Blog for Sofia Quintero aka Black Artemis. Ivy League homegirl. Novelist. Filmmaker. Cultural activist. Part-time comedienne. Media literacy maverick, Urban goddess. Unapologetic dilettante. Cancer warrioress.
I have been experiencing street harassment since I was about 11 years old. As I walked down the street, grown men would make comments about my appearance, ranging from the mild to the crass. Sometimes it was annoying, often times it was frightening. While I was taught such things as to never accept a drink I had not seen poured and to stand up for myself if someone insulted me, no one ever showed me how to deal with unwanted "compliments" that left me feeling violated rather than appreciated.
As I experimented with ways to respond to such unwanted interactions, it was painful to learn that there was no such thing as the correct response. Whether I ignored the comments, challenged them or even attempted to educate with loving intent to the harasser on why his behavior was unwelcomed, I took a big risk in escalating this situation instigated by the simple act of being a woman who dared deigned to enter public space. Nothing I did or failed to do was going to prevent it from happening or ensuring that the encounter remained verbal. Neither my peace of mind nor safety was in my hands. For all the excuses that people make for street harassment, the simple fact a person can be forced into an undesired interaction with no other option than to bear it is evidence of a power imbalance. The person who is targeted by the harasser has no true recourse. She's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't.
The only thing that seems to work is collective intervention. That is, when others - men and women alike - rally around the person who is being targeted and communicates to the perpetrator that they won't abide by that behavior. Unfortunately, we are so fearful of becoming targets ourselves, such an intervention is not as common as it should be.
I remain haunted by past experiences of street harassment. As much as I understand intellectually that nothing I could've done would've sufficed, internalized sexism has a tight grip on the spirit. And so oes internalized racism for one of the most haunting experiences of negotiating the politics of the pavement involved the time I wasn't harassed.
Along with Clemente, Lighty’s suicide has compelled many leaders in the hip-hop community to call for a discussion of depression and other mental illness among communities of color. My hope is not that only will these conversations take place, but that they will include a vigorous examination of some behaviors in our cultures that may actually be dangerous forms of self-medication.
Relentless hustling at the cost of meaningful relationships and substantive rest.
Spending far more on trendy objects with fleeting value than we produce for wages, in culture, and/or with meaning.
Partying too many nights and sleeping away too many days.
And the alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana, oh my. My own awareness of the pervasive use of controlled substances by men of color in the hip-hop generation as a possible mask for widespread depression came when Joan Morgan called it in her 1999 seminal work When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down. Tens of thousands of us are committing suicide in slow motion through the daily act of ingesting toxins through our lips, and that impulse to not take seriously the proposition Morgan made twelve years ago is a surefire indicator that we have a pandemic on our hands. In our desire to not be judgmental – understandable given how ready and consistent others are in pathologizing our every action – we overextend to normalize and even celebrate almost ritually our penchants for self-destruction as if our ancestors were never lashed across the back while picking that shit.
And let us seriously consider that this penchant has been deeply implanted and cultivated by a system in which we were never meant to thrive. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer this past January, one of the first memoirs I read was Fred Ho’s Dairy of a Radical Cancer Warrior: Fighting Cancer and Capitalism at the Cellular Level. The self-described Marxist matriarchal Luddite posits that there is no eliminating cancer without fighting capitalism. As a disease with no singular cause, an individual must take holistic measures to overcome cancer. According to Ho, this demands a collective strategy of activism as much as personal approaches to diet, exercise, emotional wellness and spiritual healing. Our economic system creates such powerful and varied toxicity in the physical environment and socio-political culture that we cannot fathom a world without cancer if we are unwilling to participate in global movements for justice for “capitalism creates more problems than it solves.”
I wonder if the same is not true for mental illness in all its forms. There’s a reason we do all these self-destructive things and with such great pride and defensiveness. It’s the American way, yo, and who else is on never-ending mission to prove worthy of our imposed citizenry if not people of African descent? We forget that the American way was not conceived with our success in mind. It’s precisely that we forget we sure as hell act in ways that prove that very point.
It never fails to shock me how the history of our cultural production in this nation often replays the trope of the geeks gone cool only to be undone for attempting to keep a social contract they were forced to make by those who are far more powerful than they are. We begin at the margins, a necessary but underappreciated strata of the socio-economic structure. The dominant class needs us for its own survival but doesn’t recognize our humanity never mind respect our greatness. Yet we manage decade after decade, generation after generation, era after era, to fashion that marginalization into something phenomenal. We don’t do it with a calculated desire or decision to win over the haters. We do it to remember and assert who we really are in the face of their domination. We do it simply because great is who we are.
Then the haters get wind of our genius and want to be down. They want to capitalize spiritually as well as economically because domination has its psychic limits. (Although most are too busy dominating to be conscious of this otherwise they might evolve to more organic and effective strategies toward abiding fulfillment.) The haters finally see us, and so powerful is their recognition, we develop amnesia. We forget that we did not come to this table of our own will and say, “I want to play!”
And like the geeks who finally get invited to the cool kids’ party, we run hard to stay in place. We mimic their present of consumptive excess as if we had their past of unearned privilege. Some of us even take a page from their domination playbook and eat each other.
The irony is that it is only the most fortunate of us who survive long enough to experience that psychic cost of domination and privilege. The pain, however, is far more excruciating because our privilege was actually earned and yet resolves nothing. It was never meant to we learn only now that we are so far removed from our natural, effective methods of self-healing as individuals and in community.
Because we have lost sight of the joy of creating for its own sake, because we have forgotten the power of caring only what we think of ourselves, because we have internalized forms of medication that don’t even cure its creators, we come to realize perhaps too late that this is the real reason why we can’t have nice things and then feel powerless to do anything about it.
