Читать книгу Racialism and the Media - Venise T. Berry - Страница 13
ОглавлениеGhettofabulous: How Low Can You Go?
Not all African Americans live in poverty or in the inner city, yet somehow American society seems to believe that black equals ghetto. In her book Ghetto Nation, Cora Daniels (2007) argues that in the twenty first century ghetto no longer refers to where you live but how you live.
It is a mindset, and not limited to a class or a race. Some things are worth repeating: ghetto is not limited to a class or a race. Ghetto is found in the heart of the nation’s inner cities as well as the heart of the nation’s most cherished suburbs; among those too young to understand (we hope) and those old enough to know better; in little white houses, and all the way to the White House; in corporate corridors, Ivy League havens, and, of course, Hollywood. (p. 8)
Ghettofabulous is a problematic pop culture frame that refers predominantly to a bias about black culture displaying extreme tendencies like loud talking, garish dressing, bling blinging, fighting, and certain levels of ignorance. It has become a repetitive image in pop culture where white college students throw ghettofabulous parties (Wise, 2010), Miley Cyrus’s twerks at a VMA performance (Hare, 2013), Cardi B holds a $500K ghettofabulous baby shower (Heller, 2018), average women flaunt long nails with extreme manicures like Niecy Nash in Claws (Penrice, 2018), and a California yoga studio gives out do-rags for their booty-shaking, ghettofabulous classes (Baker, 2013).
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Domonoske (2014) said, in a NPR interview, the word “ghetto” has evolved from meaning a segregated, restricted neighborhood to an individual context such as acting, dressing or talking.
[It is] Being ghetto, or behaving in a low-class manner (see also ratchet). Ghettofabulous, flashy glamour without the wealth. Ghetto as an adjective, roughly synonymous with jury-rigged, for anything cobbled together out of subpar materials.
Daniels (2007) adds that ghetto as a state of mind is hard to describe but easy to recognize. For example, she spots an ice cream truck rolling down the streets of Brooklyn blasting Lil John’s “Okaaaaay,” she watches a contest on VH1 where they are searching for Nelly’s Miss Apple Bottom (a regular girl with an irregular waist to butt ratio), she lambasts the Oscar nominated film Hustle and Flow when the pimp-wanna-be-rapper sings “Beat that Bitch,” she complains about young people who are calling each other baby daddies or baby mammas (a term she sees as dismissive), she admits frustration concerning the number of youth living in today’s depressing culture of nihilism and self-destruction, and she wonders why in school if a black child is not ghetto then they are seen as “acting white.” Because the popularity of ghetto in American society is based on a lack of self-respect, Daniels worries most of all that too many of these biased frames embrace the worst instead of the best of black culture.
Giles (2010) defines media framing as the process by which a topic is presented from a particular angle (or a variety of angles), inviting audiences to draw particular conclusions, and to make particular allusions to other topics. Entman (2007) describes the process of biased framing as introducing or raising the salience and importance of certain ideas, to some extent getting audiences to think, feel or decide in a particular way.
The text contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain key words, stock phrases, stereotypical images, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgements. (p. 52)
In this chapter, the biased framing of black culture as ghettofabulous on television, in film, through rap music, for news, and as urban fiction is explored. According to Mukherjee (2006), ghettofabulous offers new standards of cool and the spectacle within popular media emerges less as subcultural resistance and more as hegemonic cooptation through capitalism.
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Ghettofabulous in Television
Reality television shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta (2008) and Love and Hip Hop (2010) are the ideal exemplars for ghettofabulous TV. Audiences tune in each week to watch African American women and men cussing, arguing, fighting, and displaying certain levels of ignorance. To some extent that problematic and biased frame has become a staple when it comes to rap music and hip hop, but The Real Housewives of Atlanta (RHOA) features a number of prominent black women who became stars in their own right, yet still fit the mold. For example, Kandi Burris-Tucker is a Grammy award winning singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur formerly part of the popular group Xscape (Mitchell, 2017). Cynthia Bailey is a supermodel who has walked the runways of New York, Paris, and Mulan. She owns the Bailey Agency School of Fashion in Atlanta (Anderson, 2013). Kenya Moore was named Miss USA in 1993 and landed in the top six for the Miss Universe pageant (Hensley, 2016). Eva Marcille won the third season of Americas Next Top Model and has since become an actress, television host, and entrepreneur (Koerner, 2017).
