I come to this post not as a member of the Beyhive but as a young critical thinker questioning the validity of the charges levied against Beyonce by bell hooks in her latest essay "Moving Beyond Pain" . Here my fantasism for Knowles-Carter and deep seated respect for hooks are in violent collision because while hooks taught me about the political and historical implications of my hair and my complexion, Beyonce has taught me how to operate as a black woman in this creative, capitalist industry. Both of these women are feminists, both are important to me but in this instance bell hooks' unrelenting, militant stance of undermining Beyonce's feminism finds itself akin to Piers Morgan's delirious reading of Lemonade.
Read moreBlac Chyna & Hoe Restrictions
Dear Angela,
In the minds of those who violently uphold patriarchy Rob Kardashian has turned you from a hoe to a housewife. So acute is their misogyny that they have conjoured up a myth where Rob found you hoe’ing on Hoe Boulevard and liberated you, removing your shackles of Hoeness, elevating you to Housewife status. However, the truth is that you found Rob abandoned, put some loving on him, gave him the care and attention he was so desperately seeking turning his life around. I’m happy for you, I believe you’re in love and I wish nothing but goodness for you and your pregnancy.
Read moreDASH Reviews Captain America : Civil War
I'm standing at the Baskin & Robbin counter trying to stop tears falling from my eyes as I tell the man serving me when I say "extra caramel" I mean EXTRA caramel! A few hours before I arrived at the o2 to watch the Captain America trilogy I received a rejection email from a job I really wanted. If they could have run a line into my arm and pumped caramel directly into my blood even then I might have been happy. I didn't even want to be at the cinema! I wanted to be sobbing uncontrollably into my mother's bosom. But come on! It's Chris Evans in close fitting clothes for over 400 minutes. There's no reason to miss that.
Read moreMichaela Coel & Joyous Vindication
“Di man who shit ina bush na remember, but di man who step ina it will.” quipped my mum when I called to tell her about the bombs Michaela Coel dropped today in these Twitter streets. See, my mum and I often call each other to share encouraging stories of black womanhood. And this is right here? This is a story black women will be sharing amongst each other for years to come.
Read moreLemonade & The Failure of International Broadcasting
Since the announcement last weekend, I’ve been in formation along with the rest of the BeyHive in preparation for the Lemonade World Premiere on HBO. I wore my Ivy Park all day and got my soul ready to have my edges peeled clean off by the only Queen I acknowledge. Alas this was never meant to be because when HBO announces a World Premiere Event, what they really mean is an American Premiere. You know, cos the whole world lives in America. Instead of getting my life, I spent half an hour crying hysterically while trying and failing to find a link that worked then settled on watching the Beyonce’s art on Periscope. Watching Lemonade on Periscope was akin to watching it on a Nokia 5110. It was the most unpleasant Beyonce experience I’ve ever had and it’s not Beyonce’s fault (could it ever be?) I rest sole responsibility at the feet of HBO and International Broadcasting in general.
Read more3 Things I Wish I Could Tell Younger Me
I'm tired of this seemingly never-ending cycle of outrage I find myself in whereby I am appalled by acts of political and creative unkindness then spend time articulating and analysing my feelings. Today I want to talk about me. I turn 27 years old in a couple of weeks, the same age my mother was when she gave birth to my big head. While children and a family are not currently on my horizon, my career is. A career in television as a writer that I didn’t know I could have and there are things I wish a younger me would have known. I share these realisations with you in the hope they will help you feel as good about your journey as they have made me feel about mine.
Read moreDash Reviews The Maids
I recently wrote about my exhaustion at the sufferation narrative surrounding the roles black women play on screen. With the exception of Whoppi Goldberg and Jennifer Hudson, every single Academy Award won by a black actress has been for roles as slaves, maids or waitresses. My lamentations flew out the window when an invite to The Maids was extended to me. Starring double Emmy Award Winning Uzo Aduba (Orange Is The New Black), Zawe Ashton (Fresh Meat, Misfits) and Laura Carmichael (Downton Abbey), The Maids is the critically acclaimed play now running until May 21st at The Trafalgar Studios. However, my lamentations returned after the excitement of seeing Uzo Aduba, long the object of my affection, wore off. “The Maids” isn’t a euphemism for something else, I realised 20 minutes into the play, these women are actually maids. This is what I get for only going to see things based on the stars and shiny posters.