But first things first. Let’s admit to ourselves then one another how deathly afraid we are of being still and sober. Before we attempt to hush, patronize or ignore people who are fighting for lives of meaning despite mental illness, each of us must take inventory of our own behavior and honestly ask ourselves just how healthy are our coping mechanisms of choice despite how commonplace they may be. We must allow each other to confess that the darkness reminds us that we have chosen to play games that we were never intended to win and the occasional prizes we gain along the way may not be worth the struggle. Where anyone of us stands on the issue of whether this game is capable of changing or worthy of playing is irrelevant really. Left, right, center, we all agree that things cannot remain as they are. We might as well agree that self-care is as necessary as breathing, and that the breaths we most desperately need to take must come with words that break the silence over mental illness and its culturally sanctioned masks.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,” said Audre Lorde, “it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”
Who spiked the Evian? Lately, there’s been a rash of White women using the n-word – including self-professed liberals and progressives. As if that were not bad enough, they act shocked, defensive and even downright nasty when told by women of all races that they should cut that shit out.
First example: a few White women made and carried signs that stated Woman Is the N***** of the World for Slut Walk in New York City on October 1st.
While some White women including those among Slut Walk NYC's organizers and participants have stepped up to condemn these actions, there are too many who have come to their defense, ranging from the naively privileged to the unapologetically hostile. I’m talking Facebook posts such as, “It is NOT racist, and anybody who thinks so is a fucking idiot” to a White woman telling an African American woman to go fuck herself. (I’d post links, but in no surprise to me, the posts have conveniently disappeared.)
A few days later, Barbara Walters used the word and then played victim when told by her The View co-host Sherri Shepherd that she was hurt by it. Acting as if her journalistic integrity was called into question instead of hearing the pain of her so-called friend, Walters exploited Shepherd’s struggle to concretize her discomfort with Walters’s use of the word and attempted to make Shepherd feel unreasonable for taking offense. (I’ll save my musings on why Walters will never have a woman of color – least of all a woman of African descent – who is capable and willing to hand her ass to her on The View for another time.)
Then last night I learned that at Occupy Philadelphia, two Black women were called n****** by volunteers. Now the actual details of the incident remain sketchy, but from what I understand, the fact that these women were slurred is not in dispute. Apparently, charges of racism against the organizing group predated the incident.
Many women of all races such as Stephanie Gilmore, Sydette Clark and the Crunk Feminist Collective have issued thorough, incisive and poignant analyses as to why it is never appropriate for a self-proclaimed White feminist ally to use this racial slur. There is little more I can add to the substance of these and other responses already made. Still I have a compelling desire (which I will hereinto unapologetically indulge) to contribute to the discussion by making an attempt to make White women perpetrators and their apologists viscerally understand what exactly is the impact of their use of the n-word.
Warning: it ain’t going to be diplomatic or pretty because we’re already far past that.
So to all the White women who think it’s cool to use the n-word, y’all seen the movie Carrie, right? Recall the pivotal scene where Carrie White’s nemesis Chris and her boyfriend Billy dump a bucket of pig’s blood on her. Before Carrie telekinetically wrecks shop, she stands there drenched in blood and humiliation as people laugh at her.
That’s how that shit feels when you use the n-word.
We’re Carrie White and you’re Chris Hargensen except Chris never fronted like she was Carrie’s friend.
A few of your apologists are Sue Snell, perhaps well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual and forever haunted by the damaged to feminist solidarity that you have caused.
But your most virulent apologists are bunch of Billy Nolans who pick up the havoc where you left.
Your use of the n-word is a huge bucket of pig's blood. When you use it and defend yourself, you’re Chris licking her lips as she pulls the cord. It’s a betrayal, plain and simple.
Stop with the defensiveness and rationalizations for just a minute and sit with that. If you're really 'bout it, just accept that already. Recognize that the mere ability to dig your heels in - telling us we don't get it, defending your honor like some damsel in distress (by the way, how are you OK with pulling the most anti-feminist of anti-feminist shticks), etc. - wouldn't exist without the racial privilege you think is somehow neatly tucked away in the folds of your gender identity. You really can’t get whiter than that.
And guess what? Recasting Black women who call you out as the threat to whatever image you have constructed of yourself got you looking really patriarchal right about now. You’re doing to Black women what men of all races to do to us all the time.
It’s a betrayal when you act as if you have no clue in 2011 about what feminists of color endure within our own community when we make the decision to trust in and build with White feminists. Patriarchal men and women of color are like Piper Laurie, doing everything to derail us whenever we align ourselves with you. When we throw on our jackets to head out to the meeting, they stand at the top of the stairs yelling, “They’re going to laugh at you.”
We have faith and show up anyway only for you to pull the cord on prom night.
(Side note to those anti-feminist people of color: now isn’t the time for you to say, “I told you so.” That’s when you go from acting like Carrie’s mother to making like her gym teacher. Instead of joining the laughter, you should be standing with us as we call out the racism rather than using it as an opportunity to gut check us on our feminism. Don’t bother if for no other reason than it’s just not going to work for you. All you do when you attempt to discredit feminism by throwing an instance of racist arrogance of certain White women in our face is play yourself. We’re just not that fickle. With few exception, we’re not going to come “home” like the prodigal Carrie White because, as you'll recall, her mother pretended to comfort her only to literally stabbed her in the back. Yeah, we're not playin' that.)
Now back to you n-word loving White women. You want to show how hip you are? Stop listening to Yoko Ono and Kreayshawn and read a book, read a book, read a MF book. Preferably one by a Black feminist such as Audre Lorde or bell hooks. One course in an entire women’s studies program doesn’t cut it.
