we're asked to be on Team Monogamy or Team Open Marriage. Stories on the Internet urge us to make a choice with titles like Are Open Relationships Better?, Is Mo'Nique's Open Relationship Sexist? and Do Open Relationships Equal Insecurity? As Matt Bianco asks us, whose side are you on?

The White Savior in Hollywood

Last night I got into a discussion about Sandra Bullock winning an Oscar(R) for her role in The Blind Side. The person with whom I had this argument railed against Sandra Bullock's win because she felt that it reinforced the idea of the "helpless black" waiting for a good white person to come and make their lives better.



Before I dive into any argument, I like Sandra Bullock and most of her work. I also liked her work in The Blind Side. That having been said, the movie, while based on a true story, does work to continue the stereotype that white people, and white people alone hold the power. The Touhy family, as depicted in the film, introduced Michael Oher to football (also perpetuating the myth that black people -- especially black men -- excel at sport, not academics) and gave him the tools to be able to succeed. In the film, he also came from a broken home where the father was not present and the mother was a drug addict. In fact, no black person was shown as being "upstanding" setting up what Herman Gray calls black exceptionalism as difference in his book Watching Race. "blackness is figured as cultural and personal qualities that transcend and, from the position of dominant spectatorship established... reinscribe whiteness as the normative site of everyday life... this exceptional blackness has to be harnessed and ultimately placed in the service of good (Gray, 168). In other words, in the cinematic adaptation of the story Michael Oher is made "good" by "white saviors" rather than by other blacks within the community from which he comes. And we must assume that the film largely gets it right as Michael Oher hasn't publicly said otherwise (at least not to my knowledge).

In movies like The Blind Side, blacks continue to be portrayed in ways that became ingrained in our cultural fabric during the Reagan era: uneducated, violent, and "welfare queens." That is certainly not to say that this is the only representation of black people in film, but with two of the most high profile movies of the year featuring black actors (Precious and The Blind Side) featuring the Reagan-ist depictions of blacks, it is worth paying attention to the images we are being shown and the ideology that is being reinforced by the film industry.

Movies and Financial Education

Here's a story for bankrate.com for which I was interviewed to discuss what movies teach us about money.

A Kiss is Still a Kiss: White Heteronormativity and the movie Valentine's Day

Garry Marshall you owe me $6!

Every bad experience is supposed to be a learning experience, right? So, I learned something from the cinematic crap fest called Valentine's Day. But I'm sure it's nothing that the writers, actors or producers expected me to get out of it. As someone who studies representation of both black people and gay people in media, I never expected Valentine's Day to shed any light on my studies, but it did -- and I guess that makes it worth the $6 I wasted seeing it. For the first half (or so) of this seemingly three hour movie I noticed that neither Jamie Foxx or Queen Latifah were getting any romantic play. Jamie Foxx's character was too cynical to be romantically involved and Queen Latifah's character was focused on her career. But then toward the end of the movie, Jamie Foxx became interested in Jessical Biel, culminating in an interracial kiss. The problem? "The kiss" was shot in such a way that you couldn't really see their lips becoming one, but just had the "idea" that they were kissing. I tried finding an image of said kiss, but when I put in the search terms Jamie Foxx Jessica Biel kiss, the first result was this and after scrolling through five pages still didn't see a screencap.


According to Erica Chito Childs, author of Fade to Black and White, "interracial stories may be appealing to show without mentioning race, and in particular, by showing interracial possibilities that promote the idea that society is color-blind while affirming the problems with crossing the color-blind color line." But by the way in which the sole interracial kiss was filmed in Valentine's Day, it shows that there is still taboo as well as perhaps some revulsion related to interracial couplings. And while the relationship was new, it's also interesting to note that they are one of the only couples not shown in bed together.

Viewers were also supposed to be shocked by Eric Dane's character's admission that he is gay and is subsequently in some kind of relationship with Bradley Cooper. The what, where or how of the relationship is never explained or defined but they're two gay characters in a movie so they must be together, right? But what is also cowardly about the portrayal of this relationship is that it is played solely for shock value. We were supposed to be shocked when we find out that Eric Dane is gay and then shocked again that Eric Dane and Bradley Cooper are a couple. And how do we know they are a couple? Because Bradley Cooper walks in and brushes a flower on Eric Dane's cheek while he's sleeping. When Eric Dane awakes they don't kiss, they just look at each other lovingly and then we fade to the next scene. While every other couple (including high school students) is shown kissing at some point.