Read moreThe Sufferation of Black Women On Screen
I got 500 words into the first draft of this when I realised I wasn’t getting to the point; I’m tired of seeing black women suffer on TV and in film. All good characters have to go through some sort of hell to overcome and conquer in the end but the hell black women traverse on screen feels a little more fiery, a little more brimstoney than the hell reserved for other women.
Read moreChristopher Nolan & How He Ruined Batman Vs Superman
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. Dont' get lost in the sauce and try to blame me.
The dust had well and truly settled on the Batman franchise when the reigns were handed over to Christopher Nolan and Batman Begins was released in 2005. George Clooney’s 1997 Batman & Robin was a journey into Gotham most people wanted to forget. Except me. I do not hold that film in as much contempt as others, I was 8 year old at the time of its release and I wanted to be BatGirl, are you nuts? Furthermore, I wanted to be Poison Ivy too! That film was camp fun and it is such a shame it was also the ruiner of many a career (pours out liqour for Alicia Silverstone and Chris O’Donnell’s silver screen ambitions). I digress.
Read moreJesus In Film & The Great White Lie
It’s Easter time around the world and homes across the land are overflowing with colourful foil wrappers discarded in order to get to the hollow chocolaty goodness inside. Ressurrection Sunday is a time of great celebration for Catholics and Protestants a like. Come on! Christ’s resurrection is the original Super Hero story. Jesus was betrayed by his friends, crucified and rose from the dead
Read moreJohn Boyega & The Power of Clarification
Have you ever been to Peckham Multiplex? It’s amazing if you’re on a budget. The last time I went the tickets were £4.99, the carpets were sticky, we were watching Attack The Block and the banter that shot across the audience made the film even better than it was. That was the night I fell in love with John Boyega. I didn’t know how much of a star he’d become but I remember feeling he was special. At the end of 2014 when the Star Wars teaser was released, I screamed a scream from my soul when John Boyega jerked onto the screen. Star Wars has never meant anything to me, but when I saw he was in it, instantly I knew I had to get a ticket, I had to brush up on my knowledge, I needed to know everything there was to know about this war in the stars. That’s the power of representation.
Read moreJoel Osteen : When Politics Meets Religion
I am as Christian as I am British. I was born in London, I have British Citizenship but I don’t possess enough of the characteristics of “British-ness” to fool the natives. When people ask me “where you from?” and I say “London” they say, “No, where you really from?” Similarly people are little taken aback when I tell them I’m a Christian because my “Christian-ness” doesn’t meet their idea of what a Christian is supposed to be. That’s fine. See my name, Danielle, means “God is my judge” so He’s the only one who’s opinion of me I’m truly interested in. In the words of Real House Wife of Atlanta and the reigning Queen of the single greatest read in the history of Bravo- Ms. Phaedra Parks “Only God can judge me and He seems quite impressed.” LOL. Impressed is a strong word. I think God likes me.
Read moreThe Curious Dragging of Amber Rose
In an interview with The Daily Beast Amber Rose questioned why Beyonce's semi nudity when performing on stage and in music videos was acceptable to the general public but both she and Kim Kardashian face intense slut shaming for their pasts as sex workers. The backlash was instantaneous. The Beyhive (Beyonce super fans for the uninitiated amongst you) swarmed her instagram with the obligatory 🐝🐝🐝 bee emojis awarded to anyone who falls short of the glory. To the Beyhive it was unfathomable that Amber Rose deign compare herself to the Queen! Even when she drew for the receipts, reminding The Hive that she herself was a carded member, the stings and vitriol kept coming.
Read moreSharapova & The Protection of Mediocrity
I don’t know sports, but I know Tennis. No, that’s an exaggeration. What I mean is I know Serena Williams. I started watching and playing (mostly watching) tennis because Venus and Serena played tennis. Everything about them was perfection to me; I wanted beads in my hair, I wanted the cute, short tennis dresses- I wanted to be them. If you know Serena Williams, you know Maria Sharapova, one of only 10 women to hold a Career Grand Slam and the highest earning woman athlete in the world for the past eleven years.
Read moreBlackness In The White House : Film Vs Reality
In Zimbabwe, when the TV turned on at 6pm and the newscaster read the news, they spoke of President Robert Mugabe. Blackness in the highest echelons of political office only became a myth when I returned to Britain. Since childhood, I have understood that seeing a black person as the leader of a country in the western world could only be realised in America. Wanna know even as a child I knew? The movies. Yes. Don’t laugh. Movies have long prophesied the coming of what would be. There have obviously been British Prime Ministers in film but they weren’t the films I was watching as a child and they definitely weren’t black.
