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1. The Fifth Carnival of Feminists « Zero at the Bone on 29 Sep 2009 at 10:41 pm

   [...] Racialicious’ Thea Lim writes about some imagery that manages to dehumanise both the white woman and the man of colour involved. The post’s called Kanye West: Using interracial sex to sell concert tickets. [...]

2. College Frat Boys » Kanye West: Using interracial sex to sell concert tickets … on 06 Oct 2009 at 6:33 am

   [...] post is from here. Visit the link to read more.Racialicious’ Thea Lim writes about some imagery that manages to [...]

Comments

1. Jaya wrote:

   “Pullease! She’s a young skinny white woman who doesn’t wear pants.”

   You just made my day.

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 10:53 am ¶

2. Restructure! wrote:

   Can you link to the original context?

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:03 am ¶

3. Queen B wrote:

   Why is it assumed that Kanye West is using interracial sex to sell concert tickets?

   Lady Gaga has a mind of her own, this promo video could have easily been her own idea. Lady Gaga is someone who likes to push the envelope and do the unexpected. She likes to shock people.

   Gaga and Kanye are both co-headlining this tour so they both have and can exercise creative control over how they portrayed in the promotional materials.

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:19 am ¶

4. Thea Lim wrote:

   @Restructure

   Click on the words “from his blog” or “in its original context.”

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:27 am ¶

5. Thea Lim wrote:

   @ Queen B

   That’s a good point. I guess I just guessed it was Kanye’s image because the only place I saw it was on Kanye’s blog.

   But if it was Gaga’s idea that’s problematic for a whole other host of reasons…

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:28 am ¶

6. malted_tea wrote:

   Sex is used to sell tix and a variety of other things. Why is the mere fact that it’s interracial stir discussion? Interracial couples like to get it on like anyone else.

   If it was like that odd model/bball player magazine pic (sorry, I forget their names), then it would be another story.

   This one’s pretty innocuous to me. In fact, when you link to the actual picture, it’s an animated gif and the (male) hand doesn’t move.

   That’s what I find odd. It’s as if the artist knew it was gonna cause a stir and played the picture “safe” by not having the hands to appear to be groping.

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:48 am ¶

7. Medusa wrote:

   To be honest, I don’t think the man in this picture is even being dehumanized…he’s not even a part of the picture and it’s not his body that’s on display. It’s just covering her breast, because for some reason women’s breasts are still vulgar in America…

   And I HATE Lady Gaga for exactly this reason…

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 11:54 am ¶

8. mistersquid wrote:

   It’s a visual that uses sex to sell something. Would your reaction have been different if the image were of two people of the same race? If not, why not?

   If so, the complaint boils down to something like, OMG, the graphic is using sex to sell something, dehumanizing the persons represented.

   Seems a bit Pollyannish considering this is blog post (i.e. the Internet) where there are all *kinds* of representation of sex and race just a few clicks away from anything else.

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 12:44 pm ¶

9. Eva wrote:

   I think Gaga and Kanye probably both decided on the ad, because they knew it would get attention and publicity for the tour. In the end it’s about getting behinds in the seats no matter what you have to use to get them there.

   Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶

10. Shadow And Act wrote:

    Thea, there’s an actual video ad of the whole thing, if you haven’t already seen it.

    It’s also on Kanye’s blog, accompanied by somewhat ominous audio, and Kanye’s voice at the end saying “Fame Kills”:

    http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/?em3106=239757_-1__0_~0_-1_9_2009_0_0&em3298=&em3282=&em3281=&em3161=

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:22 pm ¶

11. distance88 wrote:

    Oh for the love of…

    These two “entertainers” would literally die without attention. They’d melt right into the freaking ground.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:22 pm ¶

12. Jorge wrote:

    Nah, this is pretty tame, especially since it IS Lady Gaga. Shocking for here would be is she dressed “normal” etc. If they REALLY wanted to stir things up, he would have used an image of Taylor Swift in that context instead with the tag line, “I’m not sorry at all, FAME kills”.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:39 pm ¶

13. Jess wrote:

    cosign with mrsquid.

    Also, to be honest, I couldn’t see the tongue in the ear (maybe my computer isn’t up to it), but I don’t think that by itself dehumanizes. Seems to me you just bought into the tongue-ing is animal sex meme there.

