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Kathleen Collins and the Redemptive Softness of Black Women

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Still from the film “Losing Ground” directed by Kathleen Collins.

This post has been a long time coming.

I Love Black women filmmakers, because I believe that Black women filmmakers see us. Not just the uplifting “We shall overcome” versions of us, but they see us in all of our beauty, contradictions, nuanced, strength and fragility.

Last fall, while reading Jacqueline Bobo’s Black Women Film and Video Directors, I kept coming across the name Kathleen Collins.

Come to find out the reels for Collins’ film “Losing Ground” were at the library so I took an afternoon and I watched it. The film blew my mind.

The main protagonist in the film is a Black woman philosophy professor who is searching for the ecstatic experience. Yes, honey, she is searching for ecstasy.

In an interview in Black Film Review Collins stated that,
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Actually, the only hope for any sort of feminine salvation in this country– and the sad thing is that Black women are giving it up  in favor of a quietly growing, kind of strident white feminism. But the only residual softness that is possible in this culture as far as I am concerned is in the hands of Black women.

When I read this I thought. Wait a minute, the people who have been historically represented as lewd, lascivious, unrapeable, gold diggers, rich and lonely,  hoochie mammas, are the ones who have the redemptive softness?????

Film scholar L.H. Stalling takes this idea of the residual softness of Black women and runs with it. She writes,

Kathleen Collins’s solution to the violence done to black women and their image insists that such redemption come from those who have been positioned as the most abnormal and dysfunctional in society, black women.

This idea of Black women being the site of redemption because they are some of the most maligned is interesting, and I believe that I have heard it before in Audre Lorde’s work.

For me it takes on a greater significance when I watch reality television shows featuring the narratives of Black women. Love and Hip Hop Atlanta in particular is what comes to mind.

Stallings goes on to underscore why I enjoy movies directed by Black women filmmakers when she states,

Collins produces a film that imagines a viewer or audience who can get turned on by seeing a black woman think, be conscious, and create consciousness on screen. Black independent filmmaking (be it documentary, cinematic fiction, or pornography) continues to be the only space in which black filmmakers can explore and represent various sexualities and subjectivities.

So, what do you think of this idea of the redemptive softness of Black women?

Black Women’s Hair & Gabby Douglas: Standing Straight in a Crooked Room

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In the book, Sister Citizen, Dr. Melissa Harris Perry argues that many Black women in the US find themselves standing straight in a crooked room because of how we experience both racism and sexism. According to Harris-Perry, Black women are standing straight in a crooked room

when they are confronting race and gender stereotypes, black women are standing in a crooked room, and they have to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warped images of their humanity, some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion…To understand why some Black women’s public actions and political strategies sometimes seem titled in ways that accommodate  the degrading stereotypes about them, it is important to appreciate the structural constraints that influence their behavior.

This is immediately what came to mind when I saw the conversations about Gabby’s hair, conversations, many initiated by Black women about who thought it wasn’t straight enough.

No Gabby’s hair does not look like the Black women on Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, and that is fine. The women on LHHA stay fried died and laid to the side and Gabby’s pony tail is the pony tail of a young Black woman Olympian. Full stop.

And just in terms of Black girl visibility politics, Gabby Douglass is a Black girl who had global media attention and she does not look like a well kept video vixen and she doesn’t have to. She is petite, muscular and brown with a high voltage smile. When was the last time you saw a Black girl like that getting mainstream attention? I’ll wait.

I know that some Black women felt that because Gabby was on a global stage she was “representing us.” My retort to that is Gabby belongs to herself, not to you.

Hair is serious for Black women because the mainstream standard for beauty in the US and arguably pop culture globally is long, preferably blond, straight, wind swept hair. If you think I am wrong, check out the magazine covers at your local grocery store check out stand.

I always find it peculiar when the ways when which Black women regulate on each other finds its way into mainstream media conversations. It is not that we don’t like each other. I think that socially women are not taught to like each other. Openly liking and being nice to women is a political act for this reason. The culprit in many ways isn’t Black women per se, but that many of us have internalized what White standards of beauty AND we tried to hold other women to these standards,we are also taught that the work that women do isn’t valuable.

