3B
LIFE/^e Qarlotte J^osst
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Negative images of black women in videos, films
Continued from page 1B
woman is somebody who has
excess sexuality spilling out
all over the place. It’s excess
sexuality that white men are
entitled to,” she said.
Black women stew about
the narrow, negative ways
they are nearly always por
trayed. They are quick-tem
pered and full of attitude like
Tyier Penys Madea charac
ter or the comedian
Mo’Nique, or barely dressed
and brazenly sexual like the
women mimicking strippers
in so many videos. Black
women cheered when Halle
Berry won an Academy
Award in 2002 for “Monster’s
Ball.” But why, some grum
bled, did a black woman ^lave
to take off her clothes and
perform sex scenes with a
white man to win cinema’s
highest honor? Why are black
women so rarely portrayed as
flirty or romantic without
being slutty?
However some music artists
who put together videos say
they’re not exploiting women,
they’re providing jobs.
In a recent VHl news spe
cial, “Hip Hop Videos:
Sexpolitation on the Set,”
North Carolina rapper Big
Delph was featured as he
filmed an uncut video in a
Fayetteville strip club. The
Big Delph
dancers, according to the doc-
lumentary,
I weren’t paid.
Despite that.
Big Delph said
it was easy to
get women into
the video, of
‘VIP.”
“Not too
many people shoot videos in
North Carolina or bring a TV
station like VHl to North
Carolina,” he said.
, Though Delph (who’s real
name is Doug Robson) said
his video shoots are handled
professionally. “There’s no dis
respect of women on the set,”
he said, there are women who
show lip to be groupies.
“Of course you have
groupies,” he said. “But
because we’re independent,
everybody in my crew is
working. We don’t have time
to entertain them.”
Delph said doing an uncut
video was never his main
focus and doesn’t plan to do
another anytime soon.
“We shot a clean version of
VIP and it didn’t get recog
nized,” he said. But when
Delph shot the raunchy ver
sion of the video, people took
notice. Though he’s on his
way to fame and possibly for
tune, Delph said he didn’t
exploit women in his video to
get there.
“These women already
dance at a club,” he said. In
places like Atlanta, New York
and Los Angeles, women go to
strip clubs as much as men
do. “A lot of women watch
uncut videos.”
A representative with BET
didn’t return a call from The
Post about the ratings of its
uncut show. •
The Associated Press con
tributed to the reporting of this
article
Prom fashion goes old-school for guys
Continued from page 1B
trashy.
A saleswoman at David’s
Bridal on Independence
Boulevard said shimmering
materials and bright colors
are popular with prom goers.
Men are also going with
bright colors and tradition,
said Lashanda Millner-
Murphy, co-owner of DW
Designs in Uptown
Charlotte.
“They’re going with the yel
lows, greens and oranges,”
she said. ‘Young guys are also
going for traditional look.
wanting to be fashionable
and classic.”
Millner-Murphy said gone
are the requests for hats,
canes and long jackets of a
few years ago.
“They want more of the two
and three button coats,” she
said. And since a lot of young
men that have gone to DW
Designs are going to prom
alone, Millner-Murphy said
they come to the designer
knowing what colors they
want without worrying about
clashing with a date.
‘You can’t go wrong with
the clean classic look,” she
said. ‘You won’t look back at
your picture years from' now
and laugh, wondering why
did I wear that.”
And if classic isn’t your
thing and you want to get
outrageous at the prom, keep
in rpind that Charlotte
Mecklenburg Schools don’t
play that.
“According to CMS Student
Rights & Responsibilities, a
student will maintain person
al attire and grooming stan
dards that promote safety,
health and acceptable stan
dards of social conduct, and
are not disruptive to the edu
cational environment.
Examples include but are not
limited to gang colors, ban
dannas or gang clothing, to
include displaying gang signs
on notebooks, book bags or
other personal or school
material. This will include
student clothing that materi
ally and substantially dis
rupts classes or other school
activities. This applies to
prom,” a spokesperson said in
an e-mail.
Academic looks for life’s meaning in coffee shop
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON—A cup of coffee
is just a drink. But a fi-appuc-
cino is an experience.