    More seriously, it’s your basic let’s put boobs out there and get people to buy tickets. I understand that using sex to sell anything is sort of problematic, but given the way humans are wired — fundamentally, we’re all about mating in a way that few other mammal species are — it isn’t going to stop anytime soon.

    *(I mention the wired thing because unlike other mammals, humans have no estrus cycle, so we’re rarin’ to go all the time, all year. While that doesn’t mean you can’t have healthier sex-representation, it does mean that we as humans have a lot of easy buttons to push).

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:39 pm ¶

14. ieishah wrote:

    ‘it reduces the race conversation to being a face off between black-white. the racial make up of the us is sooo much more complicated.’

    i tweeted the other day about building cross cultural coalitions through hip hop, and a twitter friend immediately trotted out the black-white binary, when what had sparked the thought was the seeming asian domination of one of hip hop’s 4 fundamentals: breaking. binaries can never adequately account for that. so that part of your post, i’m totally with.

    in fact, i think that last part may even turn your concerns back in on themselves. the black-white face off doesn’t have to be the beginning of EVERY conversation we have about race. what if, just for a week or something, we start somewhere else? where would we end up?

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 3:40 pm ¶

15. Restructure! wrote:

    @Thea:

    Sorry, I have Ad Block on Firefox, so I couldn’t see the ad. (If anyone wants to see the animated GIF, but cannot see ads, it’s here.)

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶

16. Tamara wrote:

    And that’s just what we need, more images of black folks looking like wild animals.

    That’s along the lines of what I thought when I first saw this video. Ay, yay, yay.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶

17. Cubalibre wrote:

    *Sigh* Well, Thea, honey, count me in the camp with those who really don’t find anything shocking or racist (or even very interesting) about the clip/ad. As a mixed-race person myself, I find I don’t give two sh!ts about interracial depictions of sex, simulated sex, simulated rough sex, or otherwise– mainly because the shock value just isn’t there anymore (at least, not for most of us– but I’d wager there are still a few pockets of rabid bigots lurking somewhere in the US South, or in Bensonhurst, etc., etc., who’re able to cough up some outrage over it). How is it any more dehumanizing for the man to be mostly hidden, especially given the relatively tame “action” taking place, than it is for the woman to be nearly completely exposed? Is it simply because they’re of different races? I’ve been a fairly regular reader of this site, but this is the first time I’ve ever commented, and it’s because your “read” on the ad’s dehumanization of the black man strikes me as somewhat of a stretch. Everyone’s entitled to his/her perception, of course; but sometimes, Thea, sometimes…a cigar really is just a cigar.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 9:54 pm ¶

18. Thea Lim wrote:

    @ Cubalibre

    My read of the ad was actually that is explicitly NOT shocking or interesting. And that I was quite tired of the attempts to be shocking based on old stereotypes about white women and black men.

    @ mistersquid

    Of course my reaction would’ve been different if it was between two people of the same race. But you could apply that to anything – would our reaction of Joe Wilson yelling “you lie” at Obama been different if Obama and Wilson were of the same race? Uh, yes. But what does that have to do with anything?

    Yes the graphic is dehumanising, but along lines of the way that race is sexualised, and sex is racialised. You can’t remove race from any equation, not sure why we would try a thought exercise in doing so.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 10:14 pm ¶

19. merq wrote:

    Queen B wrote:

    Why is it assumed that Kanye West is using interracial sex to sell concert tickets?

    Lady Gaga has a mind of her own, this promo video could have easily been her own idea. Lady Gaga is someone who likes to push the envelope and do the unexpected. She likes to shock people.

    Thank you! I think it’s yet another case of “give a dog a bad name and hang him”.

    Posted 28 Sep 2009 at 10:29 pm ¶

20. BSK wrote:

    I’m sorry, I’m not seeing it. First, I don’t even see the “tongue in ear” image. Maybe I’m just not looking at it right, but I don’t see anything close to that.

    As for the rest, I just give it a big “Eh.” It’s a crappy, unclear image, that isn’t particularly sexy and doesn’t really sell me on anything. I don’t know that it implicitly or explicitly is referencing interracial sex or sex at all.

    Really, what else would you expect given these two? Even leaving behind how f’ing crazy they both are, she’s a white woman who likes to flaunt it and he’s a black man who likes to stir the pot. What are the odds that you get a picture of them together and not be able to interpret something nefarious about it? Honestly, this is tame considering what you’d expect from these two.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 12:04 am ¶

21. malted_tea wrote:

    @Thea Requoted “Yes the graphic is dehumanising, but along lines of the way that race is sexualised, and sex is racialised. You can’t remove race from any equation, not sure why we would try a thought exercise in doing so.”

