I recently linked an essay Jennifer Fuller wrote for Flow about Flavor of Love wherein she discussed twin contestants who she believed represented a rare mediated image of black girlishness.
I feel like we should be thinking about black girlishness (note: I’m not talking about black girlhood here, though I believe we should be thinking about that too. Rather, I’m referring to the idea that adult black female femininity can encompass admittedly normative girlish qualities). I think it’s necessary to consider black femininity beyond the racist presuppositions that perpetuate ideas of black hypersexuality (or if we turn to Judith Halberstam’s chapter on drag kings in Female Masculinity, the racial and performative dimensions of African American masculinity). Furthermore, both girlishness and girlhood often get associated with white femininity.
That said, I’m not sure if I’m the one who should be doing this. I want to engage out of my comfort zone (in this case, priviledging issues of gender), but I’m white. After Kristen at Act Your Age forwarded a piece from Racialicious on Lady Gaga and whiteness and a repost of AlienatiOn‘s essay “What If Black Women Were White Women?” I’m feeling oogier than usual about my racial identity and how it informs my feminist beliefs. Who am I to suggest that we should think about black girlishness? And might black girlishness be infantilizing to black women, perhaps taking away their agency out of a cultural fear around the sexual prowess racist people assume they have? You see where this gets complicated. Let’s get uncomfortable.
I don’t think black girlishness has to ignore sexuality. Instead, sexuality can be but one aspect of a particular black woman’s performative girlishness. So I’ll offer up Ella Fitzgerald, an iconic jazz singer I love whose music I was listening to in my car last Sunday.
Ella always brought it; image courtesy of vervemusicgroup.com
Her voice makes me happy, but I started listening closely to her song “Chewing Gum” again and it gave me pause. Then I listened to “A-Tisket A-Tasket” and started to sense a pattern. What’s up with a grown black woman singing as if she were a child?
The above clip is a scene from 1942′s Ride ‘Em Cowboy, an Abbott and Costello vehicle. “A-Tisket A-Tasket” is a nursery rhyme that became one of Fitzgerald’s standards in the late 1930s. Please note that the original song is told from a man about a woman he loves. Fitzgerald’s version comes from a young girl’s perspective, and she’s singing about her mother and a mean girl who stole her basket. Not sure how I feel about this song anymore.
Now, I haven’t seen the movie beyond this clip so I don’t know it depicts race relations, if it addresses them at all. I do think it’s interesting that Fitzgerald’s character Ruby, an entertainer who works on a ranch, appears to be integrated. But perhaps “integrated” is the wrong word, as she seems to be the only black person in this scene and maybe even in the entire cast.
Also, she’s clearly performing for white people. I feel real weird about this too. There’s something about their demeanor around Fitzgerald that’s a bit too “we don’t mind black people when they are amusing us.”
Yet, I wonder how Fitzgerald, who was perhaps best-known for scatting, might open up girlishness to include pre-verbal or automatic language. While I know the dimensions are different between her and, say, Ponytail’s Molly Siegel, I do think there’s a connection. Also, Fitzgerald’s singing here, wherein she basically turns herself into an instrument, is pretty virtuosic.
But then Fitzgerald conjures up girlishness in her marvelous version of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” from the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey and I have to retrace my steps.
Of course, girlishness is brought up in the lyrics. At the same time, the lyrics suggest a more mature understanding and ownership of sexuality. Fitzgerald’s rendition supports this reading. This isn’t to say that girls don’t possess a complex sexual maturity. But so do black women, regardless of what age to which they’re relating.
