“Do the pretty girl rock,” sings Keri Hilson in her new song. My question is: If pretty girls rock, should ugly girls just stand still or, better yet, just continue to try to change their looks until they can “rock?”
As her hit song, “Pretty Girl Rock,” proclaims, I don’t hate Keri because she is beautiful, but the song does irritate me because it limits the description and depiction of beauty to Hilson and women who look somewhat like her. In the music video, Hilson first subliminally compares and then portrays herself in the lineup of America’s most stunning entertainers, including Josephine Baker, Dorothy Dandridge, the Andrews Sisters, Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Janet Jackson and T-Boz. I guess Aretha Franklin was not included because she is, literally, too “big” of a star, which brings me to my point.
One topic I often hear and have come to despise on morning radio shows is the bashing of Gabourey Sidibe, the star of the movie “Precious.” The discussion, which is always started by a male, references everything from her weight to her looks and even her complexion, often comparing her to a gorilla. Yet, these same men will laud the comedy of Lavell Crawford without any mention of his looks.
When we allow these men to define the standard of beauty in our culture, they usually want women who look nothing like them or their mothers. If Gabourey could look more like Hilson, I’m sure she would be more acceptable to her detractors. For now, her only option is plastic surgery and skin lighteners.
Look at the long line of African American starlets who are undergoing plastic surgery to “improve” their looks, usually trying to look more like Hilson. Lil’ Kim, for instance, literally doesn’t look like herself these days. The implicit message to young girls is that it’s not okay to look “ethnic.” That said, I’d like to suggest lyrics to Hilson that would have uplifted women and still probably have been a hit:
All eyes on us when we walk in,
No question that these girls are 10s
Don’t hate us cause we’re beautiful.
The music video could have shown African American women of various complexions and features who are truly beautiful “as is.” What a gift this kind of song would have been to many African American women who now feel they have to straighten and lighten their features to be considered attractive.
Ultimately, Hilson’s song and, especially, the video are about branding her as the next “it” female entertainer. I read her comment that the song was about all women being able to sing, “‘Don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful’ ‘cause we all are.” If that’s true, then maybe, at some point, we will get a song about how beautiful we all are.
Annette Johnson is the owner of Allwrite Advertising and Publishing (www.e-allwrite.com) and the author of “What’s Your Motivation?: Identifying and Understanding What Drives You.” She also is the host of Allwrite Radio at www.blogtalkradio.com/allwrite.
