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1. Coloured Ink: Is Body Art Just a "White Thing"? at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:17 am

   […] norms, there is also the issue of sexual availability. As some commenters on Latoya’s article “Why Black Girls Aren’t Going Wild”conjectured, there may be a reluctancy to appear as sexual beings (especially overtly so by posing […]

Comments

1. Remi Love wrote:

   So, white girls just do it while many black girls will only do if they get paid. It’s still disgusting and sexist. I wonder why there are a lack of other women of color in his videos?

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 8:29 am ¶

2. Brad wrote:

   Why is anyone suprised by this? Look at the videos this guy produces. Is that big of a shock that he would believe in stereotypes?

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 9:48 am ¶

3. Leon Wynter wrote:

   LOL, just LOL!

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 9:48 am ¶

4. April wrote:

   What an idiot.

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 11:13 am ¶

5. berrybrowne wrote:

   thanks for sharing this little gem, latoya. gross!
   as for tyra - i can’t help it. even with the automatic 50 points “free” she gets for being a black woman, she is hopelessly annoying, narcissistic (sp?), shallow, and phony. i don’t blame her entirely, because she’s a good model and a good businesswoman, but the whole talk show host thing is outside her realm of skills and abilities. she’s asking for it. more specifically, she does seem to put undue emphasis on her breasts, and her figure in general…

   i don’t know if you can say better or worse as far as being compensated or not. perhaps you can give the woman who “charge” a bit more credit for intelligence, since they clearly recognize that they’re being exploited/objectified and they’re not going to allow that without getting something in exchange….

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 11:32 am ¶

6. Adrianna wrote:

   I don’t see the logic behind Tyra’s question!
   It’s like people who say they don’t see enough dark skin women in rap videos ! Do we really want dark skinned women being over sexualized in videos? Really ! Is that a good example for younger dark skinned girls? I don’t get the logic behind that .

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 11:59 am ¶

7. Kenny wrote:

   I am glad that Black women don’t appear in that crap of his. I wonder thought why Tyra even asked, as if she or they feel slighted that they can’t be exploited by him too. With all the recent smoke screen talk of Black males expoiting Black women in videos.Why isn’t Girls Gone Wild considered as White men exploiting and demeaning White women? I remember when Black women were asking why Justin Timberlake didn’t have them in his videos, of course that was before he showed his true colors by leaving Janet Jackson hanging after the Super Bowl Incident.

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 12:22 pm ¶

8. Paula wrote:

   First thought:
   Exactly why are we offended that more black women aren’t in the GGW videos?

   Second:
   Was Joe afraid to point out that there are plenty of extras in music videos clapping their a** for free?

   Third:
   Shouldn’t we be more focused on the aforementioned a** clapping that’s about as status quo on videos as boob flashes on GGW?

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 12:33 pm ¶

9. Sara wrote:

   I wouldn’t necessarily believe his line - it plays in with a dumbass stereotype and he does work in a business (porn) that quite clearly states its racial biases. There’s “porn” and then there’s “ethnic porn.”

   Posted 07 May 2007 at 1:53 pm ¶

10. mireille wrote:

    I thought I was the only one who noticed the TOTAL lack diversity on Girls Gone Wild. There isn’t anyone even vaguely Latin or Asian, the apparently “palatable” exotic sexual ethnicities to white men (the demographic I assume GGW is suppose to appeal to). I remember that a few years ago Snoop Dog collaborated with Joe Francis on a few videos, but left the franchise because of the lack of diversity and started his own soft-core video series. What came of it, I can’t say.

    Is it fair to compare GGW to “video girls”, many of whom are minority college students or young woman otherwise seeking monetary compensation along with attention and praise from men? Is it the same motivation, manifest in different media? Would black college co-eds sell to the audience GGW is marketed for? I’ve heard enough men say a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman whatever the race, but pornography is the last strong hold of overtly racist media that goes widely uncriticized.