What to show how down you are? Quit with the silly references to hip hop culture as some kind of permission. As mad as we may be at you, even we don’t believe you’re that dumb. You especially denigrate yourself with that one so stop it.
To all you Sue Snells, when women associated with your movements ('cause that's what it's looking like right about now - YOUR movements -- now matter how many invitations you extend) tell women of color to go fuck themselves, call us idiots for taking offense, say they’re sorry if we’re offended as if our feelings are the problem and not the actions that triggered them and other such nonsense, how 'bout You. Just. Check. Them. Despite all the historic and ongoing treatment of men of color as menaces to White womanhood, feminists of color usually have no problem pulling a brother’s coattails when he comes for you, but y’all kinda drag your feet when a White woman does the same to us or our men. And that high school tactic of pleading, “It wasn’t me” doesn’t suffice. I don’t mean to get all vanguardist on y’all, but how about you bench these chicks when they come out of pocket? Seriously, where is the discipline in this movement? I’m not saying to immediately show her the door (although that just might be appropriate on occasion.) Struggle with her if you must, but there has to be serious and immediate consequences for racist behavior even if it’s sending homegirl to an intersectionality boot camp.
Stop confusing the fact that the n-word is still used by some black folks as license for you to use it. Many women including White feminists still use the word bitch, but I don't see you abiding for one second any man thinking he can do the same. In fact, if a man who identified as a feminist and/or ally still had the audacity to roll up to Slut Walk with a sign that read Rape is for Pussies, all his professions to solidarity, insistence that we focus on the “real” issue and the like wouldn’t have zilch currency for you so don’t act brand new.
And while we’re on the subject of Black folks who embrace the n-word, I don’t give a damn how many Black friends you have who don’t blink an eye or even think it’s cute when that word comes out of your mouth. You still don’t and never will have license to use that word. Accept that. If you can't stop insisting that you be allowed to use the n-word on philosophical grounds, how 'bout you just let it go on the simple fact that you will never win this one. Trust me on that. If any woman of color - friend, comrade, stranger -- tells you it is offensive to her, the only right answer of a true ally is to knock it off. This mounting any never mind excessive defense of the use of the n-word by you or any other White person then turning around and complaining that our expressing our hurt and anger is a distraction from the "real" issue at hand... how's that working for you? It isn't, and you know it.
And you know why despite your Cool White Chick status you weren’t at the meeting when your Black BFF was elected representative-at-large for the United Black Diaspora? It's because the election never took place and that organization doesn’t exist. They never did and even if they ever were to, despite your CWC bona fides, you still wouldn’t be invited. Trust me on that one, too. Until we make some meaningful progress in defeating racism, White anti-racists have their own lane. You truly want to be an ally? Stay in it.
Yes, this is harsh, but in addition to being furious at the recent number of White women who think they can use this word and still front like they are our friends, I’ve been spoiled. I have meaningful relationships with White feminists who get it, and they have set the bar high. Are they perfect? No. But unlike you, they listen. Perhaps that’s why you avoid them like the plague. If you were genuinely interested in dismantling racism and forgoing the white privilege that would require, you would spend less time on Facebook defending the indefensible and more live time with them.
And for God’s sake, stop watching propaganda like The Help.
Summary: in pursuit of shits and giggles, a man admitted before a live audience that he aggressively pursued sex with a woman who told him repeatedly that she didn’t want him in her home never mind her body. The purpose of said revelation: to inspire other men to improvise a sketch based on this event for even more shits and giggles.
Let someone suggest, however, that rape culture in the United States is alive and well, and heads rush to spew conspiracy theories about humorless feminists.
This happened at an improv festival in New York City. Not in Congo, Iran, Nicaragua or anyone of “those places” we like to turn up our noses and wag our finger at for the atrocious way women are treated. Nope, it happened right here in the good ol’ US of A where a sexual assault survivor has to be damned near perfect if she stands a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing her perpetrator tried by a jury of his peers. Between the acquittal of two police officers for sexual assault (one with a history of being abusive toward women while in uniform) and the dismissal of the rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who suspiciously leaves a trail of rape allegations wherever he goes), this damned city is turning into Club Med for predators.
The thing that disturbs me the most about this incident is that the male comics on stage were astute enough to crack jokes about the ethical and legal ramifications of this knucklehead’s behavior, but not a damn one of them was brave enough to call it out explicitly and shut him down. Then again, evidence abounds that violence against women is regular fodder for our entertainment, especially comedy. From Ralph Kramden’s threats to send his wife Alice to the moon to Twitter hashtags such as #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend our society has a long history of laughing at threats and assaults against women.
If you came of age in the 80s, you probably remember Eddie Murphy's 1983 set on singers in Delirious where he imitated Teddy Pendergrast's aggressive style and joked that he "scared the bitches into liking him."
I admit that I laughed at this even though something inside me quivered. At the age of 13, I already knew that no boy or man could ever scare me into liking him. But I wasn't informed enough to know that my instincts were on point and that my age or gender was not a reason to dismiss them. And so I laughed along and repeated the joke like everyone else.
Thirteen years later, I had mixed feelings when Chris Rock insisted vehemently that he'd never hit a woman. On the one hand, I had embraced feminism and knew that his set about relationship violence resonated with audiences because of his deft interweaving of real observable relationship dynamics with frighteningly oversimplified explanations. And yet I chuckled because at the time it seemed like progress.
In between both these blockbuster concert tours, I remember watching another African American male standup comic on TV say of Keith Sweat's Make You Sweat, "You say no, I say yes, girl, I bet I can make you sweat? That sounds like rape!" The audience didn't laugh too hard at that one. Come to think of it, he himself delivered the punch line angrily. It was a joke the comic himself didn't find all that funny. I yelled, "Oh, shit, he's right!" and appreciated him for nevertheless having the guts to say that. To this day I can't recall his name.
