rasx() on Media: “Bridezilla”
Now let’s get back to normal—with the Normans and other Anglo Saxon visions seen by billions of people of all colors. Ah, doesn’t it feel comfortable now? Don’t you feel a sense of relief now that order is restored? Let’s get back to reality here and look at the we.tv billboard above:
- One of the few times in your life when you get to see a woman with strong African features—with her hair this short—is when she is scowling at you like an animal.
- The very, very European bride’s veil—meant to outline long flowing locks with lithe strophes of elfish white—sits precariously on top of her short hair and looks like its about to run off in terror. This is supposed to be funny.
- The model posing in the photograph was chosen for her healthy weight-to-height ratio. When I took a peek at we.tv, I quickly discovered that many of the “Bridezillas” were typically overweight according the current Norman norms here in the Americas. This means that the model in the billboard does not represent the real people in the television program.Of course, I was not sitting in the marketing meetings that thunk up this composition, but my speculation hobbles something together suggesting that this campaign is designed for women (probably by women—dominated by white liberals of all colors). In order for “us” to laugh at our Bridezilla in the billboard “we” need a slim, attractive woman to laugh at—“we” refers to other women, mind you, because I do not find this funny.
Now, to the next level (here we go again): when a Black woman wears her hair this short she is taking a stand that sets her apart from “the norm.” She has colored and white women ‘wondering’ about her. So when “we” see her scowling and growling like this at her own wedding, “we” can laugh at her because she was “foolish” enough to set herself apart from “the norm” with that short hair and slim figure. Who does she think she is? Julienne Malveaux? But I guarantee you, sister, the real woman who occupied the body that posed for this photograph has no problems that remotely resemble this shit. Go to we.tv and see the real hefty hussies sporting matrimony. we.tv should be paying me for this guerrilla marketing!
The suggestion here is that this particular we.tv billboard plays on the tendency of petty jealousies among egocentric women of patriarchy. This cultural norm is often sold as “human nature” instead of the pervasive power of the Imperial Cultural Revolution. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that egocentric women of patriarchy is large demographic so it’s probably worth it… Swaddled in the white-liberal idealism of my youth, it took me a very large time to consider the possibility that some women are not happy for other women when they get married. Such petty pleasures may be fine entertainment for the “silent majority” but for those of us who are fully conscious when we speak of community—namely African community—we know that laughing at fundamentally flawed unions between man and woman is very difficult. Son House calls this The Blues. We know that children suffer when they are raised in this fundamentally flawed situation. Many of these children grow up and provide more human resources for The Prison Industrial Complex. To paraphrase something I read in a Basquiat painting, “There’s good money in savages.”