Of course, there are other cast members who have built their fame and fortune from the show. For example, NeNe Leakes’ has milked ghettofabulous for all it is worth. Her original claim to fame before RHOA was as a stripper, but she has now launched a one-woman comedy show, appeared on Glee as a swim coach, co-hosted the Today Show, and acted on Broadway in Cinderella (Ferrise, 2018). Portia Williams went from a subservient athlete’s wife to a co-host on the nationally syndicated talk show Dish Nation (Ho, 2014).
The display of ghettofabulous in RHOA is obvious. There are ostentatious pictures of expensive houses, cars, and name brand products in every episode (Hawley, 2014). Each cast member seems eager to outshine the other when it comes to conspicuous consumption. On Season 4, NeNe Leakes told Sheree Whitfield (former cast member) “I am very rich, Bitch!” (Orr, 2019). Orr discusses how over several seasons, Whitfield and Kenya Moore battled about the size and quality of their homes: “Chateau Sheree” vs. “Moore Manor.”
Baby showers and weddings are ghettofabulous. Kenya Moore created a fairytale shower filled with princess ballgowns, tiaras, gold wigs, crowns, and capes in a room staged like a royal court, including an enchanted forest, with an oversized gold throne (Quinn, 2018). When Kandi Burress married Todd Tucker they had a Coming to America themed wedding that included African Dancers, drummers, and real lions (Palacios, 2015). Finally, Phaedra Parks ordered 12 different birthday cakes for her son’s first birthday party (Parks, 2012).
The cat fights among these upper-class, grown women are constant and ugly. For example, Sheree Whitfield got into a lot of battles. She and Marlo Hampton ←27 | 28→went at it in Africa when Marlo was purposely excluded from an activity (Lucas, 2012), she pulled off the wig of former RHOA cast member Kim Zolciak, and had an argument with her party planner Antony that resulted in the popular phrase “Who gonna check me, boo?” (Moylan, 2014). Kandi Burress has gone several rounds with various cast members as well including Portia Williams who she attacked for accusing Burress of planning to drug her for sex (Mathers, 2018). Burress and Phaedra Parks fell out behind a business deal with Burress’s husband, and later Burress was livid when she found out that the drugging allegation originally came from Parks (Quinn, 2017).
Sexuality and looks are over-the-top on the show. Kandi Burrus has launched a line of sex toys as part of her internet show Kandi Coated Nights (2018–) and produced a sold-out burlesque show in Atlanta. During Episode 12 in Season 11, the housewives visit Japan and in one crude scene they pretend that a pickle is a dick and imitate various sexual acts on each other. There are stories about some of the women having breast implants, liposuction, nose jobs, and butt lifts. The clothes that many of the cast members wear usually expose large sections of their huge breasts, thick thighs and wide bottoms. Parks and Moore even had a ridiculous blow up in Season 5 concerning the production of a DVD video that ended in a controversy over “stallion booties” vs. “donkey booties” (IMDb, 2013).
Empire (2015–) has been ranked as the number one broadcast drama among the 18 to 49 demographic (Berg, 2017). There have been many situation comedies, but a prominent black drama is rare on prime-time television. It is not surprising this black drama on television about a successful music company is ghettofabulous. The show is riddled with controversy based on the stereotypes perpetuating ghetto life including criminals, murderers, drug dealers, and thugs. The executive-producer, director Lee Daniels says, “It’s all set against a “boughetto” (that’s bougie + ghetto- try to keep up) backdrop of gunplay, glitz and gold diggers” (Williams, 2015).
