Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

Vanity Fair’s Racism Sings: Don’t Cha Wish You Were White Girl Like Me. Don’t Cha.

Friday, February 5, 2010 at 9:13 am

Cover Girls March 2010

“Mirror . . . mirror on the wall who the fairest of them all?” In most fairytales, the mirror would reply, “Snow white is the fairest of them all.” However, in the case of Vanity Fair’s March cover, the names are Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Evan Rachel Wood, and Anna Kendrick . . . all up incoming young white Hollywood actresses. According to Shine’s writer, Joanna Douglass,

Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz calls out the young cover stars by their best attributes: “downy-soft cheeks,” “button nose,” “patrician looks and celebrated pedigree,” “dewy, wide-eyed loveliness,” “Ivory-soap-girl features.”

Clearly, Evgenia Peretz has over-dosed on the proverbial white supremacist poisoned apple. I know what you’re thinking. Do such apples exist? Yes, they do just ask Pat Robertson what he thinks about Haiti or ask the producer and director of Couples Retreat about taking the black comedian, Faizon Love, off the European posters.

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Scribbled Paper: Notes on a Scandal

Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:18 am

I had a bit of a family emergency last week that resulted in me spending several hours in New York Presbyterian Hospital instead of checking out that tree in Rockefeller Center, seeing Shrek before it leaves Broadway next month, and visiting my favorite sneaker boutiques.  (To the folks who commented on last week’s blog, my apologies.  Life happens and I didn’t have much time to engage.) As a result, I kind of have no idea what’s going on in the world.  I do know, however, that Victor and Nikki got back together (AGAIN!) after his heart transplant.  Thanks, Grandma Charlotte.

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The Princess and the Frog, but what about the White Frog’s Hunters?

Friday, December 11, 2009 at 7:47 am

Today the Princess and the Frog opens across the nation. Of course, I’m going to go see the movie, however like most cynics I wrote a blog about the movie before it premiered approximately two months ago to  be exact. So, if my argument is proven wrong by actually seeing the film, I will write another blog saying I was wrong. However, I do not think this will be the case. Also, I hope bloggers, writers, teachers, critics, etc. are equally critical of this movie as they were of the movie, Precious.

The original title of the blog was, Mobs, Cracker Barrel, and Hunters . . . Oh, My.

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Today in Post-Race History: Full Corps Press

Monday, December 7, 2009 at 7:09 am

I don’t follow the comings and goings of the White House press corps, so I’m wading in uncharted water here.  (I come from a long line of water waders, so I think I’ll be ok.)  Yet I did watch the clip of last week’s exchange between White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and American Urban Radio’s April Ryan three times after I saw the story posted on Yahoo!.  (It does not get near my “Video Phone” record, but who’s counting?) Read more »

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WORLD AIDS DAY: Reflections and Memories

Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 5:41 pm

In honor of World AIDS Day 2009, I want to open up a conversation/discussion about sex.

luvboo2 Sex makes me nervous! I get nervous both before and after sex. I am nervous because in my head I picture this spinning chart of numbers and statistics that makes me realize that sex is the ultimate Russian roulette. You pull the trigger you get a risk-free nut; you pull the trigger again and you get a parting gift.    

 After having sex, I hate the immediate realization that I am at risk for a slew of different diseases: Herpes, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, HPV and HIV are just a few of the “gifts that keep on giving,” especially for us black folk.  After that thought come the charts and statistics:

 

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Captain Save-a-Negro: A Primer

Monday, November 30, 2009 at 9:00 am

www.koffii.com/ImageDescription.aspx?photoId=38873

www.koffii.com/ImageDescription.aspx?photoId=38873

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I swear I saw commercials for the movie The Blind Side more times than I caught the ads of those cats singing the free credit report jingle.  (F-R-E-E that spells free/credit report dot com, baby…) Environmentalists could learn a lot from Hollywood; that place recycles scenarios more often than a tree hugger sneers at Hummer drivers.

The trailers for the movie indicate that The Blind Side is yet another addition to that long list of white savior movies.  I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to (In grad school, we call this not being bound by the text.), but it seems that Sandra “I’m doing this movie to make up for playing a racist in Crash” Bullock saves a big black kid from the perils of blackness.  (Crabs in a barrel.  You know the deal.)  I guess the Based on a true story tagline wants to goad me into not being critical of the movie, the genre.  Whatever.  The movie has provided an occasion to address the white savior film.  Since I’ve seen every episode of Webster and Diff’rent Strokes and Dangerous Minds (twice), I’m going to provide a primer for Negro saving for any and all white folks with plenty of money and love in their hearts to adopt a hapless black kid.  And for you black youth out there, pay attention.  You might find something useful here to make yourself more marketable. Read more »

