More About Blossom and Who's A Racist

Those of you who know me (IRL or otherwise) will not be surprised by this, but two of my very few interests are BLOSSOM and WHO IS A RACIST.

I am still kinda shocked at how much thought I give to Blossom.  I only ever remember watching a few episodes, and most of those details escape me.

I had a memory of Blossom's dad and mom (or dad's sweetheart?) singing AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH at maybe Blossom's older brother's wedding?  White people singing this song to a couple (white and African American) and the woman's (African American) family.

I couldn't find the clip, and while this link is eye-opening (5 seasons!  what plotlines!  who knew?), it did not help me.

Where am I going here?  Come on, People of the Internet.  Say it with me:

IS THIS RACIST?

Oh my goodness.  There are so many answers.  As always I retreat to or take refuge in the Four Corner Logic , and say:

YES
NO
BOTH
NEITHER

I so badly want to use this GIF:

But, you know, whether it is racist is probably not the issue at hand.  Satisfying as it is to call someone out for being a racist or a Nazi or whatev, the real issue here is THE PERMANENCE OF BLOSSOM IN MY INNER LIFE.

I mean, really.  WTF?

Reading is Fundamental: Zebra Katz and Njena Reddd Foxxx's Ima Read

Children! Class is in session. The library is open.

A friend posted the music video of Zebra Katz and Njena Reddd Foxxx's

Ima Read on my facebook wall to give me inspiration to write my dissertation.

And inspiration, it has provided. I now strut through the library with this song blasting into my headphones. It puffs up my confidence enough to slice up my bitch of a dissertation. BAM!

As with most of the music videos that interest me, I find this both disturbing and compelling, but mostly awesome.

So this shit is multivalent. It inspired me to re-watch Paris is Burning, and I was considering re-reading some bell hooks and Judith Butler and giving you guys a proper freaking analysis.

NAH. CHANGED MY MIND. Because I need to spend less time analyzing music videos and more time writing my dissertation, I’m going to give you the quickest and dirtiest rundown of three possible readings I see of this video. And I want to know how you people are reading it.

READING #1

If you spend a lot of time hanging out with queers, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, or if you’ve at least seen Paris is Burning, then you’re probably familiar with “reading” as an art of insult. I was going to summarize Paris is Burning for you and give you some more background about reading, but instead I’ll tell you to WATCH IT NOW if you haven’t yet, and in the meantime, I’ll let my co-pilot Ru give you the simplest of explanations:

“Now, as drag queens, we shrug off a lot of insults. So when we get our chance to throw an insult, we turn it into a high art form. We call it reading or throwing shade, and it’s part of our culture.”

So, when I watch the music video, I’m reading the reading to be this kind of reading.

READING #2

Now let’s try to imagine what someone unfamiliar with drag culture might think about this video. (If any of you are out there, please comment and tell us your impressions, because I can only speculate)

If I didn’t know what reading was, I think this video would seem violent. Maybe it’s the talk about wanting to slice and ice bitches and sluts. Or maybe it’s the way that both twins and masked people remind me of horror movies (I haven’t seen many horror movies because I grew up in a bubble, but I think of the images I’ve seen from the Shining, Scream, Jason, and The Silence of the Lambs).

READING #3 (SYNTHESIS)

I experience a tension produced by readings #1 and #2 because of the way that queerness is referenced aurally to an insider but is not referenced visually.

The visual performance of “schoolgirl/schoolboy realness” in the video makes it read, visually, as more violent than I know it is as an insider. A quick google search of Ojay Morgan’s other projects, listening to some of his other songs, and the fact that he's often performing at queer events lead me to believe he’s probably queer (or a non homophobic ally who loves queer culture). But many people don't know that, and there is nothing about the visual aspect of the video that makes that apparent. So even though I know this is a queer project, the experience of watching seeminly cis-gendered, seemingly hetero men and women singing about wanting to slice and ice bitches and sluts that they hate still disturbs me in a sort of visceral way.

For me, the tension produced by readings #1 and #2 is disturbing, provocative, and productive. I go back and forth between the occasional warm fuzzy moments of thinking about alternative queer kinship structures and queer cultures, on one hand, and the different kinds of physical violence and structural inequalities against queers, women, and people of color, on the other hand. Somehow, this back and forth leads to think about how homophobia, racism, and structural inequalities are reproduced in educational institutions. These threats of violence in the setting of a school make me think of bullying, especially the recent suicides of bullied queer kids.

Then I remember that I really should be writing my dissertation, so I watch the video again to give me the strength.