Cookie Lyons played by Taraji Henson is a ghettofabulous character described by her stylist as flaunting a classy-hood style (Hope, 2015). When she is released from prison Cookie is wearing big hoop earrings, a white fur jacket, and a tight-fitting leopard print dress from the 1980s (Jones, 2015). Unfortunately, her wardrobe doesn’t change much once she is back in the real world.
In one instance she might wear an Alexander McQueen dress with a Balenciaga clutch. In another moment she might wear a rhinestone tiger-striped dress with a long slit up the side. She uses a big Chanel gold pendant, Cavalli necklaces, and Gucci python bags to accessorize her leopard jumpsuits. (Wright, 2018, pp. 93–94)
Wright adds that Cookie’s character is constantly slipping between hustler and music mogul. Dr. Boyce Watkins called the show “Ghettofied Coonery” on ←28 | 29→CNN in a discussion with Don Lemon (Emery & Bennett, 2015). Watkins said, “A lot of black actors and actresses are tired of being put in the entertainment ghetto. The entertainment ghetto is basically the place where you have roles … specifically designed for black people, where black actors are kind of locked into” (Emery & Bennett, 2015).
Niecy Nash has solidified her spot in Claws, a ghettofabulous dramedy on TNT. Nash plays Desna, the owner of a nail salon who launders money for the mafia, commits and covers up murders, but takes care of her crew who are known for their unique, over-the-top manicures. Nash wears signature tight fitting, low-cut jumpsuits, emphasizing her big breasts, small waist, and large behind (Carter, 2017). Her character also enjoys hood-style bling with rings on every finger, big silver chain belts, gold bangles, huge dangling earrings and necklaces, and, of course, long dazzling fingernails (Cutler, 2017). In a 2018 NPR interview, Nash said at five-years-old she told her grandmother that she wanted to be, “Black, fabulous and on TV” (Sanders & Sastry, 2018). She has definitely accomplished that.
Ghettofabulous in Urban Fiction
Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan was released in 1992 and it became a huge success. The book sold four million copies, it was followed by a sequel and became a hit movie. Because of the success of Waiting to Exhale the doors to publishing opened wide for African American women’s fiction. Fast forward twenty years later, African American Women’s fiction has, for the most part, been replaced at large publishing companies by urban/street fiction which is flying off the shelves.
This new focus on negative black stereotypes of male thugs and female hoochies has made urban/street fiction the perfect genre to push into the mainstream. James Fugate the owner of Eso Wan Books in Los Angeles expressed his concerned, “The ghetto lit being written today is mostly ‘mindless garbage about murder, killing, thuggery. When you read this ghetto lit nothing happens to your mind. And that is the problem” (Daniels, 2007, p. 65).
Research in this area suggests that remedial learners are more engaged with urban fiction. Specifically, the stereotypes, sexual themes, and violence serves to lure them in despite poor reading achievement (DeBlaze, 2003; Mahiri, 2004; Morris, Hughes-Hassell, Agosto, & Cottman, 2006; Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009; Stovall, 2005; Townsend, Thomas, Neilands, & Jackson, 2010). Gibson (2016) produced a study on African American girls reading urban fiction and found that outside of class urban fiction was very popular. She suggested that street lit could be used as a bridge to interest African American girls in other reading genres.
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In 2005, Stovall reported that a variety of readers from a broad range of class backgrounds were reading urban fiction. This report worried Pollard (2015) who argued that the depiction of drug culture, poverty, criminal violence, and hypersexuality in the genre was creating an unrealistic trope of authenticity fueled by market driven expectations. However, a student experiment, by Bean and Moni (2003) used urban fiction to motivate critical discourse concerning racial images and messages. They offered the storylines as a way to challenge negative representations and cultural stereotypes, along with questioning beliefs about identity. Gibson (2016) taking that same approach discovered that African American girls were able to demonstrate some of the critical literacy skills necessary to challenge such stereotypes and problematic representations in urban/street fiction.
