Laura Lora WS 266: Gender, Race & Class September 29th, 2014

This is NOT the Era of the Big Booty

On September 9th, 2014, renowned fashion magazine, Vogue, published an online article
titled Were Officially in the Era of the Big Booty, the central message of the publication
being that the world has now officially started to celebrate large butts. The article elaborates on
the history of what the author refers to as the booty movement, tracing its origin back to the
late nineties when Jennifer Lopezs career boomed with her derrire on the spotlight. Other
celebrities mentioned for their notable contributions are Beyonc and Nicki Minaj. However, the
article mainly credits White women Kim Kardashian, Jen Selter and Miley Cyrus for the
recent bootification of the mainstream media. The idea that curves are new, trendy, covetable
accessories dismisses Black and Hispanic women whose curves existed long before White folks
claimed them fashionable (Townes, 2014). Furthermore, the article reflects an obvious play on
the structures of power, as Black beauty becomes acceptable only when White people start liking
it or when these exotic traits are seen on a White body.
As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff (2014) points out, statistics show that
in a network of 100 friends, a White person, on average, has one black friend. Thus, one can
assume that the author of this article, Patricia Garcia, had very little if any non-White friends.
Otherwise, Garcia would know that the bodies of women of color are traditionally curvy and
admired by their communities. For decades prior to the appearance of Jennifer Lopez,
curvaceous behinds were the focus of many rap and hip hop songs. Nonetheless, Garcia explains
that a bootylicious butt was something undesirable until now, that a large butt was not
something one aspired to, rather something one tried to tame in countless exercise classes
(Garcia, 2014).
Laura Lora This is NOT the Era of the Big Booty September 29th, 2014
It is not strange for a statement like this to be made by Garcia, whose White privilege is
evident as she exclusively refers to White ideologies as the norm and is oblivious to the large
number of Black and Hispanic women who never stopped celebrating their curves. Garcia like
many other White women can turn on the television or open the front page of the paper and see
people of [their] race widely represented (Mcintosh, 2013, p. 49). That is not the case for
women belonging to minority groups. White privilege sparks the unconscious oppressiveness of
Blacks in Garcias article and reveals what Carimah Townes (2014), from online blog
ThinkProgress, calls deeply-ingrained biases against women of color.
According to Andersen and Collins (2013), these racial ideologies and attitudes are
created to maintain and rationalize White privilege and power (p. 61). Many features in women
of color are considered unattractive by society: hair, nose, lips, arms, thighs, butt, etc. These
bodies, although healthy and beautiful, are perceived as too muscular, provocative or simply
not good. Society is constantly looking for ways to normalize theWhite while discriminating
and alienating the non-White. The bodies of Black and Hispanic women can fit only two
spectrums: they are either at odds with the standard of beauty or become that standard without
being credited (Williams, 2014).
The big booty phenomenon is not the only time in which a trait original to people of
diverse backgrounds was considered unattractive, unusual, or other negative connotation,
until it was seen on a Caucasian person. Angelina Jolie is the perfect example. Jolie was not the
first beautiful woman with full lips, and yet, lip injections were not popular until she became
famous in 1994. Her fame is, to some extent, attributed to her voluptuous lips. On the other hand,
there is African American actress Kerry Washington who made her debut in Hollywood around
Laura Lora This is NOT the Era of the Big Booty September 29th, 2014
the same time as Jolie did. Despite of having fuller lips, Washingtons sensual lips did not once
get the media coverage that the lips of Jolie got.
The list goes on, and with the newfound consumption of race, even more long-standing
traits and traditions of Blacks and Hispanics are adopted by the mainstream and perceived as
new to society. In the past three years, hair extensions, nail art and cornrows which used to
be considered ghetto have now exploded. It is no surprise that the media credits this success
to none other but three white women: Kim Kardashian, Lauren Conrad and Kendall Jenner.
According to Jezebel blogger Kara Brown (2014), these discoveries are not all the way
terrible if they didn't insist on completely erasing women of color from depictions of beauty.
Brown is correct but what is even more problematic about introducing new trends is that most
women of color are invisible to these fashion magazines until it is in their financial interest to
pay attention.
The underlying prejudice in this article is inherent to White privilege which,
consequently, supports a social structure founded exclusively on White ideological beliefs.
Andersen and Collins (2013) perfectly articulate this: Racism is structured into society, not just
in peoples minds (p. 61). Society, a structure of power, determines which stories should be or
should not be told. Similarly to Adichie (2009), who was once convinced that books by their
very nature had to have foreigners in them and be about things with which [she] could not
personally identify with, women of color are confined to a single story about beauty. This single
story is one packed with White privilege and is one in which women of color cannot exist the
same way that Adichie believed that people like [her] could [not] exist in literature (Adichie,
2009). Society determines Whiteness as the norm and, only when beneficial to Whites, it gives
path to exceptions by introducing originally Black and Hispanic traditions to the mainstream.
Laura Lora This is NOT the Era of the Big Booty September 29th, 2014
CITATIONS

1. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. "The Danger of a Single Story." TED Global. TED
Conferences, LLC, July 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
2. Andersen, Margaret L., and Patricia Hill Collins. "Systems of Power and Inequality."Race,
Class, and Gender: An Anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995. 61-83. Print.
3. Brown, Kara. "Vogue Discovers Big Booties." Jezebel. Gawker Media, 10 Sept. 2014. Web.
25 Sept. 2014.
4. Brown, Kara. "We Need To Talk About 'Butt Selfie Queen' Jen Selter." Jezebel. Gawker
Media, 15 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.
5. Clifton, Derrick. "20 Tweets Destroying Vogue's Claim That White People Popularized Big
Booties" Identities.Mic. Mic Network Inc., 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2014.
6. Garcia, Patricia. "Were Officially in the Era of the Big Booty." Vogue. Cond Nast, 9 Sept.
2014. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
7. Kristof, Nicholas. "When Whites Just Dont Get It." NY Times. The New York Times
Company, 30 Aug. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
8. Mcintosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." Race, Class, and
Gender: An Anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995. 49-53. Print.
9. Townes, Carimah. "Vanity Fairs Big Butt Story Rejects People Of Color."ThinkProgress.
Proprietary Owner Center for American Progress Action Fund, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Sept.
2014.
10. Williams, Jesse. "Vanity Fair's Big Butt Story Overlooks People Of Color."JesseWilliams in
a Series of Tubes. Tumblr., 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.