    All sexual couplings are based on race/racism? Where’s the book on that?

    Fetishism, I can see but that’s a sweeping statement.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 9:57 am ¶

22. Olivia wrote:

    Yawn.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 11:42 am ¶

23. Thea Lim wrote:

    @malted_tea

    I don’t think I said all sexual couplings are based on race/racism. I said you can’t remove race from any equation. Definitely race (not necessarily racism, also didn’t say that) is a part of any relationship, sexual or otherwise. Race is a huge part of how we know and understand each other. That’s sort of why Racialicious exists.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 1:08 pm ¶

24. Dindc wrote:

    “she doesn’t seem to exist for herself; the way she’s arranged, she very much exists solely for the titillation of the viewer.”

    I think you’ve just described Lady Gaga’s whole theme.

    There’s this idea that famous people belong to us, that devouring magazines full of pictures where they go get ice cream (”just like US”) or go to the grocery store or whatever doesn’t rob them of agency or personal lives because famous people have no right to these things. So “Fame Kills” the individual behind the titillation.

    There’s an additional layer of the idea that women’s lives and their choices are undervalued in our society anyway, and I think that Lady Gaga is trying to push these ideas to their extreme. Her entire career is like a piece of performance art: she’s holding a funhouse mirror up at society… like Anna Nicole Smith, if she’d been doing it on purpose.

    I’m not offended by the image, but I think offense is the intention (funhouse mirror), which makes it sort of clever. Certainly theatrical. I didn’t see racial implications in it, I was too busy admiring the way the photograph captured the contrasts in their skin tones, and how nice it looked. Then again, I didn’t see the animated gif, perhaps that makes a difference.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 3:52 pm ¶

25. DreaD wrote:

    My reading of the image is that it is an attempt to play on the fear/fascination that is present in the white racist imagination around relationships between Black males and white females. For what? To make money and stir “controversy,” thus making even more money. Regardless of who came up with the image and their intention (though I think it’s very clear both West and Gaga are banking on the attraction of this image to sell product), this image absolutely taps into the history of racism/slavery in the US (e.g. laws against miscegenation, the constant fear of Black men raping white women, etc.), by being titillating BECAUSE it references sexualized racism.
    As far as objectification, I’m not sure…I can definitely see how it plays into the racist sexual objectification often seen in hetero Black-White interracial porn. The image certainly seems to intend to engage the white, straight, male gaze in that it is white patriarchal supremacy that divides the bodies of “others” into sexualized parts disallowing full humanity and has historically imagined “savage” Black males as being insatiably desirous of “pure” White females. This is seen in the simultaneous focusing on and covering of the breast and the erasure of both individuals’ faces. Also, for me what comes to mind with the title “Fame Kills” is that this woman is in danger, possibly b/c of being encompassed in sexualized Blackness. It becomes complicated (though not less reliant on racism) b/c a Black male and white woman came up with the image.
    I agree that it’s neither shocking nor interesting, but certainly is relevant to race(ism) in 2009.
    (For those poo-pooing the continued pervasiveness of titillation/cringe at Black male-White female sexing, three words: Black. Snake. Moan.)

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 4:40 pm ¶

26. Whitney wrote:

    Interesting post, Bitch Magazine did a similar commentary on it, but pretty much put it on Lady Gaga and said that it was sexist because she’s topless (so I guess Lady Gaga is being sexist to herself, considering what she wears in public, sheer tops with black Xs over her nipples), and it’s racist because she’s a helpless white woman in the arms of a black man.

    I apologize, but could you go further into how this image portrays him as an animal who likes sex? She’s into it, he seems into it, from what I see, they’re both sexual and into sex. She doesn’t seem helpless in the least bit to me, and honestly, I’m a bit tired of this (naked) woman in a man’s arms = helpless.

    I just didn’t see anything particularly racist or sexist in this image. The only thing that bothered me was that it was a bit boring.