When problematic images and messages are promoted and accepted through the publishing industry, researchers, librarians, and teachers racialism is at work. There is no denying that The Coldest Winter Ever (1999) by Sista Souljah was the catalyst for popularizing urban fiction. And the problem, as Fugate expressed earlier, was that the main character, Winter, had absolutely no growth in the story. She was stupid at the beginning of the book and stupid at the end.
Book stores today are filled with ghettofabulous stories about black inner-city life that promotes ignorance and glorifies violence. Some of the obvious titles include: Thugs and the Women Who Love Them (Clark, 2002), Crackhead and Crackhead II (Lennox, 2012a, b), Murderville (Coleman, 2012), Gangsta (K’wan, 2014), The Dopeman’s Wife (Coleman, 2014), and Nasty Girls (Gray, 2007).
Munshi (2015) wrote about an urban fiction couple Ashley and Jarvis Coleman. Not only do they write urban/street fiction, but they met in a ghettofabulous way. According to the article in Financial Times, Jarvis was sixteen-years-old, running from the police when he threw nine ounces of cocaine into 15-year-old Ashley’s back yard. Ashley stashed the drugs for him and they have been together ever since. The couple started out reading urban fiction books together, then one day they decided to write one, Today, they each write approximately 5,000 words daily finishing a book in approximately three weeks. This is one of the many criticisms concerning urban/street fiction, the lack of quality. A book written in three weeks usually reads like it was written in three weeks.
Ghettofabulous in News
The unique difference when it comes to thinking about ghettofabulous in the news is that the news is real. In his song “Ghetto Fabulous,” Dr. Dre says no matter how much money you make you have to stay true to the game. Halnon (2011) argues ←30 | 31→that the way to stay true is to situate oneself in materialistic culture while at the same time maintaining authenticity which means keeping a connection to the street.
On the consumer side this means that media representations of the black ghetto require certain realities to support the popular image such as real thugs, real gangs, real gangbanging, real drug dealing, and the real selling of women … the authentic value of black ghetto cool is contingent upon the harsh material realities of everyday African American inner-city life. (p. 4)
The crossover between pop culture images of the ghetto and the real inner city are very important. Loury (1998) wrote that the legacy of slavery lingers in our cities’ ghettos. He believes there is problem with the color line when it comes to the lower class.
These black ghetto dwellers are a people apart, susceptible to stereotyping, stigmatized for their cultural styles, isolated socially, experiencing an internalized sense of helplessness and despair, with limited access to communal networks of mutual assistance. Their purported criminality, sexual profligacy, and intellectual inadequacy are the frequent objects of public derision. In a word, they suffer a pariah status. It should not require enormous powers of perception to see how this degradation relates to the shameful history of black-white race relations in this country. (Loury, 1998)
We see this pariah status in the news often. For example, one news headline reads, “In Chicago, One Weekend, 66 shooting victims and Zero Arrests” (Oppel & Harmon, 2018). The article reports that the shootings were concentrated on the west and south sides of the city which are areas known for high crime and high levels of gang activity. Another headline, “Baltimore is the Nation’s Most Dangerous City” was in USA Today. It cites city officials as saying that gangs and drug activity are responsible for the high crime numbers (Madhani, 2018). A third headline from FiveThirtyEight speaks for itself, “Black Americans are Killed at 12 Times the Rate of People in Other Developed Countries” (Silver, 2015).
In his memoir, rapper and actor Ice T said crime is about making easy money, “There is something sexy about crime because it takes a lot of courage to fuck the system.”
On mass media screens today, whether television or movies, mainstream work is usually portrayed as irrelevant, money is god, and the outlaw guy who breaks the rules prevails. Contrary to the notion that black males are lured by the streets, mass media in patriarchal culture has already prepared them to seek themselves in the streets, to find their manhood in the streets, by the time they are six years old. (hooks, 2004, p. 27)
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Dixon’s research (2008) suggests that exposure to the network news often confirms black stereotypes such as blacks are poor and intimidating. Oliver’s study (2003) suggests that the power of black male stereotypes is real and examined how black men are often misidentified and assumed guilty based on bias frames. When crime victims were white, eye witnesses often described black suspects in stereotypical terms according to a study from the University of British Columbia. In that study, Jacobs (2016) found that white victims and black perpetrators tended to be seen through a stereotypical lens, specifically when it came to the more violent crimes.