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I also think it may may make some Black women uncomfortable to see another young Black woman who is so clear about both her purpose and focus. A young Black woman who is clear that her investment in being an Olympian is more important than having music video bone straight hair, at this moment. I am not talking about human beings here, I am talking about what happens when you encounter a spirit that is so clear you can see yourself in its reflection. It ain’t no joke. #ChangeJobs. #ChangeGods.

Gabby Douglas put herself first and her desire to be an Olympian. You can’t become an Olympic champion by being raggedy.

I also know that as Black women we are socialized to put our mothers, our children, our husbands, our wives, our girlfriends, our boyfriends, our step-children, our brothers first. But never us, and we suffer for that. Our lives are constrained in particular ways when we do that.

So Gabby, I see your gravity defying, futuristic Black girl self.

Gabby Douglas give you goosebumps?

Why is it so hard for people to acknowledge how White mainstream beauty standards figure into this conversation?

 

Brave x Beasts of the Southern Wild

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I saw both Brave and Beasts of the Southern Wild this weekend, and I hadn’t thought about the connection between the two movies until this morning.

I don’t read film reviews (ironic no?) so I am often in for a surprise when I see a movie.

With regard to “Brave” it is interesting that the relationship between the main character, Merida, and her mother, Elinor, is central to the film.

I think that this is ironic given how many blog posts I’ve seen throughout the interwebs about whether the main protagonist was a lesbian just because she didn’t want to follow the princess tradition and get married because the stability of the kingdom depended on it. The sexual binary makes my ass itch. So, most of the film focuses on and pivots on Merida and Elinor’s relationship which was a pleasant surprise.

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This brings me to “Beasts of the Southern Wild”. I had to go see it because for the last two weeks every quirky Black girl I know has been like Allcity have you seen it, and I been like, um, no. So I went.

I don’t even know where to begin with the film except to say that it is interesting to see a little Black girl as a protagonist in a film. I think that it is interesting that the protagonist in “Beasts”, Hush Puppy, is also working with and searching for her relationship to her mother.

I think that looking at these two films together as a pair says something about some depictions of little girls in popular culture in 2012. I am not quite sure what. On second thought, I am certain of something. These girls don’t look like the typical representations of little girls in feature films. Neither are blonde and neither appear to be invested in mainstream stereotypical gendered ideas of what a “little girl” is suppose to be. Both of the characters also experience a transformation by the end of the film.

Did you see either film?

What did you think?

Thinking About the Importance of Hood Lit/ Urban Fiction

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Nearly 4 years ago I wrote “From Gossip Girl to Ghetto Girls: What are We Teaching our Daughters” and  I think that my  thinking has changed or crystallized in terms of my thinking around Hood Lit/Hood Fiction/Urban Fiction.

Given the fact that there are different kinds of Black people, shouldn’t different kinds of stories be told? In 2006 I wrote “How Zora Neal Hurston Had a Fight with Urban Fiction and Lost“. To be honest the post is awful, it hurts my eyes, there are too many colors, and during one of the transition periods I lost many commas so the text looks wonky.

But I like the post because it represents my thinking at a particular time period.

Lately I have been thinking that hood lit has a right to exist as an end in of it self.

Why? Well, to say that it isn’t good or positive fails to consider that writing like art, is subjective.

I think these stories deserve to be told, or perhaps I am thinking that it isn’t my place to say that they shouldn’t. That may be better.
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Now this does not mean that I don’t have a critique of the market and the ways in which major publishers pick and choose which books have a larger platform, attractive placing in Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Or with the rise of hood lit

But, I think that the bottom line is that if I think that there are different Black communities then I must also accept that those different communities have a variety of stories to tell.

So what do you think?

Did “hood lit” change the game for the negative?

Who has a right to say which “Black stories” should or shouldn’t be told?

 

Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and Carol’s Daughter Transitioning Kits: Some Preliminary Feminist Thoughts

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I have watched the last four episodes of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, while taking notes, fractured wrist and all, because I knew that culturally this show represented a kind of shift in Black women on reality television.

Furthermore, I knew that I needed to commit to watching the show. I was at a dinner party and a friend who works in television told me that the wages that women earn in reality television are stratified by race, meaning White women tend to earn more than Black women. My jaw dropped. This is particularly relevant to Love and Hip Hop Atlanta because of the popularity of the show with a crowd that has historically been tech savvy, consumption hungry yet lacking broad representation in mainstream media; middle class and affluent Black women.

