Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representation was a book written by Bell Hooks in the mid 1990′s. It seems like an appropriate complementary to Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter.Hooks gained a certain amount of notoriety for her critique of Madonna in which the seeming rebelliousness of the pop diva reinforced consumerism as well as cultural stereotypes by questioning the transgressive, taboo breaking figure she represented for many cultural pundits.
---Love her or hate her, the queen of pop nabs the cover of this month’s Interview photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Taking on ensembles from the likes of Versace, L’wren Scott and Givenchy, the musician gets rebellious with the help of lace, leather and a few dangerous accessories styled by Karl Templer. ---Read More:http://fashiongonerogue.com/madonna-mert-marcus-interview-2010/
Initially, Madonna was marketed as a kind of risk taker in control of her own ever-changing image and destiny, that appropriated hints of Dietrich and Garbo. As such, Madonna was viewed as a racy role model:
But, asks hooks, “[w]hat is the material girl to do when she has fast become a grown woman in an economy of cultural images where so much of her mass appeal was deeply rooted in the romance of rebellious youth?” Madonna’s insistence on her revolutionary status belies her commodification and appropriation into a capitalist logic of representations of women and sexuality. Resistance is reduced to ostensibly trangressive sexuality (which in fact replicates gendered, heterosexist, and racist relations of domination).Read More:http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/hooks.htmla
---Hooks:Yet we have only to look at the number of black women entertainers/stars (Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer, Vanessa Williams, Yo-Yo, etc.) who gain greater crossover recognition when they demonstrate that, like Madonna, they too, have a healthy dose of "blonde ambition." Clearly their careers have been influenced by Madonna's choices and strategies. For masses of black women, the political reality that underlies Madonna's and our recognition that this is a society where "blondes" not only "have more fun" but where they are more likely to succeed in any endeavor is white supremacy and racism. We cannot see Madonna's change in hair color as being merely a question of aesthetic choice. I agree with Julie Burchill in her critical work Girls on Film, when she reminds us: "What does it say about racial purity that the best blondes have all been brunettes (Harlow, Monroe, Bardot)? Read More:http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/madonna.html image:http://commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/on-race-culture-and-sports/
Gayness, for example, is represented in Madonna’s work as merely “a demand that difference be appropriated in a manner that diffuses its power.” S/M loses its “subject-to-subject” dimension and its complex situation in relations of power. And white supremacy is overlaid throughout. “Increasingly”, writes hooks, “Madonna occupies the space of the white colonial imperialist, taking on the mantle of the white colonial adventurer moving into the wilderness of black culture (gay and straight), of white gay subculture. Within these new and different realms she never divests herself of white privilege.” ibid.
---Hooks:Mainstream culture always reads the black female body as sign of sexual experience. In part, many black women who are disgusted by Madonna's flaunting of sexual experience are enraged because the very image of sexual agency that she is able to project and affirm with material gain has been the stick this society has used to justify its continued beating and assault on the black female body. The vast majority of black women in the United States, more concerned with projecting images of respectability than with the idea of female sexual agency and transgression, do not often feel we have the "freedom" to act in rebellious ways in regards to sexuality without being punished.---Read More:http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/madonna.html image:http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2007/02/index.html
In a subsequent book, Black Race: race and Representation, Hooks continues her critique of Madonna within a broader context which touches on the economics of racism as a vehicle for consumerism. The emergence of Lady Gaga, Beyonce etc. could easily fit into the analytical structure Hooks created:
Bell Hooks:White women “stars” like Madonna, Sandra Bernhard, and many others publicly name their interest in, and appropriation of, black culture as yet another sign of their radical chic. Intimacy with that “nasty” blackness good white girls stay away from is what they seek. To white and other nonblack consumers, this gives them a special flavor, an added spice. After all it is a very recent historical phenomenon for any white girl to be able to get some mileage out of flaunting her fascination and envy of blackness. The thing about envy is that it is always ready to destroy, erase, take over, and consume the desired object. That’s exactly what Madonna attempts to do when she appropriates and commodifies aspects of black culture. Needless to say this kind of fascination is a threat. It endangers. Perhaps that is why so many of the grown black women I spoke with about Madonna had no interest in her as a cultural icon and said things like, “The bitch can’t even sing.” It was only among young black females that I could find die-hard Madonna fans. Though I often admire and, yes at times, even envy Madonna because she has created a cultural space where she can invent and reinvent herself and receive public affirmation and material reward, I do not consider myself a Madonna fan.
Once I read an interview with Madonna where she talked about her envy of black culture, where she stated that she wanted to be black as a child. It is a sign of white privilege to be able to “see” blackness and black culture from a standpoint where only the rich culture of opposition black people have created in resistance marks and defines us. Such a perspective enables one to ignore white supremacist domination and the hurt it inflicts via oppression, exploitation, and everyday wounds and pains. White folks who do not see black pain never really understand the complexity of black pleasure. And it is no wonder then that when they attempt to imitate the joy in living which they see as the “essence” of soul and blackness, their cultural productions may have an air of sham and falseness that may titillate and even move white audiences yet leave many black folks cold.Read More:http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/madonna.html
Read More:http://commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/on-race-culture-and-sports/
ADDENDUM:
Hooks:Fascinated yet envious of black style, Madonna appropriates black culture in ways that mock and undermine, making her presentation one that upstages. This is most evident in the video “Like a Prayer.” Though I read numerous articles that discussed public outrage at this video, none focused on the issue of race. No article called attention to the fact that Madonna flaunts her sexual agency by suggesting that she is breaking the ties that bind her as a white girl to white patriarchy, and establishing ties with black men. She, however, and not black men, does the choosing. The message is directed at white men. It suggests that they only labeled black men rapists for fear that white girls would choose black partners over them. Cultural critics commenting on the video did not seem at all interested in explo
the reasons Madonna chooses a black cultural backdrop for this ~video, i.e., black church and religious experience. Clearly, it was this backdrop that added to the video’s controversy. Read More:http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/madonna.html
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