I don't expect gayness in every movie I see (in fact, I'd probably hate it) but when you are going to have gay characters, at least have them kiss and don't just use it as a tactic to (allegedly) shock your audience. It very well may have been a shot at inclusiveness (after all, Valentine's Day is a film with a multicultural cast), but don't include a gay couple and then cop out. Sure, it may have outraged a few heterosexual viewers whose delicate palate is offended by seeing two dirty homos kissing (unless it's Jessica Biel and Jessica Alba or two equally hot women), but either go all the way or leave it out. Frankly, Valentine's Day was so craptastic, that it could have been left out entirely and the movie would have remained its level of crappiness.

Pop Culture and the Familiar

As consumers of pop culture and media we often decry that we want something new and unique -- something we haven't seen before. But our consumption practices often tell us differently. When I looked at the grosses for Broadway shows in New York for the past week, I was struck at how few shows are original. In fact, of the top 10 grossing shows, only one, In the Heights, is an original show. The top 5? Wicked (based on a book), The Lion King and Billy Elliot (based on a movies), West Side Story (revival and a retelling of Romeo and Juliet) and Jersey Boys (based on songs made famous by The Four Seasons). One could certainly argue that Broadway theater is hardly the barometer of taste and class, so let's look at movies.

Avatar was such a worldwide hit that we are going to get a second cup of Avatar. Despite being essentially called a cinematic crap fest by most critics, Valentine's Day beat expectations to be the number one film at the box office last week largely because we "know" the boldface stars whose names appear on the marquee. We are constantly subjected to movies based on books, stage musicals (mostly with little success) and remakes of old movies (see Eat, Pay, Love; Iron Man 2, and Alice in Wonderland, just to name a few).

We even see this replication of the old in music. We Are The World was remade to show support for Haiti, Alicia Keys "remade" Empire State of Mind without the rap from Jay-Z. And it extends outside of rap or R&B. Even Feist remade Nina Simone's See Line Woman as Sea Lion Woman (all in the pronunciation, I guess).





We often reject things that are new (contrary to the lip service we pay to wanting new things). With very few exceptions, television repeats the same formula. How many shows have we seen that employ the hot wife/sloppy husband construct? How many four female friends (the smart/witty one, the slutty one, the dumb one and the bitchy one) have we seen? Even one of my current favorite shows, Glee is a bit of a rehash in the sense that it is pretty close in premise to High School Musical.

All this is not to say that a rehash or cover or remake is inherently bad, but it does beg the question: where's all the new stuff that we are supposed to consume. Or maybe dissonance theory has it right because it asserts that new information causes people mental discomfort.

Bisexual Characters on TV

Here is a story for which I was interviewed about bisexual characters on TV.

Do Blacks Only Earn Awards for Negative Roles?

So read the headline of a story I saw in the Washington Informer. And on one hand, it is an important question to ask when you look at some (and I underline some three times) of the recent Black actors and actresses who have been awarded an Oscar(r) for their work. Halle Berry's win for Monster's Ball could, I believe, be seen as simply awarding a black person an Oscar because there had been so much made of the fact that no black person had won the Best Actress or Best Actor Oscar since Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel. Denzel Washington's Oscar was regarded as an award not necessarily for Training Day, but for his body of work. That largely leaves Jennifer Hudson, who, while fantastic in Dreamgirls, was largely awarded an Oscar because of her back story (booted from American Idol, told she'd never make it, and persevering).

Which brings us to Mo'Nique. Her portrayal can certainly be construed as being a negative portrayal of blacks, particularly inner city blacks, but the fact remains that her performance is riveting and comes from her gut. Personally, I don't like Mo'Nique, but I absolutely have to take my hat off to her for pulling one of the year's best performances out of her hat.

But looking at the number of roles that blacks have played and the number of movies starring black actors, it is shocking that the list of those who have been awarded (or even nominated) is fairly short. I'm still pretty shocked that none of the actors in The Secret Life of Bees were even mentioned during awards season, particularly Queen Latifah or the criminal absence of Idylwild from the award season.

I do believe that black actors garner far less respect in Hollywood, particularly underrated actors like Angela Bassett, Lawrence Fishburn and Alfre Woodard -- just to name a few. I am certainly not an advocate of nominating an actor just because he or she happens to be black, but it'd be nice to see more color at the Oscars.