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Upgrade U: What We Can Learn From Beyonce

Monday, November 23, 2009 at 9:00 am

Beyonce performs during the MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, in New York City. (Brad Barket/PictureGroup via AP Images)

Beyonce performs during the MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, in New York City. (Brad Barket/PictureGroup via AP Images)

Beyonce’s  Thanksgiving special airs this week, and I know there are plenty of folks hating.  Had I not seen the light, I would’ve been one of them.  A few weeks ago, I was checking my Facebook account, and a friend’s status message read that she intended to write a negative (feminist) critique of Beyonce.  Of course there were the co-signers with their expected “This is so necessary; can’t wait to read it,” responses.   Whatever.  These people probably bowl with bumpers in the gutters, and celebrate when they roll a strike.  Either exercise is about as difficult as convincing a 4-year-old that there are monsters in the closet.  The implicit position, the crux of “Beyonce makes feminists nauseous,” argument, I imagine, might be described as something about Beyonce failing to meet certain expectations–her apparent lack of depth, her music, her relationship to men, her skin tone in those makeup ads.  Such critiques are ironically similar to a Tyler Perry movie: you’ve seen the tropes before and you how that it’s going to end. Read more »

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Donnie McClurkin vs Tonéx: Round ONE

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:24 pm

 

Homophobic  Rapture

Homophobic Rapture

The homosexuality controversy in black faith communities has reached a feverish pitch, especially with Tonéx’s and Donnie McClurkin’s recent admissions. Probably most renowned for the rumors regarding their sexuality, these two black gospel singers have become the centerpiece to the debate of the role homosexuals should play in black faith communities.  Unfortunately both men’s livelihood as pastors of their respective church has led them to depend financially on a community that by and large forces/prefers silence on same-sex desires and human rights. Yet, both these men have carved a space in gospel music to openly acknowledge their desires. Tonéx by stating that his preference is for the same sex; Donnie by (abstaining and) persecuting other homosexuals as not being willing to be delivered from “the perversion of homosexuality.”

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I saw the movie Precious, but what about her mother, Mary?

Friday, November 13, 2009 at 8:42 am

I am my mother’s daughter and my mother is the daughter of my grandmother. And both their stories and silences speak through me.

I begin with this mantra because spiritually and mentally I desperately need to understand why tears stained and wrinkled my cheeks as I watched the movie Precious. Yes, I am a Cancer and have been known to wear my heart on my sleeve, but there was something so violent and painful about how Lee Daniels portrayed Precious’ mother that tears could only convey my ill ease and anger. Mind you, there are many critiques I could write about the movie. However, I think summer’s Lost in Translation: A Response to Precious gets at the root of why so many people like myself wanted to storm out of the theater babbling among many things, “I can’t stand Tyler Perry’s @s$ who makes millions off of black women being damaged.” So, if you want to read a good critique, please read summer’s Lost in Translation. I guess I should also say that I have not read Push by Sapphire and all my comments are in response to the movie, Precious.

So, I begin by asking the question, what if the movie Precious was not told from the point of view of Precious, but told from the point of view of Mary. I know many of you are scratching your heads asking, “Who’s Mary?” Well, Mary is Precious’ mother. I think it is important that we know the name of the woman who is “solely” responsible for making her daughter overweight, infecting her daughter with HIV, allowing her father to rape her, and forcing her to quit school to get welfare. Given all of this, I think it is important to know the name of Precious’ mother, Mary.

Yes, I know that the purpose of the movie was to tell the daughter’s story. But, as I watched Mary silence, physically abuse, and sexually sodomize her daughter, all I could think about as tears flowed was Mary’s story and how she became who she was. What were the political, social, cultural, and economic forces “intersecting” to shape how she saw her daughter and how she saw herself? Mary is not one dimensional in the sense of simply being organically evil. But, Lee Daniels—as he also did in Monster’s Ball—did a good, downright extraordinary job of painting her as such, ignoring the many structural and cultural forces at play during the 70s and 80s that made the image of the black welfare queen palatable and punitive.

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Lost in Translation: A Response to ‘Precious’

Monday, November 9, 2009 at 9:38 am

Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry said Precious was awesome and that everyone should go see it. Since I am the most obedient of Negroes, I saw it last Friday. If Flavor Flav is the world’s greatest hype man, this duo is officially the world’s greatest hype machine. I found Precious slightly underwhelming, uninspiring, and lacking much of what makes the novel, Push by Sapphire, so powerful. Sorry, Ms. Winfrey. I had no “A-ha!” moment. Read more »

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