Still from Shakira's She Wolf video; image courtesy of accesshollywood.com
So, I just finished Adrienne McLean’s wonderful book Being Rita Hayworth. In it, McLean does a considerable job recouperating Hayworth’s power and subjectivity as a star, in essence correcting, through post-structuralist and discursive readings of her image, her films, the industrial practices of the Hollywood system and gossip columns that helped cultivate her image and evaluated her work, the woman behind that image, and the multiple identities that woman occupied, that she was hardly as passive and unsubstantial as represented by many biographers and film scholars, feminist or otherwise. A great effort! Now I’ll have to watch Gilda and Affair in Trinidad.
One aspect of Hayworth’s persona that McLean claims provides both the actress and her characters considerable power is dance, which I have championed as both culturally important and personally pleasurable. Stressing the training, work, physicality, and grace that goes into dance, McLean offers it as a site of subjectivity and authorship.
Thinking about this, I can’t help but reflect on Shakira, whose known for her dancing expertise.
With that, I thought I’d highlight a couple of her music videos (admittedly, they’re for her English-language hits; I have a cursory knowledge of her that doesn’t stretch past the American pop charts, so feel free to add some videos I didn’t include). I don’t intend for her dancing to eclipse her singing or guitar-playing. I also don’t intend to suggest that dancing is inherently natural to women of Spanish or Latin descent (Hayworth, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, had a Spanish father; Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is Colombian and Lebanese). But I think that thinking about dance is important, especially in terms of female subjectivity and prowess. In the clips that follow, click on the song titles and pay particular attention to Shakira’s athleticism, control, and muscle definition.
“Whenever, Wherever“
Laundry Service
“Beautiful Liar” featuring Beyoncé
(released on Beyoncé’s B’Day)
“Hips Don’t Lie” featuring Wyclef Jean
Oral Fixation Vol. 2
“She Wolf“
She Wolf
Admittedly, this last music video can’t be mentioned without acknowledging that it treads on some rather unsettling raced and gendered stereotypes about the rabid, lusty Latina, the configuration made all the more unsettling when we take into account that she is caged. But I feel it’s important to bring into the discussion as a way to contextualize how dance factors into Shakira’s on-screen persona. Thoughts?
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