    As for the claim of being “real college co-eds” I often wonder about the GPA of the girls, where they go to school and what their major is. The week right before VT, I saw most of my friends who go to tech joined a group opposing GGW setting up shop at a local bar. Literally thousands of people had joined. Long story short, I guess GGW thought it wouldn’t be too classy to party at Tech the week after the biggest school massacre in American history–Which might be the only tasteful choice they have ever made.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 2:00 pm ¶

11. Eun-jung wrote:

    This guy makes me feel sick to my stomach. One, he’s only decently good looking, and two, he obviously doesn’t care who he steps on to get to the top.

    He reminds me of the kid in gym class that no one picked for dodgeball - not because he was scrawny, or had braces that made his mouth bigger than a Cadillac’s grill - because he was just plain weird, and acted like everyone was against him.

    And now that he’s big, bad, bold, has two jets, and arms people with candid cameras to get shots of titty, ass, and perhaps whatever comes in between - he’s Mr. Asshole of the Month. Make that, Mr. Asshole of the Century.

    But I guess that’s giving him too much credit. I have to commend him on the tri-stereotype sentence he had going there…I am surprised Tyra didn’t bring up ethnic girls in general. I haven’t seen an Asian girl on one of those either. And did I mention that I’ve been to two of his “Girls Gone Wild” parties? Let me just tell you that I think he aims for the typical co-ed white girl…my friend and I were standing in clear range and no one ever approached us…or maybe Mr. Francis was too caught up on the Asian breast stereotype of being small and didn’t feel like wasting his film.

    On a side, Tyra seems to like to get her hands all up into everyone’s business.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 2:14 pm ¶

12. wendi wrote:

    …I posted a really long comment earlier, but something happened to it Anyway, here is my attempt to re-collect my thoughts on the issue…

    i think that Mr. Francis should take a closer look at the demographics of his audience and the women who choose to flash the camera before he settles on the money issue. consider the following: a) studies binge drinking is more common among white young people than people of color (more info here: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/FAQ/index.html). considering the amount of women filmed in the GGW videos who later sue under the claim of coercion while intoxicated, it’s something to keep in mind. b) spring break partying is often segregated as people go with their sorority sisters/frat brothers and/or college/high school friends, which sadly, are also segregated circles. also, it’s important to consider who goes where (Cancun or Freaknik? I’m sure some videos of debauchery were taken at Freaknik too, they just didn’t make it to the infomercial circuit), and c) the segrated nature of the porn industry (soft- and hard-core. for example, playboy magazine contains models that cater to what they feel their respective audiences want (i.e I imagine playboy indonesia or brazil to be different than american playboy), which often means white models in their american edition, whereas black men’s magazines tend to contain more black, multiracial, and/or latina models.

    on a side note, i wonder about the risks women feel they are taking when they decide to show their bodies for the camera. is it possible that black women feel they have more as risk (i.e. due to stereotypes already associated with black women) than their white counterparts? i am not attempting to speak for either group here, but i think it’s an important question to keep in mind. is our behavior tempered by expectations held by the public regarding the group to which we consider ourselves to belong?

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 2:21 pm ¶

13. Sewere wrote:

    Why in the name of all that is good, would anyone want black women or ANY woman to be part of GGW? Why is Tyra concerned that black women are not part of this form of mysogyny? It ain’t like GGW is some path to social uplifting that black women are discriminated against?

    And for god’s sake, why the hell do talk show hosts always tackle these social issues in such sloppy ways that they end up stilting the necessary crticism by going off on irrelevant tangents? GRRR!!!!

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 2:23 pm ¶

14. gatamala wrote:

    BET Uncut was’t enough?

    I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANY BLACK GIRLS ON GGW. (I don’t want to wake up to another infomercial either).

    Wendi, you’ve made some excellent points.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 4:05 pm ¶

15. HighJive wrote:

    There may be cultural components involved.

    Is there an award for most stereotypes in two sentences? Um, The Michael Richards/Don Imus Trophy? Actually, the Wayans Brothers have created movie titles that might ultimately take the prize (e.g., Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood).

    Where does Francis prowl for his footage? It’s unlikely he’s hitting HBCUs or Black clubs/parties. If an old White man (Francis, in relation to college coeds) walks up to a Black female and asks her to expose herself, he’s likely to get a different response than the same scenario with, say, R. Kelly asking. Although R. Kelly would probably not be into it either. There’s surely money to be made for the person who taps the Black market correctly with the Girls Gone Wild franchise. Hell, they’d probably insist on marketing it as Girlfriends Gone Buck Wild.

