Race in Unexpected Places: Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl
by Latoya Peterson
A few weeks ago, completely burnt out on all things intellectual, I scooped up a copy of “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” the book based off the blog of one Belle Du Jour. I had seen excerpts from her blog online and liked her voice and her writing style.
I noticed that Showtime had picked up the show, and retained the original actors instead of just remaking the show. I tuned into watch the first episode, but I wasn’t planning to blog about it – the book’s characters had been overwhelmingly white and I assumed the show would be more of the same.
And it was. Except for an interesting snatch of conversation.
Belle (played by Billie Piper) is meeting with her Madam and some of the other employees of the agency over lunch. Her Madam passes around an illustration of a man who has been accused of passing around counterfeit money. She passes the picture to the purple haired call girl, who immediately makes a snide comment:
Purple Haired Call Girl: Eastern European (said knowingly.)
Blond Call Girl: You can’t say that!
Brunette Call Girl: That’s racist!
Purple: You can’t be fucking racist against Eastern Europeans.
Belle: You can be prejudiced.
Purple: I’m fucking prejudiced then.
Belle: Fine, then we’re all agreed.
Brunette: They are my people!
Purple: Oh that’s funny how you’re listed as Swedish on the site then, isn’t it?
Now, I am not too familiar with ethnic conflicts in Europe (aside from the last few that ended in bloodshed) but that exchange on the show as well as the recent conversation we had here about race in South Africa makes me think Racialicious should do a formal series on how race and ethnicity clash in other areas of the globe.
But that’s for another time.
As the show continued on, I found myself delighted with the soundtrack. Most of the music was new to me, as it skewed heavily British. There was one song in particular I found myself trying to track down, “Cannot Even (Break Free)” by a group called the Noisettes. I checked out their MySpace page and found two other items of interest on their page:
1. The lead singer is another Black Girl who Rocks.
Shingai Shoniwa (pronounced Shing-eee)[1] born in 1981, of English and Zimbabwean descent is the vocalist and bassist for the UK indie rock band Noisettes. Her first name, Shingai means ‘perseverance’ in the East African Shona language.[2][3]
Shingai Shoniwa performed briefly in a band called Sonarfly with other Noisettes member and songwriting partner and Noisettes guitarist Dan Smith. Shoniwa grew up in a South London public-housing estate and the experience, Shoniwa says, absolutely informs her music. “Wanting to escape from reality can inspire the greatest and most trivial creative natures in people,” and “I think escapism is something that connects all of us. Everybody has their own little soundtrack, and I guess I’m trying to make my own soundtrack to my escape plan. I want people to realize that there’s so much more.”[4] Shingai first wanted to be an actress, and for a while joined the Lost Vagueness crew as a burlesque performer and co-creator of the now legendary ‘Golden Egg Routine’[5]. She studied circus skills at a London youth club as a teenager.
Shoniwa Joined Amnesty’s Make Some Noise and appeared in an Instant Karma! video singing John Lennon’s song, Imagine to help stop the violence.[6]. [Source]
2. And they had an interesting banner:
Apparently, the Love Music, Hate Racism movement started to combat the increasing support for the British National Party. Their website notes:
Our music is living testimony to the fact that cultures can and do mix. It unites us and gives us strength, and offers a vibrant celebration of our multicultural and multiracial society. Racism seeks only to divide and weaken us. Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) was set up in 2002 in response to rising levels of racism and electoral successes for the Nazi British National Party (BNP).
We use the energy of our music scene to celebrate diversity and involve people in anti-racist and anti-fascist activity – as well as to urge people to vote against fascist candidates in elections. LMHR has helped to mobilise against further BNP election victories, in the tradition of the Rock Against Racism (RAR) movement of the late 1970s. [...]
We want to create a national movement against racism and fascism through music, so it’s vital everyone gets involved however they can.
Rock – Hip-hop – Bhangra – Drum n Bass – Indie – Reggae – R&B – Punk – Grime – Jazz… OUR MUSIC!!
