Tyler Perry almost walked off wid alla my stuff

FemPop's newest contributor, Sheri DF writes about 

For Colored Girls, a film based on the play by Ntozake Shange.

An open letter to my students, my close friend, and my mother:

When I left the movie theatre after watching Tyler Perry Presents For Colored Girls felt like he took something from me.  I came ready to feel some of the complexity of black womanhood that I had experienced as a child seeing the play with my mother, then taking my siblings to see it, then seeing it on my own last year, and having read the book.  I recognize that oftentimes details get lost in translation from play to movie (not film).  But I don’t understand how Perry took a play that is all about black women’s agency and turned just about every female character into a helpless victim in the movie.

Where was the joy?  What about finding my first blk man, Toussaint L’Ouverture, in the library and bringing him home to be my secret lover at the age of 8.  Why was this beautiful story wrapped in the sound of domestic violence and frightened children?  Why did it have to be told as a distraction, rather than as the powerful black girl story that it is?

Tyler Perry almost walked off wid alla my stuff

What about the complexity of a black woman who is dealing with the challenges of being lonely and alone, being exceptional and ordinary/reglar, being a desired object and a sexual subject in her own life.  The lady in red is hyperfeminine, but she is nobody’s fool in the play.  She made sense to me, she had a system; dare I say, a routine.  She knew what she wanted, she got it, and she was aware of the consequences.  But this Thandie Newton woman was unrecognizable because she was reckless and an empty version of a rude floozy.  I never read the lady in red as reckless, rude, or a slut because my For Colored Girls is not about external flat readings of black women.  My For Colored Girls is a myriad of inner voices whispering, singing, screaming to make us make sense to one another and ourselves.

This is mine/this ain’t yr stuff/

now why don’t you put me back & let me hang out in my own self

Tyler Perry almost walked off wid alla my stuff

Who were these people?  This is the first film for and about Black women where I think Black men have every right to be angry about their representation. Who was the date/stranger rapist who begins undressing himself like he came through the window when he was invited in through the front door?  What woman, recently raped and assaulted, tells her story partially clothed to a male cop in a hospital room after completing a rape kit.  Where were the white people?  Yes, white people who symbolically represent the ways that white supremacy gets all up in our relationships and structures our lives such that our reactions seem pathological.  Without some utterance of white supremacy just about every person in the film seems crazy and irresponsible for making “bad choices” even though their options are clearly limited.  Without it, let Tyler Perry tell it, Black men and women are the only ones directly oppressing Black women, and Black women are to blame for their circumstances. 

Stealin my shit from me/don’t make it yrs/makes it stolen

Tyler Perry almost walked off wid alla my stuff

…it waznt a spirit took my stuff/ waz a man…

But luckily I know Black women; I see them and feel them in all their complexity.

I am not trying to sell/tell their stories because I see them as a loyal and lucrative market segment.   I have loved them for a lifetime and they have loved me back. 

So I am keenly aware that it is our love for one another that keeps many of us from committing suicide and moving collectively to the ends of our own rainbows.

~Sheri DF

Willow Smith - Whip My Hair

Willow Smith, the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, has been making a lot of waves of late. She, or perhaps more accurately, a team of experienced PR and music professionals, have released a song and video called “I Whip My Hair.” It’s playing on local stations, showing up all over the internet, and is sparking a bit of conversation among my peers. So far, most of the feedback has been positive. Why so? Because for the first time in a long time, a little girl seems like just that. A girl. A very cool little girl.

When you watch the video or look at her pictures you might be struck by her partially shaved hair and colorful clothes. But you won’t be shocked by her lack of clothes or prematurely womanly appearance. And that has a lot of women exclaiming – finally! My daughter/cousin/friend/neighbor has a girl to look up to who isn’t using her sexuality to sell something. There’s been a lot of great work about this very thing (See APA Sexualization of Girls report). In fact, the oversexualization of young girls is so prevalent that just one example of a more age-appropriate presentation is hearlded as a victory. Finally, the good girls are winning!

But what is it that we’re winning? We can be proud that Willow isn’t prancing around in sexy adult clothes singing sexy adult songs. But what IS she doing?

When I watch the video I don’t see a nine year old girl. Though Willow’s face is small and babyish, I see a performer, someone whose movements and even personality emulate a young woman who is, at least, several years older. She’s surrounded by older girls, confident teens whose presence seems to validate Willow’s position as a cool girl. (Imagine if she was surrounded by eight year olds!). She dances in a classroom led by a “teacher” in skin tight pants who later writhes around on the floor as she “whips her hair.”

This is not kid stuff. This is cool girl stuff.  She’s confident, stylish, in control. It could very well be Rhianna on the screen. And there it is. Willow’s presentation is neither sexual nor child-like.

The images I see depict an alternative script, one that’s available to emerging adult women undergoing the tricky process of developing a solid identity. But what about Willow? Are we, the viewers, agreeing that this is what nine year old girls are made of? Maybe, just maybe, it’s time that we take a step beyond the question of hypersexuality and begin define what it is we really want for our little girls.