    Tyra is involved only because Oprah wouldn’t touch it. Tyra is to Oprah what Jerry Springer is to Barbara Walters.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 5:53 pm ¶

16. J. Lamb wrote:

    Joe Francis can’t help himself. He cultivated a market of 18 to 35 year old men only interested in misogyny as mirth - so long as their female ideal, the anonymous Mary Kates and Ashleys of America’s college campuses, remove their clothes for the cameras. To me, the only useful interrogation of Girls Gone Wild asks who buys those videos and why. Let’s face it - a person interested in a GGW dvd does not consider women of color beautiful. Period.

    Whether or not that sentiment is inherently racist is another question, but it’s obvious to all concerned that Joe Francis and his ilk have no interest in the promotion of non-European female beauty. Frankly, Francis’ justification for his consistent video whitewashing offers a cop-out where real candor would better serve.

    Are Black women smarter capitalists when asked to remove clothing on camera? Who cares? The real question asks why the GGW videos, along with publications like Maxim and FHM, profit from the open cultivation of a modern-day Victorian beauty ideal where only ninety-pound, UV-irradiated, tawny-haired, licentious and inebriated bulimics can be considered beautiful by John Q. American, a mainstream utterly unconcerned with sexually exploiting this chosen few in the comfort of their own homes without any social sanctions whatsoever?

    Although, we shouldn’t express surprise that Tyra Banks posed such a egotistical question. Tyra speaks for those more interested in replacing young White women’s unchallenged hegemony over male sexual desire with herself and the Black female demographic. Asking “Why don’t you exploit sistas like me, Joe?” posits Tyra as just another house slave vying for Massa’s attention; her youthful charges learn this insanity on America’s Next Top Model.

    Tyra’s entire career exposes a woman fighting to be objectified, a woman who equates the gaze of the White Other with beauty. Tyra wants young White men like Joe Francis to salivate over her sistahood’s delectable Hershey’s Kisses, nothing more. I doubt she’d care who’s left naked and exposed.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 7:01 pm ¶

17. eric daniels wrote:

    I thought sistas would love to made ‘queens’ by white guys like Francis. Where is Jason Whitlock, Oprah, Stanley Crouch and the rest of the Black Thought Police, Tyra is probaly begging them can you shoot me with my breasts flashing in a Victoria’s Secret panties.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 7:14 pm ¶

18. Anu wrote:

    i think the point that tyra was getting at was that in the media black women are seen less often as the objects of sexual desire. for the most part you won’t see beautiful black women anywhere besides BET, and even then the light skinned girls are always in the foreground.

    and about the drinking thing: at my predominately white college, for some reason it does feel like the black kids drink a lot less than the white students. the black kids will go out and drink and have a good time, but its only some of my white and asian (south and east) friends who go out and get shitfaced every weekend. I have noticed though that the black kids who hang out with mainly white kids drink about the same as their friends.

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 9:05 pm ¶

19. bgwqlc wrote:

    My roommate and I were talking about this over dinner this weekend. He brought up those uncut videos that are catered to the black community. He said that the black girls might not do it for a white guy but would do it for a black guy that showed up at a mostly black club or FreakNik.

    I still hate Joe Francis and everything he stands for!

    Posted 07 May 2007 at 9:24 pm ¶

20. hoo_boy wrote:

    *sigh* Did anyone actually watch the show? This two-line excerpt wasn’t the point, and the context is missing…

    Yes, Tyra annoys me with her phrasing, ticks, and that weird stare/glare thing of hers. Agreed: Joe Francis is what he sells: scum.

    But the show actually dealt with “wild spring break behavior”. Francis took Tyra on location to one of his shoots to show how little coercion is required (think New Orleans a la Mardi Gras). The racial question came up early, not because some women are “missing” but because of the cultural significance “Spring Break” holds for a certain demographic that’s prone to participate in ritualistic “wild” behavior. Francis name checked Freaknik a lot (he knows the organizers).