Read moreNina, Reverse Colourism & Lazy Casting
Reverse colourism is not a thing. In this instance, colourism would see light skinned people of African decent viewed as more palatable and acceptable because of their complexion’s proximity to whiteness. Like racism, colourism is a social construct centuries in the making and while those it subjugates are able to be prejudice towards light skinned people, they are unable to fully subject light skinned people to what they as dark skinned people have endured. Reverse racism and reverse colourism are not real things. Watch Aameer Rahman explain it in his bit for his tour Fear of a Brown Planet.
Read moreWhen Your Fave Is Problematic
I have said some honest to God nonsense in my life. When I say “nonsense” I’m talking about Grade-A, 5 Star General Problematic Shit. Like Rev Run and Tyrese I have said in the past “dress as you wish to be addressed.” *le sigh* The younger iteration of me genuinely saw, defended and perpetuated a correlation between the way women presented themselves and the way they were treated by men and society in general. “If you don’t want to be treated like a whore, then don’t dress like one” was my Key Stage Two analysis and understanding of what I now know to be Respectability Politics. Now, however, I understand that it doesn’t matter how a woman dresses, she should be respected and protected. It sounds so simple, but I have had to grow into this understanding, but back then? HAHA! Even with all my intelligence and Christianity, basic Jesus principles “treat people the way you want to be treated” missed me to the point where I became a misogynist. So I have patience for Lianne La Havas in light of her uniformed tweets this past week. No one wakes up woke. Alas Miss Lianne is sleep. But like me, she has time wake up.
Read moreChi-Raq & Spike Lee's Accidental Misogynoir
Spike Lee is to Woke what Wiley is to Grime; The Godfather. What is “woke”? Well, it can be used as a noun or an adjective. To be woke is to be conscious or enlightened specifically about socio-political current affairs and history. At the end of School Daze [1988] Spike Lee has Morpheus shouting “Wake-Up!” as a call to action not only for the other characters, but for the audience as well. Throughout his films and documentaries Lee’s desire to encourage viewers to be conscious of the effects of colonialism, racism, segregation and police brutality, to name a few of society’s ills, have been both artistic and effective. Chi-raq is no different. It is a beautiful, powerful, heart breaking retelling of Lysistrata, the Greek satire by Aristophanes. In all his hyperconsciousness, one subject slipped past him in creating Chi-Raq- misogynoir.
Read moreFilms No One Asked For - Kindergarten Cop 2
It is quite presumptuous of me to call this series of posts Films No One Asked For. Maybe you do want this film. Maybe all your life was missing was Kindergarten Cop 2. Maybe rather than dusting off your VHS of the original and enjoying the 90’s nostalgia high from watching Terminator bend children to his will, you’d rather watch Dolph Lundgren and Bill Bellamy (*whispers *Bill Bellamy) do whatever it is they’re doing in this trailer, but I don’t want. I never asked for this. Return to sender- immediately.
Read moreBritish With American Taste... In TV
“Watch where you’re going nigger.” Shouted a large, leather clad biker after he nearly knocked me down one spring afternoon in 1998 when my mother and I were on our way to what is now the Morrison’s in Peckham. Even at that age I had to look around for who he was talking to because I personally didn’t know any niggers and I knew for damn sure I wasn’t one. Look, the truth was I didn’t even know I was black until I returned to Britain or rather I didn’t know it was a thing. I had lived in Zimbabwe with my grandparents up until late 1996 and had started life with black, brown and white friends who I considered all to be the same, to me we were all Africans. More than that we were all just people. When I got to London I didn’t understand why the houses were so close together, why the cold was a palpable thing you could almost touch or why people who looked like me were so hard to find on the TV. Thank God my mum, in her infinite wisdom, always knew which channel and at what time black people would be on the TV. As the nineties wound down and the noughties took hold it became harder and harder to find black or brown people on mainstream British Television in shows made for and by us. One by one my favourite British TV shows for people of colour were killed off; 3 Non-Blondes 2003, The Crouches in 2005, The Kumars at No.42 in 2006, Little Miss Jocelyn in 2008 and soon all I had left was my beloved Sky channel; Trouble.
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