Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Or in the hands of the majority?

In May this year, A-List celebrity Blake Lively posted a photo of herself from the Cannes Film Festival captioned, “L.A. face with an Oakland Booty.” Lively’s post caused wide spread controversy as people thought her comments were derogatory to black beauty standards, coming from a white American. Whilst I am a fan of Blake Lively’s work, her comments sparked many different public discussions as to whether they could be deemed positive or offensive.

The issue people had, was that Lively was appropriating and trivialising black cultures views of feminism. The story received wide coverage from many news sites such as E, Daily Mail and Independent. Overall they discuss the misconception of her statement in connection to lyrics from “Baby got back,” a song by artist ‘Sir Mix-a-lot.’ After speaking to the original creator of the lyrics, he comments on the positive implications this has for the conception of ‘beautiful’ by Hollywood.

 “For her to look at her butt and that little waist and to say ‘L.A. face with an Oakland booty’ doesn’t that mean that the norm has changed, that the beautiful people have accepted our idea of beautiful?”

This quote from the artist himself is dynamic as it could be seen as both perpetuating white beauty as the dominant norm but contradicts that also. He suggests her tagline has progressive qualities as it is a white woman identifying aspects of herself she finds attractive, that are outside of western views of beauty. Her small waist and tight dress accentuate her curvaceous body, which is what she is describing as ‘Oakland booty.’ The artist describes that as a result of this linkage, she is challenging the Hollywood’s Eurocentric conceptions of beauty, therefore reinforcing the importance and existence of other standards. However, he also describes her as part of ‘the beautiful people.’ This perpetuates the idea that white beauty is an elitist club and the concepts of black beauty do not belong in it. He goes on to say, “have accepted our ideas of beautiful” which implies that they would not have validity if they did not do so. Although I agree with some of the points Sir Mix-a-lot is making, he still seems to uphold the acceptance of black culture into a western society as an honour. This reinforces the binary oppositions of ‘us vs. them’ in society.

Sir Mix-a-lot continues to make apt observations about the evolution of Western beauty standards, stating that if black culture cannot accept Western cultures inclusion and move forwards towards a cohesive comprehension of diverse beauty, then they need to decide their future.

“I think she’s saying, ‘I’ve got that Oakland booty,’ or ‘I’m trying to get it.’ I think we have to be careful what we wish for as African-Americans, because if you say she doesn’t have the right to say that, then how do you expect her at the same time to embrace your beauty? 

It’s difficult to determine whether Lively’s use of the lyrics in regards to her own body were a step forward for cultural understanding or whether it was just another aspect of ideological appropriation. If so, do we determine physical ideological appropriation as an acceptance of cultural traits? Or is it another case of white people treating culture as a pick and mix isle.

http://www.justjared.com/2016/05/19/sir-mix-a-lot-responds-to-blake-livelys-oakland-booty-post/