I haven't forgotten the revelry that ensued when What's Love Got To Do With It was released in 1993 and dudes on the block fell over themselves to imitate Ike beating Tina (to this day I walk out of the room during the scene where he rapes her in the recording booth.) Nor have I forgotten how I ran scared from the movie theater during the closing credits of Baby Boy in 2001 because I had yelled, "What the fuck is so funny about that?" when the audience laughed at Tyrese's Jody hitting Taraji P. Henson's Yvette.
Spare me talk of humor is subjective and comedy is pain and all the other clichés. The ability to evoke subjectivity when one is not the target is a function of power and privilege. Think it’s so gutsy to make light of trauma? Then have the guts to poke fun of your own pain before you crack jokes at anyone else's.
As I watched the male comics on the stage react to this monologue, I eventually wondered What if a woman had been up there? Then I asked Why are there no women there? And that quickly lead me to conclude Of course, there are no women there!
I made a New Year’s resolution in 1999 to become fearless. This didn’t entail delivering a speech or jumping out of a plane. It meant enrolling in a stand-up comedy workshop. At the time, I simply rationalized that even if I failed to make a roomful of strangers laugh at jokes that I myself had written, I still would become untouchable. “If I hear crickets for five minutes, what could you possibly do to humiliate me after that?” I’d joke. “You can’t do shit to me.”
And failure was likely for me not because I wasn’t funny, but because I came to standup, as I do most of my creative projects, with my activist lens. That means there were certain kinds of jokes I decided to never tell. The sweetest spot for every standup comic is earning that laugh while being who you authentically are and speaking the truth as you see it. For me that meant steering clear of topics that usually guarantee female performers comic gold. I wasn’t the chick who, for example, cracked about her weight, complained about being single or put her mama on blast. Although I had no problem playing up my attractiveness by wearing heels and makeup, I drew the line at discussing my sexual interests and experiences never mind mimicking any of it on stage. And while I have no problems clowning myself from time to time, deprecating myself to make an audience like me was a non-starter.
As if I - a woman, a person of color, a leftist -- already wasn’t stepping into an aggressive form of entertainment on my own terms, I dared to address the most male-dominated subjects of all: politics. That’s Lenny Bruce territory. George Carlin territory. Paul Muthafuckin’ Mooney territory. Nor was I aiming for obvious political targets like elected officials and current events. On the contrary, I wrote jokes pinpointing the politics of things that people like to believe are apolitical -- sports, music, film and other forms of entertainment. I called bullshit on the so-called Latin pop explosion and pretended to be an agent brokering trades between races before Dave Chappelle introduced us to the term “racial draft.” I was coming for the Starfucker’s Zagat Survey of Usual Suspects. Amateur or professional, that’s permissible for men who are deemed courageous for trying and incisive if they hit the mark. A woman who does it risks being dismissed as a catty hater. She must be jealous of the female celebrities or pissed at the fact that none of the male ones would screw her.
I was going to succeed at becoming fearless even if I failed, but I didn’t fail. Nothing makes you understand the power of comedy like succeeding at it. This is especially true when you belong to communities that are usually the butt of the joke. Standup is another way of reclaiming your story, taking space and seizing control over your image. When you deliberately make someone laugh as you speak your truth, you at once build a bridge to your world without handing over the keys to your kingdom. This is a lesson I learned firsthand, and one of my life's regrets is not pursuing the opportunity to go pro (another story for another time.)
No wonder there’s so much ado about whether or not women can be funny, whether or not funny women are attractive, and whether or not men are threatened by funny women, ad infinitum. You know that belief of how men and women alike appreciate a sense of humor in a romantic partner? It turns out that women generally appreciate men they find funny whereas men appreciate women who find them funny. Pursuing laughter is a form of assertion, and assertiveness is deemed a masculine trait. Therefore, a woman who goes for your funny bone is violating gender norms and stepping out patriarchal bounds. Perhaps that's why too much of male comedy is devoted to going for her jugular and putting her back in her place.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that if a woman had been on that stage, she would’ve checked Eric D. Angell. Some women who enter male-dominated arenas do yield to the sexism and misogyny. They play to the male gaze, embrace the limited roles that men deem acceptable for a women (the ride-or-die chick or always sexually available and dexterous dime piece to name two) and emulate and even outdo the men in their vices. But let’s be clear. Such women do that because they’re fully aware that their insider status doesn't make them that much safer.
And frankly the maleness of the comics on stage during Angell’s confession does not excuse them from not taking a stand.
All of this is what makes this monologue, the weak response of the male comics, and the absence of female comics on that stage so damned unsettling. To quote comedian Katie Halper, “It's like an experiment that people will point back to as an example of how socially acceptable rape is.” Funny women are powerful and therefore dangerous. Looks like the world of standup needs more “humorless feminists” to take the stage, wreck shop and put this culture of rape and other violence against women in check.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a rape to report.
For further reading: Revolutionary Laughter: The World of Women Comics by Rosalind Warren
Because Rihanna’s Man Down is only the latest depiction in popular media of a victim turning vigilante, I find the controversy it has generated almost laughable. The vigilante trope is as American as running pigskin down a field. It made Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movies stars in the 70s and now keeps Nicolas Cage on top of his IRS installment agreement. Regardless of where we stand on the morality or effectiveness of vigilantism, we generally accept that violence begets violence.
That is, until the victim-become-perpetrator is a woman.
Even though we cannot get our fill of the steady buffet at the Cineplex of men wrecking havoc in the name of vengeance, let a woman bring wreck, and controversy ensues. Meanwhile, the men in these narratives are rarely themselves targets of the crime in question never mind survivors of sexual assault.* Rather they seek revenge for a crime committed against someone they love -- almost always an adult female relative (most likely a love interest) or minor child.
