The ridiculous image above was the first result that came up when I searched the free image resource pixabay.com using the term “hip hop.”
In thinking about signifiers in media, things like race, sexuality, and gender, and how they are represented in US media and entertainment, the first thing that came to mind for me was the video for the song “Shake It Up” by pop artist Taylor Swift.
In the video, Taylor cycles through a number of costumes/personas. Ballerina, modern dance, an Audrey Hepburn-esque character. But there are also several looks that appropriate from Black hip-hop and/or rap culture and dance.
All I can think when watching it is how when Black men and women dress in that manner and rap and dance, they are seen as thugs and whores. Taylor Swift reaching the top of the charts and win award after award for the song and video is one of the ultimate examples of white privilege.
When Taylor Swift does it, she’s being rebellious. When Black people do it, they’re potential criminals.
Swift may not have used actual blackface, may not have actually painted her face, but it’s blackface nonetheless. “The participatory Internet, perhaps once seen as a potential site of escape from the racist tropes or sexism or misogyny embedded in American culture, has largely failed to deliver on foregrounding mass critical engagement with these issues at all.” (Noble, p 151)
More conversations need to be had about how and why white popular culture continues to appropriate from Black popular culture, all the while escaping the negative tropes that Black people face when their culture is viewed through a white lens.
WORKS CITED
Noble, Safiya Umoja, and Brendesha M. Tynes. The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2016.
