Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Where the black women in pop culture??

Now this is interesting. From a fellow myspacer, I saw this as a bulletin post today and I dashed over here with my mind swirling.

www.letstalkhonestly.com asks the question:

Are black women being replaced in the media?

A resounding YEEEESSSSSSS!

Ahem.

Currently, I'm listening to the NPR report (I heart NPR) and the link is located here. First, my thoughts on the radio discussion. They started fabulously talking about black women disappearing in pop culture today and in the media. I thought finally! A dialogue about black women issues today! Now, why did they go and end up talking about Dr. Dre and NWA and hip hop today? (Who cares? I don't.) What's that have to do anything? It reminds me of the monolithic idea where the color of your skin lumps you into a group no matter the sex, no matter your ideas and interest. If you're black you're connected with one huge group with a big ole label slapped on you. If you're a black woman, you're loud, neck popping, completely against IR dating, etc. ad nauseum ad banging head against the wall. It's annoying and it's tired. Now, grant it, we talk about black female issues here as a groupt thing and although we are individuals, these issues affects all of us black women because of the beliefs and ideas that are pushed onto us from the outside world.

So word to the wise: if you listen to the radio discussion you may want to drop out around 05:12 or thereabouts.

So back to the discussion at hand. This has been the subject of many a talks between T and myself especially in fandomland. The minute a black female shows up she is given grief by certain parties of fandom to the point that her fans have to rally together to drown out the haterism she receives. Especially if said female is beautiful, intelligent and a source of attraction for male fandom. T will be posting more on the issues of fandom surrounding this later on. But I will say that this is not surprising.

Black women are attractive to all types of men out there.

I will say this again because some tend not to believe this.

Black women are attractive to all types of men out there.

Rinse repeat. I say this because on other blogs I've wandered to, I hear how wm aren't attracted to black women, etc yadda yadda. If they weren't there wouldn't be laws put in place to keep the two groups apart. There wouldn't be stereotypes put in motion at the beginning of the century to lure their sons away from marrying black females. Plus, we wouldn't be getting the eye overseas in European countries as T has told me! (now, where's my passport again?!)

Interestingly enough, today we are seeing an extreme version of the 3 stereotypes that were fed into the media. Now we're seeing an all out "blackout" of bw in the media. They're just shutting us out altogether. Where are the black female leads who were coming up just a few years ago? Where's mention of the talented black female singers (NPR at least got that point right!) such as India Arie, Jill Scott, Heather Headley etc? Are we really that much of a threat?

I shall leave the answer up to you.

What I would like to see is creative, open-minded black women getting together and making our own movies. Females already account for about 2% of directors out there now. Something New was a great start in the right direction, but there are many more stories to be told. The thing is females have to come out in droves in the entertainment industry and many are discouraged right in film school by their own professors from acheiving film degrees. The good thing is that filmmaking is pretty cheap now, one just has to have the heart and power to go for it. Writers should team up with fellow indie filmmakers searching for an awesome project to direct.

But it's in our hands ladies and I think it's a fabulous time to start telling our own stories and placing ourselves in the pop culture media!

Otherwise, who else will?
Posted by Eternal Beauty in Black :: 12:54 PM :: 2 comments

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