I was watching television one night recently when on screen popped Beyonce in a L’Oreal Paris commercial. Her lips were fire-red, and the lipstick seemed to be applied thickly, as if smeared on. Did her lips look large, too, the better for us to see them?
The commercial was a bit disconcerting because I had seen that image recently. It was the cover of a Christmas card with an image of a dark-skinned black woman with red oversized lips and wearing a kerchief. The card had no date on it but it was likely early 20th century.
Beyonce in the commercial seemed to revel in her red lips and she worked it – proudly and unabashedly. A woman in control of her image. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case for us black women. The images I see at auction were never produced to make us feel proud. The evil minds who created them were intent on denigrating us.
Unlike most, the greeting card was not entirely grotesque. It was a tad close to being complimentary (even the message was in standard English and not dialect, which is usually the case). You can find the dark-skinned red-lips stereotype on noisemakers, dolls, postcards, magazine pages, kitchen towels, puppets, thermometers, products, food can labels, sheet music, in some decks of Old Maid cards and more. This was also the way black men and children (the worst seemed to be saved for them) were portrayed.
Interestingly, the image was always that of a person with dark brown skin or jet black. Beyonce was striking because she’s cinnamon-colored. I don’t recall ever seeing red lips on light-skinned blacks – always on the darkest of us, even though we were born in all colors of brown from the nonblack genes in our bodies.
I’m sure Beyonce will sell a lot of red lipstick to both black and white women. Why not? If you like red, wear it. It’s hard, though, for me to get past the history embedded in the image. Will Beyonce’s ad change that image? I doubt it. Unfortunately, her red lips combined with her entertainment persona play into another stereotype: the Jezebel.
These images are now called black memorabilia, Black Americana or black ephemera, and are hot sellers. Dealers and antique shop owners are no longer embarrassed to buy the stuff. No matter the message, no matter the characterization; they know that someone will pay a good price for it.
When black memorabilia comes up at the auctions I attend, it sparks a bidding war that boosts the prices. Most of the stuff is purely negative and reflects the animosity of the people who made it in this country and others far afield. I hate it, won’t buy it and could never imagine collecting it. I met a man once in Florida who collected it to take it off the market.
After seeing so many of these items at auction, I began to wonder where the red-lips image came from. I Googled and the first link was for black face and minstrel shows on wikipedia. In minstrel shows in the early 1800s in this country, white men painted their faces black with burnt cork or shoe polish and their lips red to make fun of black people. The shows were immensely popular and remained so far into the 20th century. But whites weren’t the only minstrels: blacks created their own such theatrical shows.
Another creation, the Golliwogg, the work of a British woman in the 1890s, grew out of the minstrel shows. It was a doll with black skin, red lips and woolly hair. I also learned that one of my favorite artists, Miguel Covarrubias – who knew and mingled with some of the most famous people of the Harlem Renaissance – made a drawing called “Seventh Avenue Type” (1927) that’s a stone-throw away from the image. Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld nailed it with his “Apollo Chorine” from 1941.
I wasn’t able to find an answer to my question, but I do know the harm that such an image wreaked.
Unfortunately, the image is not a thing of the past. When Barack O’Bama was running for president, someone who could not fathom a black man as the leader of the country produced what was called the O’Bama waffles featuring him with dark red lips (at least they toned down the lips but the image was obvious). And there was also the O’Bama poster with him in reverse white face with red lips.
The images now – and then – were meant to make us feel like victims, but it’s not so easy anymore because now we can fight back.
So Beyonce, wear your red lips, but with style. Just remember the history.