Sounds like something we could all be down with.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
ceecee wrote:
2nd time I’ve heard about the Noisettes…my curiosity is peaking…
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 9:38 am ¶
Leigh-Anne wrote:
Wonderful article! I’ve followed Belle du Jour for aaaaaaaages…
Just one thing, though… Shona is not an East African language. It’s Southern African. Currently, the Mashona are mostly to be found in present-day Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 9:41 am ¶
Leigh-Anne wrote:
Oh dear. I see that comes from Wikipedia. *sigh*
Sorry, Latoya!
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 9:42 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Leigh-Anne –
No worries, I am going to actually do a quick guide to correcting & amending Wiki.
Sam did a great post on activists leveraging this kind of technology and we really should. If only there were 30 hours in a day…
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 9:46 am ¶
SR wrote:
An interesting source for a series on global ethnic conflict is World on Fire by Amy Chua. Although as far as I have read, the only groups covered are immigrant groups who dominate host economies. I hope the book covers immigrant groups exploited by the host economies. If not, I hope we can find another source covering such groups.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 10:08 am ¶
Slush wrote:
@Leigh-Anne
I thought you/wikipedia were right. The Zimbabweans I know speak Shona, and it’s linguistically similar to Zulu. But that’s all I know – maybe its origins were further north?
@SR
I read World on Fire. It thought its analysis was excellent, although her final conclusions were pretty surprising to me. I wonder if I read it again, after knowing the conclusions she draws, I would see it differently.
I don’t want to give you spoilers, but you’ll be annoyed if you are waiting for her to talk about immigrants exploited by host economies. She’s focusing on the market-dominant minority resentment idea the whole time, and is not investigating other forms of racism and conflict with immigrant groups. She’s looking more at conflicts that involve trying to paint a dominant group as foreign thieves, whether they are in fact foreign or not.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 10:40 am ¶
dave wrote:
the noisettes are fun, albeit more guitar driven than most stuff i listen to these days…. and the lead singer looks mad good is some seriously over the top high fashion duds …
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:07 am ¶
Mickey wrote:
Why hello Albert Hammond Jr….
Black rocker chicks are the cheese in my cake!
More posts like this please. Will be checking out the Noisettes MySpace page shortly.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:19 am ¶
Ailurophile wrote:
Thanks to the link to the “Love Music, Hate Racism” site as well as the Noisettes – I want to check out their music now!
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:50 am ¶
SoKo wrote:
I actually went to te Love Music Hate Racisim festival held in East London’s Victoria Park in May. It was amazing, I got a fabulous tingle up my spine watching all different genres of music come to gave and that each performance was punctuated with an anit-racist message.
LMHR has done a lot of good over the years in keeping anti-racism on the pop cultural agenda. Ken Livingstone was a big supporter of this festival and many of the other of London’s ‘ethnically-diverse’ cultural events. The London Mayor’s stamp of approval was all a part of the posters. Unfortunately he was not re-elected as Mayor, that honor went to the right-wing imbecile* Boris Johnson, and lo and behold we London has it’s first Conservative Mayor since the role was created in 2000.
There is another anti-racist festival due to take place in two weeks time, named RISE. Controversially, Boris Johnson has asked for the festival to no longer be referred to as anti-racist and the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) has also been told that its annual Big Cuba Fiesta stage is barred from this year’s event because “it is no longer appropriate to have overtly political organisations involved in the programme or in the community area”. The London Mayor’s stamp is no longer on any of the poster.
* He is infamous for calling African’s piccannies and saying black people have Watermelon smiles. He has made insulting comments about gay marriage, he has insulted the people of Paupa New Guinea, Liverpool and Portsmouth. He is is a reall piece of work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson#Controversies
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:53 am ¶
SoKo wrote:
I’m so sorry my last comments was badly phrased and puntucated poorly. I guess was so excited for the opportunity to get involed in a dialogue about race relations in my country that I forgot to proof-read properly.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:56 am ¶
SoKo wrote:
I’ve done it again. This is what I meant:
I’m so sorry my last comment was badly phrased and puntucated poorly. I guess I was so excited for the opportunity to get involed in a dialogue about race relations in my country that I forgot to proof-read properly.
Damn, I do not like Monday. Apparently they’re not so keen o me either.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 11:58 am ¶
Sumayyah wrote:
Peace.
This is my first time hearing about this, both the show and the group, the Noisettes. I will check them out. Looks like something I could get behind and support.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 12:00 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Latoya
Secret Diary of a Call Girl? “That’s racist” (from same)? Noisettes?