Images in the news also send certain messages concerning black culture generally. Wing (2017) argues that the mainstream media sometimes treats white killers better than black victims. He reviewed a plethora of news stories that demonstrated how officials seemed dismissive or unsympathetic to black victims some even blaming them for their own deaths. Wing’s research showed that stories about black victims become character assassinations, while white criminals are written from a more positive and empathetic perspective. The article, included examples for black victims like, “Montgomery’s latest Victim had a history of narcotics abuse, tangles with the law” (Ala.com, 2014), “Travon Martin was suspended from school three times” (NBC News, 2013), and “Police: Warren shooting victim was a gang member” (WKBN, 2014). Along with examples for white criminals, “Santa Barbara Shooting: Suspect was soft spoken, polite, a gentleman, ex-principal says” (Whittier Daily News, 2014), “Oregon School Shooting Suspect fascinated with guns but was a devoted Morman, his friends say” (FOX News, 2014), and “Ala. Suspect brilliant, but social misfit” (Lubbock-Avalanche Journal, 2010).
An extensive study on news and opinion media conducted by Dixon (2017) found that many outlets misrepresent blacks in association with criminality, poverty, welfare recipients, and generally instability. His two-year study reviewed more than 800 news stories reported distorted representations, inaccurate information, and racially biased coverage which is a serious problem. Finally, Jan (2017) explains that media outlets routinely show poor black families as dependent and disfunctional while white families are usually depicted as stable. She cites a 2017 report by racial justice organization Color of Change that suggests political rhetoric and public policy are often fueled by stereotypes like absentee fathers, criminality and poverty in the inner city.
Ghettofabulous in Rap Music
In real life, according to a report by Lewis (2015), rapper Brandon Duncan known as Tiny Doo was charged with nine counts of gang conspiracy and faces 25 years in prison. Although Duncan did not shoot anyone, he was apparently linked to the gang responsible for a number of shootings when his mixed tape was released a year later. ←32 | 33→Because a couple of his songs described the murders in detail the prosecutor added Duncan to the court order. This means, if the gang is convicted, the prosecutor plans to argue that Duncan promoted and benefitted from their illegal acts (Lewis, 2015).
Just like Duncan, other rappers have found it difficult to break the link between real crime and rap music. As a matter of fact, in order to maintain their authenticity as mentioned earlier many believe that they need to stay connected to the streets. A timeline constructed by Emmett (2018) shows a series of clashes that rapper, actor T.I. has had with the law. In May of 2018, T.I. was arrested for disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. In 2010, he went to prison for eleven months for drug charges and parole violations. In 2009, he struck a plea deal and was sentenced to a year and a day for weapons possession as a convicted felon. In 2001, 2002, and 2004 he was arrested for illegal gun possession. In 1998, T.I. served a year in prison for the manufacturing and distribution of cocaine.
Gangsta rap exploded into the mainstream in the late 1980s. In the beginning, traditional record companies had a hard time with this music labelling it as not really music. So, rap music during the early period had to embrace the inner-city streets for funding and support. Drug dealers became record moguls with companies called Death Row, Ruthless Records, and Bad Boy Records. In the mid 1990s rap music was bought up by mainstream music corporations.
According to Quinn (2004), in these corporations gangsta rap involved a number of major themes: social cultural commentary, authenticity, nihilism, and commercialism. This music placed the anger and frustration of young black men up front with controversial songs like “F--- the Police” by NWA, “Cop Killer” by Ice T and “Geto” by the Geto Boys. Rap music encompassed other problematic frames as well when it came to black culture such as misogency, sexism, hypermasculinity, drug use, homophobia, and greed. For example songs like Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle,” “The Chronic” by Dr. Dre, “Bling Bling” by Gucci Mane, and “Rich Niggaz” by Juvenile popularize negative images and messages.