Apparently, Hollywood realizes that we are not ready to see a man go HAM because someone fucked with his brother, male lover or even adult child. This is because we cling to a clusterfuck of patriarchal beliefs that insist:
1. A man can possess a woman or child. 2. A man cannot be possessed by anyone else but himself. 3. A man who fails to protect his human possessions should be able to redeem himself by regulating those who violate him by messing with his "property."
It then goes to reason that, despite our taste for tales of vigilantism, any narrative in which a woman crime victim takes justice into her own hands will prove unsettling. Where does she come off regulating anyone’s behavior as if she owns anything including her own body?
Add to this the persisting yet erroneous notion that violence is unnatural to women. Why we still hold onto this myth especially despite mounting evidence baffles me for three reasons. One, we are human beings. As such, there is not a single emotion from which anyone should expect us to be immune including rage. Two, experience teaches us that there is not much to be gained from repressing our emotions, especially the most unpleasant ones. Whether or not we choose to learn from them, those emotions have something to teach us, usually doing so by pointing to some breach in integrity. We feel uncomfortable because our external reality is somehow out of alignment with our internal expectations.
Three, being women in a patriarchal world, there’s a lot that pisses us off. Everyday we experience fundamental dissonances between the things that society teaches us to value and practice yet fails to grant us in return for no other reason than that we are women. No wonder expressions of women’s anger and violence – even a fantasy like Rihanna’s Man Down – makes folks itch.
All the shit you put us through? Y’all should be scared.
This is why fans and detractors alike readily label such expressions "feminist revenge fantasies" without truly unpacking what that implies. Whether or not we condone a man’s vengeance, we get it. A man’s rage is always justified even if his actions are not. However, women generally are not entitled to their anger so any expression of it is automatically deemed out of order. At the core of this judgment is another belief: that the breach we feel between our external reality and our internal expectations is our own fault because women have no business believing that we are autonomous, equal or free. We feel violated because we deluded ourselves into believing that our bodies are our own, that we have a right to public spaces, ad infinitum.
Hence, all acts of retribution by women – real or imagined – are deemed feminist regardless of the particular woman in question or the uniqueness of her circumstances. Whether the adjective "feminist" is a badge of honor or a scarlet letter depends on the speaker, but we are on the same page about this: the way the cards are stacked, vengeance is male domain. Women who trespass are committing a feminist act. And for those who deem feminism wrong, such attempts to regulate themselves demand regulation. No wonder why so many critiques of Rihanna's video are fixated on condemning her character's violence with, at best, lukewarm condemnation to the violence done to her character. These critiques also possess a willful blindness to the fact that victims of sexual assault who follow legal channels of justice rarely get any. On the contrary, they are raped over and over again by police, attorneys and courts. Consistent and swift Justice through our present system -- now that's the stuff of fantasy.
While I question whether emulating the vices of patriarchal men is a viable strategy for women to adopt, I am at peace with the label "feminist revenge fantasy" and the existence of narratives that earn it. (I have written a few myself.) It matters not to me if the men and women who create these narratives consider themselves feminist or not. As far as I’m concerned, if you're troubled by and want to put an end to feminist revenge fantasies, then do something to put an end to the objectification of women and the rape and assault culture it inspires.
Toward that end, I’m far more interested in discussions about how effective particular narratives are in depicting the root of that culture, the psychospiritual toll it takes and the strategies that both fail and liberate us. So here I offer five of my favorite feminist revenge fantasies on film. Each pushes the envelope in the vigilante genre in some way other than making the protagonist a woman. There's a depth in these movies that even Clint Eastwood can't fuck with.
1. Thelma and Louise
The first time I found myself in disagreement with bell hooks, it was over her vehement disdain for the ending of this film. She wanted the entire fantasy - for Thelma and Louise to get away - and I'm not mad at her for that. Nevertheless, Oscar-winning screenwriter Calle Khouri did not write a fantasy so for Thelma and Louise to make it to Mexico - as if misogyny's reach ends at the border - would have been incongruent with the realism conveyed throughout the entire movie. Still when asked by disappointed viewers why Thelma and Louise commit suicide, Khouri insists that they are misinterpreting the ending. Perhaps it's wrong of me to quibble with a fellow screenwriter about her own work, but I don't buy that precisely because I find the ending true to the story world that Khouri created. Our sheroes were given two choices: turn themselves in and face a lifetime of imprisonment or die in a hail of gunfire like Queen Latifah's Cleo later would in Set It Off. Thelma and Louise found a third way and gave patriarchy and its false choices the finger.
Almost twenty years after winning an Oscar for her portrayal of a working-class rape survivor who demands her day in court in The Accused, Jodie Foster stars in this mainstream film as a radio talk show host who goes on a killing spree after her fiance is beaten to death. I had never seen a film where a woman seeks vengeance for a violent crime against someone she loves before this one. Don't get it twisted though. The Brave One does more to freshen the vigilante genre than by just casting a woman as the lead. Unlike the average revenge film where the man goes on a mindless rampage and never questions the rightness of what he is doing, this is a character-driven story in which we see Foster's Erica Bain grapple with the complex emotions of being both victim and perpetrator. It's because of this I let the Hollywood ending slide.
3. Ms. 45
A proud barer of the feminist revenge fantasy label, this 1981 vigilante classic starring Zoe Lund remains controversial to this day. Some argue that it's not feminist at all. I would concede that it's a bit over the top for reasons I won't share in order to avoid spoilers. Just keep in mind that it's also supposed to be an exploitation flick and ask yourself if the protagonist had been a man would you be as strident in critique of its "extraness." In any event, Ms. 45 made my top five because Lund's Thana is a working-class woman with disabilities -- tell me how often do we see that!