Okay girl, you are going to have to get out of my head . You are freaking me out a little.
If you start to blog about your (my) growing crush on Billie Piper my head might explode…(A hot, sarcastic English girl? Yes, please.)
I cosign the desire to blog about the way “race” is categorized differently in different parts of the world…although I’m pretty sure the conversation in “Call Girl” was just intended as comedy. I’ve traveled back and forth to Europe several times in the last few years for work and you can feel the racial and ethnic tension on the street there, depending on where you are. While London has its racial and ethnic problems, in my experience they are light years ahead of smaller European cities where you can’t even mention the racism without wigging people out. I can’t help but think that when a nation’s own racism becomes a topic of satire that is a healthy sign. A lot of British comedians (like the guys in “Little Britain” and Catherine Tate for e.g.) openly mock British attitudes toward its immigrants–I kind of love that about them.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 12:39 pm ¶
Brigitte wrote:
Someone else mentioned The Noisettes here a few weeks ago. I got their CD from the library and really like it.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 1:00 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
I love the Noisettes! Shingai is right behind Skin in my modern-day-goddess list. And the Love Music, Hate Racism campaign has been around for several years now, and has mounted some great shows with the most eclectic and fun mix of musical genres you can think of. Of course, now that ding-dong Johnson has been elected London mayor, I fear that many events celebrating the city’s racial and ethnic diversity will go by the wayside…
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 1:02 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
Wow, DEFINITELY checking out the Noisettes; thanks for posting them here!
Latoya: I’ve been noticing a lot of bias against Eastern Europeans lately (especially ones from Russia and the Ukraine) because of the unfortunate association with gangsters, crime and the sex slave trade.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 1:08 pm ¶
Keren wrote:
@ Soko
WTF!?, I had no idea that the Mayor is not sponsoring it this year. That’s ridiculous. My grandma’s house overlooks Victoria Park so I had a really good view last time
Reading through the manifestos of the candidates (for the London mayoral elections) I remember noticing how much anti-immigration shit they had- the BNP was going to ‘protect real Londoners!’ etc. I reckon Boris is capitalising on all that, what an idiot. The really sad thing is that he will get away with all his inefficiencies because everyone thinks he’s so funny.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 1:39 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>Latoya: I’ve been noticing a lot of bias against Eastern Europeans lately (especially ones from Russia and the Ukraine) because of the unfortunate association with gangsters, crime and the sex slave trade.
Also, Eastern European nations are more recent members or associated of the EU, and as post-Communist societies have often needed more economic help at the get-go… but once part of the EU, often take jobs in western countries. Funny, I hear the same rhetoric from people interviewed on BBCNews about immigrants that I hear about “Latino” immigrant labor in the States. Same crap, same scapegoats, different accents.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 3:43 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>but once part of the EU, often take jobs in western countries.
Sorry, should read: “of the EU, people often take jobs in western countries (because of higher wages).”
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 3:45 pm ¶
Takunda wrote:
If you’re going to be editing that wikipedia article you might as well note that “Shengee”, which is listed incorrectly (if the attempt was at phoneticization of “Shingai”, and I believe it was) as “Shingee”, is not actually how “Shingai” is pronounced, but rather a nickname or petname for it.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 3:59 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:
not sure if anyone already said this, but the noisettes will be in nyc for the afropunk festival on july 12th . click here for more details:
http://afropunk.com/AP_08.pdf
and of course, i am going to be in memphis during the entire friggin festival…such luck
i wanted to see the brown girls burlesque show…oh well
p.s. u can watch like 8 episodes of call girl on sidereel.com. it’s a bit ahead considering these have already aired in england
pps. the only poc i recall seeing on the show was belle’s regular client, ashok, who is of south asian descent, and to my surprise, played as an attractive, sexually active male and not some asexual alphanerd
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 4:55 pm ¶
Amber wrote:
I heard this band on NPR a few months ago, and they were fantastic. Now I’m even more interested.
Posted 30 Jun 2008 at 5:25 pm ¶
Tarah wrote:
Yeah, Leigh-Anne, I also frowned when I saw that Shona is an East African language. But I made an edit to that Wiki article now.