So believes Bryant Simon, a
historian who is searching for
the meaning of modem life
amid the round tables and
comfy sofas of Starbucks cof
fee shops.
Simon, who teaches at
Philadelphia’s Temple
University, thinks that by
spending time at Starbucks—
observing the teenage couples
and solitary laptop-users, the
hurried office workers and
busy baristas—he can leam
what it means to live and con
sume in the age of globaliza
tion.
“What are we drinking, and
what does it say about who
we are?” Simon asked during
a recent research trip to
London.
His research has taken him
to 300 Starbucks in six coun
tries for a caffeine-fueled opus
titled “Consuming Starbucks”
that’s due for publication in
2008. He is one of several aca
demics studying a type of 21st
century cafe culture—Italian
Radio gets
bronze
statue
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANDERSON, S.C. - The
story of James Robert “Radio”
Kennedy, a mentally disabled
black man who was the sub
ject of a major motion picture,
is now etched in bronze.
A life-size statue of Radio, a
fixture at T.L. Hanna High
School since the 1960s, was
unveiled Wednesday before
about 100 people.
The statue shows Radio in a
pose typical of a fall Friday
night at Hanna— smiling,
waving and holding a radio.
The movie about Radio,
which shows how he gradual
ly became accepted and loved
by the local community,
inspired artist Andy Davis to
create the sculpture.
“It seems Radio just doesn’t
have a bad day, and that
makes me feel good,” Davis
said.
‘You did a good job on the
statue,” Kennedy said during
the unveiling ceremony.
In his notoriously sponta
neous fashion, Radio also
gave a cheer as former T.L.
Hanna football coach Harold
Jones mentioned that the
statue will eventually be
moved to the school’s campus.
The piece now stands in the
Medicus Sculpture Garden of
the Anderson County Arts
Warehouse.
coffee in an American pack
age—that h^ spread rapidly
around the world.
Founded in Seattle in 1971,
Starbucks Corp. now has
11,000 outlets in 37 countries,
including 500 in Thkyo. There
is a Starbucks’s in Beijing’s
Forbidden City, and the round
green logo adorns the streets
of Edinburgh and the boule
vards of Paris.
The company expects to
open 1,800 new stores this
year and aims eventually to
have 30,000 outlets, half of
them outside the United
States.
British historian Jonathan
Morris said that even in
Britain—a stalwart bastion of
tea drinking where there are
now almost 500 Starbucks
stores—the chain has become
entrenched in daily life.
While British coffee con
sumption lags far behind
most other European nations,
sales of “premium” coffee
drinks like lattes and cappuc
cinos are on the rise.
“I’m not sure how much
Starbucks is American any
more for British customers,”
said Morris, a University of
Hertfordshire professor who
is leading a research project
called “The Cappuccino
Conquests” about the global
spread of Italian coffee.
Simon, whose last book,
“Boardwalk of Dreams,” was
a study of Atlantic City, New
Jersey, estimates he has
spent 12 hours a week in cof
fee shops for more than a
year.
“I tryto limit myself to two
to three coffees a day,” he said
over a “tall”— that is, small—
filter coffee at a Starbucks
outlet in London’s bustling
Islington neighborhood.
Starbucks and other coffee
houses, he believes, fill “some
kind of deep desire for connec
tion with other people.”
But unlike the coffee houses
of 18th century London or the
bohemian java dens of 1950s
New York, “Starbucks makes
sure you can be alone when
you’re.out if you really need to
be,” he said. ‘You get the feel
ing you’re out in public, but
you don’t need to talk to any
one.”
Simon’s research has made
him finely attuned to the
many varieties of the
Starbucks customer, from the
twentysomething female
friends at a nearby table to
the middle-aged man
' hunched over his laptop com
puter.
“This kind of guy is renting
space,” said Simon, a boyish
44-year-old who visited 25
Starbucks during four da}^ in
the British capital. “He
bought a cup of coffee in order
to have some space. These
two women in fix)nt of us—
where else can women meet
in urban settings?
“I was at a Starbucks up the
street, and there were kids
downstairs making out.”
Starbucks’s chairman,
Howard Schultz, told share-;
holders at their annual meet
ing Feb. 8 that the company
is focusing on “the Starbucks
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