4. Bandit Queen
While not without flaws, this film scores on many levels. Icing on the cake: it's based on a true story. You haven't seen gangster if you don't know the story of Phoolan Devi who not only avenged a brutal gang rape (that's right... she came for ALL them MFers), she went on be elected to office and nominated for a Nobel Prize. Devi was and remains a very controversial figure who brought suit against the filmmakers of Bandit Queen That just makes this movie even greater fodder for discussion, especially if you've read her story in her words in I, Phoolan Devi: Autobiography of the Bandit Queen as well as feminist discourse on her life and the film itself. It lends itself to conversations about retaliatory versus revolutionary violence, intersectionality (because to some Devi was an Indian Robin Hood whose actions were as much a statement about caste as well as gender), and much more.
5. Descent With films like Quentin Tarantino's Deathproof and Frank Miller's Sin City, Rosario Dawson is no stranger to playing women who kick sexist ass. That said, you still don't know the depth of her acting chops and feminist politics until you see Descent.
The title refers to just how far Dawson's character Maya sinks after a date rape. Her performance proves she is far more talented than many of her roles suggest, and writer/director Talia Lugacy deftly interweaves some race and class analysis that is rarely seen in movies about sexual assault. Both rapes -- the initial crime and the retaliatory act -- are extremely difficult to watch as they should be. This is no exploitation flick that eroticizes sexual assault or depicts violence so cartoonish it can be dismissed (like the vigilante cult classic I Spit On Your Grave.) As hard as it is, we should watch and discuss Descent right down to the final shot on Dawson's face that leaves no question as to whether vengeance is as sweet as Maya had hoped.
* One notable exception is the 1996 film Sleepers based on the book of the same name, starring a high-wattage cast that includes Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Kevin Bacon, Robert DeNiro and the late Brad Renfro. After a prank turns into tragedy, four boys are sent to a juvenile correctional facility where they are ritually abused by the guards. Years later when two of the men stand trial after murdering one of their abusers, the other two conspire to fix the trial. Author Lorenzo Carcaterra insists that Sleepers was not a novel but based on true events in his life. Entities such as the Catholic Church and the New York State Department of Correction dispute his claims.
Have you seen any of these films? What do you think of them? What others would you add to this list?
Lately, I’ve been inspired to explore the “ride or die chick” archetype. According to the best rated definition in the Urban Dictionary, this is “a chick that ain’t afraid to be down with her man, she’ll do anything her man needs her to do.”
From what I see, she’s the only female in mainstream hip hop that gets any love on a regular basis (mothers and daughters don’t fare nearly as well.) Rappers write odes to RDC, and she has become a staple in predominantly male “urban” films (as if Sex and the City, Gossip Girls, et al aren’t urban, but that’s for another blog.) I wanted to see just what a sister has to do get any respect in a genre roundly criticized for its misogyny.
So I head over to Hollywood Video and stock up on videos I ordinarily wouldn’t go near (the sacrifices one makes for social justice.) Most of these were trashed by critics and tanked at the box office only to rack up on the video market. In other words, plenty of folks are spending time and money on these movies without a half-damn for the opinions of J. Hoberman., A.O.Scott or any of these cats with initials for first names.
First into the DVD player is Waist Deep starring Tyrese Gibson and Meagan Good. Meagan is second on my list of Sisters Who Are Better Actresses Than the Roles They Get (Vivica Fox has been hard to dethrone, but let her keep on with the excessive and unnecessary surgery, hoochie antics and the WTF? flings with dudes like 50 Cent…) Despite a breakthrough performance in Kasi Lemmons classy debut Eve’s Bayou, Meagan has become a preternaturally beautiful young woman who appears regularly in films that range from the tolerably mediocre to the laughably awful. But the sister’s a goddess in hip hop circles. In fact, I select Waist Deep because she is the female lead. Gwendolyn Pough once argued that Jada Pinkett Smith was a “hip hop” film icon because by merely casting her in a role, filmmakers immediately evoked that girl who was “in” the hood yet not “of” the hood. As I settle in while the opening montage plays, I suspect that Meagan Good is on her way to becoming the symbol of the “ride or die chick” archetype.
Yes, overall Waist Deep is crappy. Sure enough, Meagan is your classic RDC who does everything her man Tyrese says so they can hustle up the loot he needs to pay off the street urchin who has kidnapped his son. And as to be expected from most films in this genre, there’s just enough visual oomph, bumping music, and crispy dialogue (Larenz Tate just skyrocketed to the top of my Brothers Who Are Better Actors Than the Roles They Get list) to make it entertaining enough for you to see it through the end, forestalling the inevitable recognition of how terrible it actually is.
But here’s the craziness. Right or wrong, I watched Waist Deep expecting all the aforementioned to be true. That said, I expected I would have to push myself to don a more sophisticated lens when deconstructing Meagan’s character CoCo, understanding that very few films can be fairly described as irredeemably sexist or thoroughly progressive.
What I didn’t expect was for Tyrese’s character Otis to be the most feminist character in the movie.
[Note: Waist Deep was co-written and directed by Vondie Curtis Hall who is also married to Kasi Lemmons so maybe their union plays a role in what I’m about to discuss.]
Not because he relinquishes male privilege, overtly stands up for women’s equality or anything radical like that. (C’mon now… this is the Game’s acting debut. Playing a thug named Big Meat, no less.) Otis stands out in the small but explicit ways he challenges traditional ideas of masculinity. For example, he is the primary caretaker of his son, stands up against violence towards women and doesn’t feel entitled to sex with CoCo simply because she’s in his line of sight.