Latoya, what did you think of the show? I’ve only read bad reviews of it thus far, so I’d be interested to hear what other non-mainstream media ladies think of it.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 2:52 am ¶
PurpleZoe wrote:
The Noisettes are incredible. Shingai is unlike any singer that has ever been. Seriously an experience. I was hyped when I heard the theme song for this series.
Shine on
~~~~~~~~~~*
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 3:14 am ¶
Louise wrote:
Unfortunately we got a lot of racism all over Europe. In Norway where I come from we have for the longest been a homogeneous society and pretty much been cut off from influences down south. Recent immigration and the open borders due to EU and the Schengen Agreement has led to foreign workers coming in and doing the jobs most of us won’t do. Many of them Eastern European, especially Poles.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 6:24 am ¶
Leigh-Anne wrote:
Hey, Tarah!
Yeah, it isn’t… And the Mashona aren’t Nguni – their language is very different from Ndebele, the language spoken by the Matabele. The Matabele, who ruled most of what is today Zimbabwe, are actually Zulus of the house of Khumalo who fled North, under the leadership of Mzilikazi, as he wanted to escape the death penalty after being accused of stealing Shaka’s cattle.
While the Mashona are regarded as being quiet and reserved, thinkers not fighters, the Matabele have always been a race of proud warriors – their Zulu heritage, maybe?
To many, Africans are just Africans. To us, a Zulu is as much like an Igbo, as a Russian Cossack is like an Irishman…
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 7:15 am ¶
Leigh-Anne wrote:
Ooops! Sorry for the double post… Again!
I hope I didn’t offend anyone when I used the colonialism “Matabele”. While I know many people who prefer the term “Ndebele” or “amaNdebele”, my relatives still talk about the “Matabele”.
Also, the language they speak is isiNdebele.
I guess my English upbringing is more ingrained than I thought.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 7:30 am ¶
Elise wrote:
I had to de-lurk to say that I just got the Noisettes based on the reccs here and they are great!
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 8:20 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Tarah –
I’m quite fond of it myself, though it seems like it’s taking a lot of liberties from the book. (Which is fine – I just don’t know where the plot is going.)
It took me a bit to get into Billie Piper as Belle, and she does run over her lines a bit, but it clicked for me right when they started playing that Noisettes song. After that, it’s been all gravy.
I’m really looking forward to how they portray Belle’s balancing act. The real Belle is very smart and self-aware, but I think the show swings a little more introspective., more focus is on how the job conflicts with her personal life.
However, take what I say with a grain of salt – sex (and sex work) is my third largest interest, so I consume a lot of media (both fictional and non) relating to it. I’m going to do a post about a show called Sexo Urbano, currently playing on HBO and talk about the racial aspects of sexualization – but I really just watch many of those shows for entertainment purposes only.
Hey Joseph, if you’re still on the thread, what are your thoughts?
@All –
Great thread! I am cheered to see how many people want to chime in with discussions of race in other areas, and how people from other countries participate. I’ve made a note.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 8:41 am ¶
Tasha wrote:
a. caught the show this weekend and didn’t realize you blogged about it, yep very pale but yes i caught that ’round table’ discussion and was amused and YESSSS the noisettes again woohoo!
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:20 am ¶
DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:
There’s def. way MORE racism and bigotry in Britain toward South Asians, Muslims, North Africans, and Middle Easterns, than here in the United States, from what I’ve experienced growing up.
But all that changed after 9-11, but I believe it’s still easier for Muslim Americans than it is for European Muslims or European South Asians.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 12:32 pm ¶
Thomas wrote:
Concerning racism/prejudice in Europe: a very common prejudice held by Western Europeans against Eastern Europeans is how they are “stealing jobs” (also by industry moving to Eastern European countries because of cheaper labor), also associations with organised crime of varying intensity exist for each Eastern European country… But I guess this might go away pretty spontaneously. In the 60’s, Italian labourers were also frowned upon in my country, and you never hear of this anymore at all.