A few friends have noted that there might be an additional postcolonial critique, that the twin dancers might be a visual nod to Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, and that the song could be some kind of call to action re: these educational institutions. I like this idea and don’t have time to further explore it right now but hope you will in the comments. DISCUSS!

Billy Joel

I think this is my first post, and it's about Billy Joel.

Specifically, it's about this three year old article, which someone for some reason posted on Facebook today. I hate Billy Joel but I find him fascinating. I first noticed this about 10 years ago, when the NYT Magazine ran a long piece about what a hard time he was having trying to meet women. It was illustrated (I think) with all these gritty Anton Corbijn photos, and contained the line "Billy Joel is keenly aware that he is 'Billy Joel,' but he doesn't seem to understand fully how that designation is the cause of virtually everything good and bad about his life."

Anyway, I was going to write something about how even though I agree that (most of) BJ's work is execrable, I think the author of the three year old article is missing a certain degree of authenticity in BJ's work. But I don't have time, so I will leave this off with the probably-not-controversial assertion that "We Didn't Start the Fire" is at least as much of a crime against humanity as "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me."

And In Today's BLITHERING RAGE Update:

OMG LAST NIGHT IN A BAR I HAD TO HEAR A 22 YEAR OLD STRAIGHT WHITE DUDE I KNOW AND DO NOT LIKE POMPOUSLY TELL SOME LADY THAT CARRIE B. WAS IN "SOME SORT OF PUNK SUPERGROUP BEFORE PORTLANDIA"

WHAT ON EARTH

While I have long contended that what happens to old punks is REGGAE and GRAD SCHOOL, if we get lucky*, since I have "Natty Dread" on endless loop in my head today, I fear that I am actually having a Samsa-like transformation into a frat boy.

Oh, Natty, Natty...

Please advise.



*This is, of course, a relative concept.  The living may envy the dead.

OPEN THREAD: Life and Death

Oh my, the pop-blogosphere has been busy these days.

Many posts are in the works, but til then, OPEN THREAD!

May I suggest Whitney Houston and Davy Jones, RIP?

Or Justin Bieber's 18th birthday?  Did you know he is Canadian?

3...2...1...

GO!

I Signify*

Pardon me while I rehash some ongoing thoughts about Blossom and Urkel.
 
Both were quirky teenagers featured on 80s TV shows.  Mayim Bialik is now a PhD, mother (just wrote a book on parenting), actor (Big Bang theory), and appears to be a Modern Orthodox Jew (problematically sidestepped on What Not To Wear**, I think).

Jaleel White continues to act, write, and produce.  He won a bunch of NAACP Image Awards, although there was some recent controversy regarding partner violence.

Would it be fair to say that these kids played squeaky-clean dorks who made their road by walking?  Sure.  Might there have been overlap with their real life selves?  Not sure that's relevant.

My poorly-articulated issue here is actually my increasing identification with Urkel.  While we are both Chicagoans and have very snappy fashion sense (meeting around the giant glasses, highwaters, and suspenders, which all RULE), I am not totally sure what is going on here.  You don't have to psychoanalyze me (although you are welcome to do so in comments), but it's troubling that I seem to be unable to think about Blossom, Mayim, Urkel, or Jaleel separately.  Why do I place them in a (false) binary?

In one corner, we have a pre-Riot Grrl quirky dork girl with bananas musical talent and integrity (fact and fiction).  I am not surprised that a lot of my pals (especially but not exclusively white female-assigned people in their 30s and 40s) identify really strongly with ol' B.

In the other corner, we have a black nerd, a phrase now gaining media traction in, you know, indie rock, TV, and comedy.

Herein the problem begins to show.

 Intersectional identities matter here.  The question remains whether we are documenting, reproducing, transforming, or doing something else with stereotypes and social expectations.

Do I have to unpack that thought?  Maybe I'll come back later.

A big plus, for me, in my recent learning about Urkel is that he had a catchphrase about cheese:

GOT ANY CHEESE?

I think about that a lot.

Because I want cheese, like, all the time.

Which is also problematic.  Ask our mother, the cow.

What do you think?  Lay it out in comments, please.









*Yep, a reference to a killer God Is My Co-Pilot song.  Sure, it doesn't necessarily fit with the 80s sit-com teen dork theme, but arguments can be made for intertextual relevance and stuff.
 **Mayim was on a recent-ish "What Not To Wear," the TV show that is kind of inspirational and appealing (I WANT A THOUSAND BUCKS TO GO BUY NEW CLOTHES!) but also shaming and promotes the cult of monoculture (EVERYONE IN BOOT CUT JEANS, YALL).