OK, let me keep it real. Otis’s is only a slightly kindler, gentler patriarchy. He’s left with his son because his babymama’s a treacherous ‘itch, and he intervenes when some dude hits CoCo by issuing a merciless beatdown (yelling the entire time between kick and punches What the !@#$ is wrong with you, boy? Don’t you ever beat on no mother!@#$ing woman like that!) Hey, this is still the ‘hood, and Otis aka O2 is still is a down-ass thug nucca, ya feel me. For this genre, such male behavior is kinda sorta progress.
[Spoiler alert: If you haven’t yet but want to see Waist Deep, stop reading. Yeah, I figured you’d keep going. I ain’t mad atcha.]
Aw, hell. Maybe all that’s BS, and I just got taken in by the ending. Whether it’s an homage or a ripoff, there’s no denying that the climax of Waist Deep was inspired by both Set It Off and Thelma & Louise, two films wildly popular by feminists of all stripes from the street corner to the ivory tower. After smirking through much of the film, I found myself perched on the edge of my recliner when Otis, surrounded by police, drives his car off an open bridge. “Oh, no, they didn’t!” I yelled at the television. “No, you did NOT bite off of Thelma and Louise!” And let me ‘fess up. As I watched O2’s car sink into the river, I said it.
“That boy better be dead.”
Because if he was a woman, that’s the way the film would end. The tropes of feminist popular culture deems that it go like this:
1. Woman breaks out of suffocating traditional sex role.
2. Woman is deemed outlaw for such defiance and is sought out for punishment.
3. Woman gives the patriarchy one last fuck you by refusing to submit to punishment.
Therefore, unless, this is sci-fi, fantasy or some other genre not rooted in contemporary realism, homegirl must die.
So for a few moments, I was a bit heated that a film in which the female lead is little more than a plot device, the male protagnist not only gets to appropriate the bittersweet chick flick convention where the true RDC only makes the ultimate sacrifice for herself and other women, he also gets to live. He makes it to Mexico. And he has a family waiting for him to boot.
And yet if not for this appropriation, I might not have ever gone back and reexamine the character of Otis and noticed some of the other things about him that are unusual -- in a good way -- for a male character in this genre. Rather I was focused on what messages were conveyed through the female character CoCo. Yet I always preach to young men of the hip hop generation that feminism is for everybody and can liberate them from debilitating ideas of masculinity.
So this ending reminded me that part of the feminist project must include seeking out men – and representations of them in the media – that challenge archaic notions of masculinity, big and small. Like I said, Waist Deep stays overwhelmingly loyal to the tropes of its genre which implicitly necessitates the marginalization of women, and ain't changing no time soon. Within those narrow confines, however, it does engage in tiny betrayals and even, steals, er, borrows from the best of pro-women popular cinema.
So if the RDC for the cause of women’s liberation can sometimes be a man, then maybe sometimes we have to send Tyrese to do a feminist’s job.
I just read the following article on Yahoo! __________ Feminists cry foul over Fat Princess Does Sony's cartoony castle game cross the line?
By Ben Silverman
She's plump, powerful and ready to cause more controversy than "SuperSize Me."
She's Fat Princess, the star of Sony's upcoming video game of the same name. Debuting at last week's E3 expo, the colorful Fat Princess is a capture-the-flag game with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess in a dungeon and stuffing her full of cake, thereby increasing her girth and making her harder for your enemies to haul back to home base.
According to popular gaming blog Joystiq, two feminist gaming sites have already voiced their displeasure with the weighty issue.
Feminist Gamer's "Mighty Ponygirl" rings in diplomatically, suggesting a new way to play the game altogether.
"Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry," she said, before adding, "Oh, but that's not as "cute" as cake and fat chicks. Right."
Over at Shakesville, however, writer Melissa McEwan cuts to the chase, telling Sony she's "positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative ---holes."
Sony has yet to issue an official response, although Joystiq did receive a particularly informative update from James Green, Fat Princess' lead art director, who clued gamers in on the origins of the game:
"Does it make it better or worse that the concept artist (who designed the look, characters, everything) is a girl?"
Hmmm...hope the game's detractors don't mind eating a bit of crow. ____________________________ Ya know, I wasn't all that compelled to lobby a thorough critique of the game. But I couldn't let that last line slide so I pushed back at author Ben Silverman. Here's what I sent.
I don't know, Ben... just because the artist for "Fat Princess" is a girl (or she actually a woman?) shouldn't make critiques of the game "eat crow." Women are quite capable of being sexist, and what's wrong is wrong. All this proves is that the girl (or woman) behind this game has brought into some very problematic ideas about her own sex, and that's very sad. What's worse, she has decided to perpetuate them for a new generation of girls and boys instead of, say, making a game that doesn't traffick in some antiquated and hurtful ideas. As the folks at Joystiq stated, they could have gone another route without losing anything in the process. Lastly, I don't think one has to be a feminist to take issue with this game. I think many people -- heavy and thin, male and female, feminist and non-feminist -- would take issue with many aspects of "Fat Princess." The label for such folks is decent.
Want to tell Ben Silverman what you think? Here's the link to the article. http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/feminists-cry-foul-over-fat-princess/1232315
Watch activists and novelists E-Fierce, Jlove and myself as well as social justice educator Marcella Runell Hall as we present our groudbreaking curriculum Conscious Women Rock the Page: Using Hip Hop Fiction to Incite Social Change which is the bridge between the world of Hip Hop fiction and education for social change.
During our session at the Women, Action & Media Conference this March, we introduced attendees to the upsurge of feminist popular fiction utilizing hip hop subculture to raise substantive issues including race, class, gender, sexual orientation and culture. We read brief excerpts of our works, co-facilitate a sample activity from the curriculum and discussed how participants can exploit popular fiction to raise consciousness and promote activism, especially among young women who may not identify as either feminists or activists.