According to an article in Newsday VH1 has recently realized  ow much of an untapped audience African Americans are,

“All of a sudden, the network is starting to look like how the world looks,” said VH1 president Tom Calderone, who views the network’s airing of “Hip Hop Honors” in 2004 as the “watershed” moment in realizing there was an untapped audience. Series such as “Love & Hip Hop” are a reflection, he added, of what networks need to do to remain relevant: “We’re creating new celebrities. ‘Mob Wives’ are new celebrities. ‘Basketball Wives’ are new celebrities. I think our role is to put a mirror on pop culture and influence pop culture — that’s important.”

So this post will be about three things. First, why is the show popular and what does it’s popularity mean. Second, what are the differences between what Black women and White women earn in reality television spaces. Third, I will connect the Carol’s Daughter “transition kits” to my ideas around LHHA.

Several other folks have written about Love and Hip Hop Atlanta. Bianca Laureno wrote, “Abortion, Reality TV and Women of Color”, Jamilah Aisha Brown wrote “Love and Hip Hop and Transphobia” and Akiba Solmon has written “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta Shouldn’t Embarrass Brown and Black Women”. #readthem.

As I watched the shows over the last few weeks, I saw image after image of Black women in pain, which is legitimate because many of us are in pain. However, what became clear to me after seeing two weeks straight of grown women confronting each other (Joseline and Mimi; K.Michelle and Karlie Redd) I thought, why are public displays of Black women in pain so attractive and lucrative?

Given how lucrative Black women’s pain is in this context, how does this show impact how people interact with us on a day to day basis? Black girl pain is real and legitimate.

We also have to consider that Atlanta and it’s geographical context. DMV and Atlanta contain the two largest concentrations of high income earning African Americans in this country.

Which brings me to the money. According to a post on Radar Online, for White women working on the Real Housewives of Orange County,

Vicki Gunvalson is the top earner, bringing in a cool $450,000 a season. Hot on her heels is Tamra Barney who commands $350,000, followed by Gretchen Rossi with $300,000, Alexis Bellino is paid $200,000 and at bottom of the list is newcomer, Heather Dubrow at a paltry $30,000.

Now keep in mind I know that this is a small selection of earnings from one show, however it is important to note what some White women earn for a hugely popular show. Here is a list of the highest earning reality tv stars, with the highest being Kim Kardashian at an estimated $6M. However this number includes not only her show earnings but her earnings from endorsements as well.
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Furthermore, according to the Radar Online article, Nene Leakes earned $750,000 per season on Real Housewives of Atlanta. At nearly a million dollars a season, the racial, cultural and financial significance of these shows must be considered.

I am not certain how much the women on Love and Hip Hop Atlanta earn, however a blog titled Love and Hip Hop Atlanta which doesn’t have  any supportive links, states that Stevie J earns $30,000 per episode and it is set to rise to $95,000 per episode. This is interesting. I wonder how much Mimi and Joseline earn. I wonder also how much the advertisers pay Viacom to advertise on the show.

Nearly two weeks ago when I started thinking about writing this post I had just learned that Carol’s Daughter started selling $40 transitioning kits. Like reality television, Black women’s hair care is a lucrative industry, as it was valued in 2008 at 1.8B.

I guess what is bizarre to me is that the kit represents how Black women’s natural hair has been commodified on a whole other level. By commodified, I mean something that we see everyday that is now packaged and sold for a profit. I am of two minds about this transitioning kit. On one hand, if you don’t know how to do your natural hair, then having a kit may be useful. Reading the product review comments is a testament to this fact. On the other hand it speaks to me as a lack of imagination and creativity and a willingness to explore.

Think about it, part of me believes that a huge part of going and being nappy is about a path of self discovery and a willingness to experiment, mixing and matching, making concoctions at home, trying out styles that you have seen in a magazine or a blog. What makes a corporation the authority on what grows out of our heads?

Both the existence of these transition kits and the popularity of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta reminds me that Black women can make corporations a lot of money (I also understand that there are Black women earning substantial wages from reality tv and from the hair cure industry.)

However, given the fact that Black women have been rendered property, I find the show and the kit illuminating and peculiar.

So, I have three questions:

What do we have to believe about Black women in order for this show to make sense to us?

And if it doesn’t make sense to you, what do you think that other people have to believe about Black women in order for it to make sense to them?

Is the transition kit weird to you too? Did you use one? What did you think?