Applauding the Bootylicious Feminism of Beyonce and Josephine Baker
While she was a sensation in Europe, American critics were absolutely appalled by Baker’s provocative, skin-baring routines. In 1936, she returned to the States to star in the Ziegfield Follies and the New York Times branded her a “Negro wench.” Heartbroken and shattered by the negative press, Baker went back to Europe. She served France in World War II as a spy and a sub-lieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. She also adopted a band of children affectingly referred to as “The Rainbow Tribe.” Baker’s political activism and her bohemian lifestyle were seen as mutually exclusive, yet it was her refusal to become a wilting flower that made her worthy of stardom. Later in life, the entertainer became the only woman to speak at the March on Washington.
Both Beyonce and Josephine Baker’s career are inevitably tied to race and therein lies the Catch-22 of their sexuality. Why is a woman’s appreciation for her body and her astronomical levels of self-confidence painted as indecency and immorality? We want to simultaneously frown upon and marvel at the exhibitionism of pop stars. Not only does Beyonce’s support of feminism lead to a backlash policing her choices as a woman, but as a black woman.
Recently, I was at a party and started talking with a young, liberal, middle-class white man about feminist politics and pop stars. He compared Beyonce’s scantily-clad dance routines to Sarah Baartman, claiming that her image was a modern, self-inflicted version of the “Hottentot Venus.” He was incredibly taken aback when I pointed out that Beyonce has something that Baartman never had: agency. Baartman was brought to the Western world as chattel, as a piece of property meant for public exhibition, like the main attraction at a freak show. English men and women marveled at her “unusual anatomy,” robbing Baartman of her rightful humanity, reducing her to her anatomy. His analogy completely dismissed the history attached to Baartman, as he equated the showing of skin as fetishization.
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