It’s probably much worse for North-African and Turkish immigrants, because they are more easily recognized and thus stigmatized as a group, are already suffering all the consequences (such as discrimination in housing/job market). I’m describing the situation in Belgium, but I imagine it’s very similar in France and Germany.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 2:53 pm ¶
raff wrote:
A friend brought racialicious to my attention recently, so I’ve only been stopping by for a short time. I think the idea to open up a conversation about race/racism in other areas of the globe is a great one. I recently took a graduate seminar in Critical Studies of Whiteness . . . overall pretty sketchy, but one of the texts we used was an edited collected by Alfred Lopez – it generated a lot of interesting and passionate discussions over the two sessions we spent on it. Not every essay is top-shelf but overall I would say it is worth buying a used copy if you can’t find it in a local library.
The amazon link is: http://www.amazon.com/Postcolonial-Whiteness-
Critical-Postmodern-Culture/dp/0791463621/
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214943310&sr=8-1
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 3:20 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
::Fits tinfoil hat over head, glances furtively back and forth, mutters, “I will not be your mind-puppet Latoya Peterson!”::
Yeah, still here.
I actually avoided the Belle blog and books so I am coming to the series fresh. I’ve enjoyed the first two episodes but I think it could go either way. I have a terrible adolescent crush on Billie Piper (who makes me forget all about that overbite whenever she arches an eyebrow at the camera…) but if it were not so well-cast I might avoid the series as well. Sex work is a complicated topic that is effortless to romanticize–and even though this is based on Belle’s “true” story I have to squint a little when I watch stuff like this. This is probably too “guy” of a reference but it reminds me of going to a strip club: it can be amazingly sexy–sensual, meaningless and fun. But if the veil slips for a second and you notice how tired some of the girls look or how forced some of their smiles are it can become grotesque in an instant. So even though I am enjoying Call Girl so far the fact that it is based on the experiences of a real person don’t mean that it isn’t still a male fantasy of a beautiful girl who loves sex and hates sentiment As long as it remains fun and beautifully acted then I am happy to enjoy it uncritically but for me it kind of remains to be seen.
@DEAF FEMINIST PUNK
I didn’t mean to imply there was no racial and ethnic prejudice in Britain–of course you are right, there’s tons. I just meant that it seems to me–at least in London–there is a public conversation about race I haven’t experienced in smaller European cities. For example when I was in Vienna a few years ago I was shocked to see racist graffiti (”Fuck Nigger”) scrawled all over the walls in a section where there were lots of South Asians living and working, including the Indian restaurant where I ate dinner every night. But even creepier was the fact that everybody pretended it wasn’t there. When I took pictures of it it made the Austrians I was working with very nervous. And in Oslo this spring I thought the tension between white Norwegians and African, South Asian and Arab Norwegian immigrants was palpable. It was like what if Crown Heights (a Brooklyn neighborhood famous for racial tension) were an entire country. Maybe I’d have a different perspective if I’d lived in London instead of visiting but I just didn’t get that that creepy feeling there.
Mod Note – I laughed so hard at that first line I almost drowned in my rice pudding. – LDP
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 5:15 pm ¶
Bee wrote:
I believe that the exchange between the call girls relates directly to a perception of Eastern Europeans in the British sex industry. It’s similar to the attitude towards Asians in the Australian sex industry – they’re perceived as ’stealing the clients’ because they generally work harder for less money. At least, that’s what I assume the intention was, knowing what I do of the dynamics in the industry over there, and that this was implicitly understood by the other call girls. If so, it was definitely a comment grounded in racist attitudes and racial profiling.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:29 pm ¶
mince wrote:
LMHR has been massive for ages and it’s really fun to support. The mood has always been so positive and strong! There are big problems in the UK at the moment though, the BNP recently came 4th getting something like 1,200 votes at a by election and beating labour. I think this might have been the first time they have put a candidate up and not lost their deposit.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 11:35 am ¶
Adrianna wrote:
Love the Noisettes discovered them in 2007 ! Check out their Song “Sister Rosetta Tharp”. An ode to Great Rock Gospel Goddess! I can’t wait for Racialicious to cover race worldwide. Sometimes living in America can feel like living in a bubble. I remember it was hard trying to stay on top of my world news when I was living in the states. I mean here in Haiti it is taboo to speak of prejudice between Black people. If someone say something Racist , no one calls them out on it.
Posted 03 Jul 2008 at 1:41 am ¶