Something I Said
Dwight Hobbes
Archives
In America’s high-profile world of big-time entertainment, cosmetics are as important as talent, if not more important. That’s how this country’s mindset is put together in being propagandized by that ever-shallow, all-pervading, influence, mass media. The music industry is no exception. Image is – we’re talking black images for the sake of this instance –imperative. Specifically for black female stars: black men can get away with not being super-handsome or without being light skinned, but look at CD covers and billboards; you find successful black women generally have a strongly Caucasian appearance. Right or wrong, society – black as well as white – never quite embraced the idea that black is beautiful. At least, “black looking”, anyway.
Enter this flap over multi-platinum singing star Beyoncé, whose B'Day album comes out Sept. 5. Gearing up for the release, her publicity machine sensibly made sure her mug was plastered on magazine cover possible. Oddly enough, the campaign quickly drew wailing complaints.
The flap over February’s Sports Illustrated cover for this year’s Swimsuit Edition reveals how determinedly ignorant and bigoted this supposedly evolved society remains. White supermodels had a fit, allegedly because she’s not officially a model. One insider at an agency– on condition of anonymity -- was quoted as grousing, "The cover spot is supposed to go to the top model in the industry. This year it went [to] Beyonce. It's an insult. There isn't a model alive that doesn’t find [the] choice offensive." Well, maybe not a white one. Despite names like Naiomi Campbell, Iman and Tyra Banks, the industry long has closed ranks against black models. The “offended” models are bent out of what little shape they have because Beyoncé blew every last one of them and their swimsuits right out of the water – no pun intended. Readers of the magazine showed how backward they are, griping on Internet message boards that the SI issue, which also showcased Kanye West and Cee-Lo, is the "ghetto issue." How much would you care to wager that men griping out loud about Beyonce didn’t snatch up that swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, surreptitiously adjourn to the basement or bathroom and, in the privacy of their imaginations, singled-handedly indulge such libidinous delight as they wish they could with their girlfriends or wives? Yours truly is not a faithful Beyoncé fan, but readily acknowledges she’s hot as a sunburn.
More insidious is the whooping and hollering, early this month, over how Beyoncé looks in an ad campaign by cosmetics giant L'Oreal. It resurrects the ridiculous flap that arose in 2005 when she was on the cover of Vanity Fair: people are popping out of the woodwork to claim L’Oreal lightened her skin and tinted her hair to reddish-blonde. This to promote the Feria hair color product line. One publication, The Voice, carps, “It is offensive to Beyoncé. It is trying to distort who she is." Baloney. Movie cameras, rather Hollywood make-up artists, have been literally hiding for years the fact that Sigourney Weaver (run into her on the street sometime) has more freckles than the old TV puppet, Howdy Doody. No one ever said Weaver’s been distorted. L’Oreal, for the record, denies having, as it were, brightened Beyoncé. Let’s speculate, for argument sake, that L’Oreal is lying. So? Is it some sort of secret that the woman, from her ascendance as lead Destiny’s Child singer, embodied the old term, “light, bright, damned near white”? Realistically speaking, Beyonce and her blonde skin stole an entire audience from darker, once-reigning pop diva Brandy who, truth be told, sings better. If L’Oreal took license, all they did was hedge their bet in appealing to prevailing tastes.
Being a media sustained superstar is not about racial integrity: file that under Life Ain’t Fair. Or just get over it. But, do not cry “Foul” when the reality of America’s preference for white looking black women stares you straight in the face.
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