    Overall, Tyra took Francis and the drinking culture to task. The women honestly considered their acts fun choices w/o consequences (including creepy mom-child-cousin in GGWand four boozy babes) .until shown cringe-worthyvideo footage of their deeds.

    As creepy as Francis is, he didn’t seek to justify but actually provided stone cold insight on the type of people who’d participate in this. Tyra throughout, along with a doctor, chastised him, parents who allow this, and kids who participate in this.

    FWIW: Comments above about “typical white college coeds” suggests just as many stereotypes, no? I’ve known just as much pressure for substance abuse (include alcohol) to exist on campuses in general, regardless of color– there are many contributing factors that pepetuate and infuse through different crowds and rituals. Peer pressure and the need to be accepted are two of them, not forced racial consumption.

    Watch the show before getting spun into knots…

    Posted 08 May 2007 at 7:04 am ¶

21. Anonymous wrote:

    Isn’t Joe’s statement and the whole culture of GGW most discriminatory towards white women?

    If 1) Joe implies that white women are the ones most likely to take off their clothes for free and 2) there is an absolute lack of any women of color in his videos, then what Joe is saying is that white women tend to be the easiest, the sluttiest and the most desired/fetishized, because of the apparent lack in demand for WOC in GGW culture.

    That to me is a discriminatory statement against WHITE women. They’re easy. They’ll take off everything for a little camera time. Our core audience only wants to see white girls get drunk and degrade themselves.

    WOC of color know the inherently disrespectful nature of race-based fetishes and stereotypes– the exotic subersevient Asian lotus flower, the sultry, sassy Latina spitfire– all damaging. But what about the “young, dumb, drunk white college girl” stereotype? Hasn’t that become a sort of race-based fetish? That caricature has become ubiquitous in every R-rated comedy or late night show in the past ten years– she’s always drunk, always dumb, always ready to pop her top off and most of all, always WHITE.

    (Nevermind that its inherently misogynistic that GGW watchers take such pleasure in seeing college-educated young women degrade themselves to the level of shit-faced mannequins.)

    WOC should be relieved they aren’t “in demand” for these videos. You really want to see sisters of color on film totally drunk, revealing themselves to the horny hoots and catcalling of dumb frat boys everywhere?

    I don’t.

    Posted 08 May 2007 at 7:29 am ¶

22. Adrianna wrote:

    there is whole book on the exploitation of white women called Female Chauvinistic Pig by Ariel Levy. It talks about Joe francis and mainstream American Porn unfortunately . Women of color were left out because we don’t get exploited.

    Posted 08 May 2007 at 9:27 am ¶

23. mireille wrote:

    There is a valid distinction between the normal white female college and the sexualized “wild” college co-ed. She is suppose to be college educated, trying to better herself and her social standing, but freely debases herself for other’s entertainment. There is something inherently misogynistic about taking a woman that is otherwise empowered to make her own social and economic decisions, plying her with booz and encouraging her to make a fool of herself. It’s more than simply white woman, who just happen to be the eurocentric standard of beauty, flashing their bits- it’s “those dumb bitches” being taken down a peg.

    This happens within minority communities as well, but that doesn’t appeal to a wider market because WOC are suppose to be inherently worthless, therefore this kind of exploitation would just be redundant. In pornography, if you aren’t going to fetishize a WOC, than there is no point in having her there. GGW fit a stereotype on the surface that has more to do with gender and class than race, but that’s because white racial stereotypes are not often recognized for what they are because whiteness is the default (ex. trailer trash, hill billies). Socioeconomic level plays as big a role in other racial and ethnic stereotypes, but takes a back seat to the issue of race because they are seen as inherent outsiders (the rich Jew, the smart Asain, ghetto Blacks, the illegal Mexican).

    Posted 08 May 2007 at 1:45 pm ¶

24. Koko wrote:

    I don’t think Tyra was asking “Oh, exploit some Black women please”, I think what she meant is why is it that there are no Black women at all? Cause I know Black people go on Spring Break too.

    But I am glad there Are no Black women(Hopefully the girls that do it will smarter up and stop). We already have BET perpetuating the stereotype. We don’t need GGW to do it too.