    Regarding Lady Gaga being a “plaything” for white, heterosexual men…. I honestly don’t know a single straight man who finds her sexy. My fiance sure doesn’t (he thinks she’s really weird and not attractive, although he likes her music), and in fact, the only men I know of who loves her are gay. I think more straight women find her sexy more than straight men.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 5:18 pm ¶

27. Arabi wrote:

    I noticed that a lot of readings of this image(and too other racial/sexual images on this site) are very academic. They reference concepts and events that are probably not conscious to the average everyday viewer.
    Why don’t you step back out of the academic frame and ask yourself, how would the average person read this image? The person who is not very much aware of anti-miscegenation laws and the history of violence against black bodies?
    Because, we talk a lot about what images conjure, but the conjuring is in our own heads which have been clogged up with years of reading theory about objectification, colonialism and fetishism( theory that has largely been emitted from the minds of white males. The irony) What does it mean that this image dehumanizes the participants? Thats not altogether clear to me.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 7:30 pm ¶

28. m. wrote:

    I’ve never heard anyone talk about Lady Gaga being ‘attractive’, let alone ’sexy’. Have you guys heard the nasty comments–”She’s a man,” “She’s a hermaphrodite,” et cetera–straight and non-trans people make about her? Christina Aguilera (a generic, thin, blonde white girl more befitting of that stereotype) called Lady Gaga an “it” when a journalist asked Aguilera why she was jacking Gaga’s style. I am not a fan of Gaga’s music but I personally like the fact that she is doing her own thing in terms of fashion, most pop stars don’t even have their own STYLE. And just so no one thinks I’m biased, no, I do NOT think that she has “redefined beauty”. (Did she really say that? If so, damn…she’s getting way ahead of herself!)
    Anyway, I can see the points Thea Lim is making about this promo. However, I am hesitant to call it ’sexist’ if it was Gaga’s idea. If it was Kanye’s thing, then yeah – just take a look at his track record, he’s got some issues surrounding women. We’re all either gold diggers, mutts or dykes, to him.

    @Arabi
    I hear what you’re saying. There’s an awful lot of theoryspeak going on in some of these comments, it’s pretty over-the-top considering this is a promo for a West/Gaga tour. On the other hand, I disagree with what you’ve said here:
    “Because, we talk a lot about what images conjure, but the conjuring is in our own heads which have been clogged up with years of reading theory about objectification, colonialism and fetishism…”
    Not everyone on here has read or even cares about theory. I’m a woman of color who is just starting college and does not have the privilege of discussing things like racism or sexism in the safety of a (mostly-white) classroom, theory is not accessible and means nothing/is not of any interest to me…but I am still able to put these things into perspective because of lived experience, because I’m a reader and an observer. Many people on here could surprise you with their backgrounds, neither you nor I know all of them. Just saying!

    Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 12:54 am ¶

29. DreaD wrote:

    @Arabi…you know, before my years of academic experience, I would still have FELT what I now have the words to articulate. Because of my experiences as a woman of color, I tend to understand when race(ism) or sex(ism) is coming into play at a gut and visceral level. Now I have the WORDS to pinpoint it, to talk about it, which for me is extremely empowering. If you don’t like the packaging, fine. But that isn’t a good enough reason to dismiss what I am saying. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’s in my head.

    P.S. – since when does fem/race “theory” (whatever…how bout this is what I see) come from white men?

    Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 6:17 pm ¶

30. Maya wrote:

    I wouldn’t have even noticed this image if I’d visited the page on my own. I find it relatively benign and… done.

    What I imagine is a graphic artist working for the marketing company du jour, and thinking, “Wow, this is really hot!” It was the artist’s idea and someone approved it. And frankly, I find black women objectified in this manner at least as often as white women.

    If there is a ism — I would call it sexism.
    Yet I’m not so moved to even bother since many feminists would argue that a woman can determine her own sexuality. I think this is true despite the piece in Bitch magazine.

    One other thought — I personally find Kanye’s embarassing situation is contained to the individual. Blacks find him as appalling as other groups do. Further, we don’t need to carry the burden. It’s just baggage.

    Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 8:08 pm ¶

31. Nappy Mind wrote:

    It was just announced that this tour was cancelled before it started.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_en_mu/us_kanye_gaga_tour_canceled

    Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 7:53 pm ¶

32. EGhead wrote:

    Yeah, and then there’s the part where the tagline is ‘FAME KILLS’. Why does it not shock me that ‘KILLS’ and sex– especially faceless, interracial sex– are juxtaposed that way?

    Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 8:53 pm ¶

33. Peter wrote:

    “the ultimate male fantasy”

    Interesting.

    Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 11:04 pm ¶