This is the first of two videos. Want to see Part 2? Visit the Conscious Women Rock the Page Myspace blog at www.myspace.com/rockthepage. :)
When I write opinion pieces about controversial issues, I usually attempt to adopt a critical yet compassionate tone towards those who do not share my position. This entry and the four that eventually will follow are a MAJOR departure from that tone. I wrote this first installment just as I felt it, and I decided to post it just as I wrote it. The majority of the time, I am a firm believer that one has to take the higher ground and maintain diplomacy even if one is not being afforded the same courtesy by your intellectual opponents.
Sometimes, however, you just need to tell them all to kiss your ass.
And because I have had enough of the "isms" targeted at authors like me, this is one of those times. Now I don't presume to speak for all the women who write chick lit or all Latinas who write commercial fiction or the all of anyone who does anything with which I identify. But I do know that I'm not alone in my hurt and anger at being targeted.
That said, I hope you will read this through, laugh here and there, and most importantly, think about it for a while.
MYTH #1: CHICK LIT SETS BACK FEMINISM.
All the snooty remarks about chick lit peppered across the internet really get to me because I get so much shit for being a feminist only to discover that the women who should have watched my back have opted instead to stab me in it.
I get shit from self-proclaimed renaissance men who at once want to exploit the benefits of female sexual liberation and advancement of women in the workplace yet still expect women to maintain the home, carry their children and raise them singlehandedly, and wash their drawers while tolerating a range of sexist behavior under the guise of "letting a man be a man."
I get shit from other women of color who think being a feminist renders me incapable of being just as strident about racial justice because to this day they still have an outdated view of feminism as a White, middle-class women's racket even as they have and continue to benefit from feminist movement.
I get shit from other heterosexual women who are so male-identified that they cling to the homophobic notion that all feminists are man-hating dykes as if never in the history of humankind has a lesbian ever had a father, brother or son and loved him.
The last person I need to give me shit is another feminist who doesn't even know I'm a feminist because she has presumed that because I write chick lit, I couldn't possibly be a woman of intelligence and substance. Are you trying to tell me that every work of fiction written by a female literary author is automatically some feminist tome? Bitch, please. You don't know me. Can you even see me with your nose that far up Jane Austen's ass?
You should be thanking me and other feminists who write chick lit, romance, erotica and for that matter, any other genre of fiction popular among the female readers you have written off in your elitist tantrum. While you shit on what we write without ever reading it, we're introducing feminism to young women through what they are most likely to consume – entertainment. You complain endlessly about how the current generation shuns feminism yet takes its gains for granted, but when was the last time you took a break from preaching to the converted to engaging the uninitiated in any way other than to shame them for not thinking like the woman you are now? (Oh, that's right. You were born a feminist. Me, I was Nefertiti in a past life.)
And what does this rant have to do with chica lit in particular? Because history has given me reason to suspect that you are highly likely to be a privileged White women who does not read anything that does not mirror your own socio-economic experience whether it is feminist or not. Oh, yes, I did go there. You're not reading my books anyway so why not keep it real?
Chances are if you're too pretentious to presume never mind seek the feminist undercurrents that might exist in books by women who have surnames like Weiner and Cabot then hell to the naw are you even picking up anything written by someone whose last name might be Castillo, Singh or Tang. Admit it… you put that book by Foxx back on the shelf because of that suspiciously Afrocentric second X.
BTW, I don't know if any of the successful chick lit authors I alluded to would describe themselves as feminists. That's beside the point. The point is that you don't either.
And then you sit at your meetings, glancing despairingly around the room and wondering Why are there no women of color here?
(A brief intermission so that all the privileged White women who are reading this with pride because it doesn't apply to them can gloat. Say, I bet many of you are editors and agents. You know this whole thing is all your fault, right? Which means you better have my back when all the White women who are offended by this start accusing me of being racist even if they themselves are innocent of the particular behavior that I'm describing.)
Here's the deal. I write what I want to read, and as an activist, a feminist activist, I want to read stories where female characters grapple with the socio-political issues that would rob them of their humanity even as they strive to get their everyday human needs for such things as love and security met. And as much as I treasure literary fiction as much as you do, sometimes I want to read, and therefore, I write stories in the language I live everyday whether that's the King's English, the Queen's Spanish, Bronx Nuyoricanese, slang-laced Ebonics or some combination thereof.
Now if that offends the aesthetics of your narrow brand of feminism, pues pa' carajo 'cause I know damned well you ain't living your day-to-day life talking like the lost Brontë sister.
And what does it say that other chick lit authors and their readers – some who also consider themselves feminists and many who probably don't – have embraced me as I am while you have concluded that I cannot even exist? Ironically, the chick lit aficionados who don't like my work accuse me of being just as pretentious as you. How dare she litter my fifteen-dollar beach reach with talk of domestic violence and rape? Go figure. While you bristle at the thought of having something in common with the masses, I plead no contest.
So if you call yourself a feminist yet insist that a feminist novel can only exist in literary prose, kiss my Audre-Lorde-quoting ass. And if you also happen to be a White, upper-middle class woman over the age of thirty-five who has not read This Bridge Called My Back or Home Girls Make Some Noise!, never mind any commerical fiction by a woman of color, kiss it twice.
As for everyone else, please be advised that this is an equal opportunity tirade in five parts. In fact, if you're a Latina/o who believes that Latina/o authors should not write or be published unless we aspire to emulate Isabelle Allende and Sandra Cisneros, I got something for your ass next. It's been hot as hell in New York City, and my penchant for choosing the more evolved response in the face of narrow-mindedness has been severely compromised. Consider yourself warned and tune in if you dare.