    Posted 08 May 2007 at 5:15 pm ¶

25. Michelle wrote:

    I do think to an extent that tyra equates beauty with the gaze of the white other, eg. the episode where she was re-creating her S.I photo shoot felt it was relevant to say there was a white individual that told her that her S.I cover made him feel okay with openly admitting to finding black girls attractive, if I was her I’d feel insulted.

    time and time again I’ve heard her complain about women of colour esp. black women aren’t being represented as a beautiful in the mainstream media. which I agree with, but in her case her complaints seemed to be shifted to the white community for acceptance more than respect because it’s based on the physicality.

    Posted 09 May 2007 at 9:58 am ¶

26. Luke Pharma wrote:

    I basically buy Ariel Levy’s premise that today’s younger women are challenged with an environment that equates sexual exploitation with sexual liberation, dressing submission the power “to choose” .

    What isn’t discussed so often is that the attitudes that shape both willing women and men today had to come from somewhere, and culturally that’s the tricky beast. One big reason (admittedly a generalization, to be sure) you see a split between white and black faces on these videos? Look at the parents and grandparents.

    The Me Generation wanted to defy their parents at every turn, for any number of reasons. Any wonder, then, that federal stats support their demographics as the *highest* segment of drug use, suicide, and obesity of any U.S. age group AND the *fastest-growing* segment of the U.S. prison population?

    The Me Generation gave rise to Generation X, where comes this fork in the road. Some Mes recognized there’s something more important than themselves, others don’t. The former group overcompensated out of both their own selfishness and self-indulgence and own perceived lack of enjoyable childhood. The latter left their children to find “their own way”.

    You can see the results in Generation X (general pessimism), the parents of todays twentysomethings or Generation Me (general over-confidence), the difference between self-focus giving way to self-absorption.

    And rven now, you can see the Me Generation still thinking about its sense of entitlement and legacy as the US faces the prospect of the largest social welfare challenge. In the media and marketing, notice the flurry of credit it takes for everything from the civil rights movement (which started in its parent’s generation) to the feminism (which started before its parent’s generation) to technological advances (which always occurs) to social justice (that too). Of particular note: the sex products, wow…

    But what the Me Generation *hasn’t* done is take responsibility for what it has spawned: the attitudes for sex without consequence in abstentia led to a generation of immature women and men who had more options than any previous generation, but didn’t exactly know what to do with them all. Before the charges of porn and exploitation fly, it’s fair to ask who and what are being exploited by whom and why.

    Also ask this: Culturally, how likely would it have been for Latin, Asian, and Black parents and grandparents (those who would be roughly 40 and 60 yrs old now) to have engaged in the sort of behavior we now consider questionable when they were in high school or college if they attended Spring Break. And also ask how rigid or permissive was the household relative to a “mainstream boomer” household.

    It’s not that standards are lower or cheaper, but with more things becoming mainstream, it was only a matter of time. However, Joe Francis of all people said it best on Tyra’s show: it is a rubber band that expands and contracts over time. She should have explored this point further, I think, but didn’t because it would have opened her up to criticism as well for her racier stuff. His point was that decency includes more racier, sleazier stuff to be sure, but look at what makes it on to broadcast, primetime tv, movies, radio, print in terms of sex, language, and violence. It eventually contracts when people have enough.

    That you don’t see so many women of color may indeed reflect more self-selection rooted in personal choice given the mix of people and venue, but not necessarily opportunity to do said act under different circumstances.

    Posted 09 May 2007 at 10:27 am ¶

27. bgwqlc wrote:

    Kinda of topic, I used to work for this company that took phone orders for various companies that did informercials. One of the products was GGW. The guys that would call in were some of the most vile and disgusting ever. This one guy called twice and I got both of his phone calls. He masturabated over the phone and kept asking me these disgusting questions. I eventually quit because we still had to take the orders even if they were doing that but we can hang up on them if they were not giving us info.

    Posted 09 May 2007 at 2:38 pm ¶

28. Todd Keffer wrote:

    Hey berrybrowne: Why does Tyra “get 50 points free” for being black? What the fuck does that mean?

    Posted 21 May 2007 at 6:29 am ¶

29. Anonymous wrote:

    Why was Tyra even watching a video like that?

    Posted 08 Dec 2007 at 12:42 pm ¶

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