Susie Bright has a Dream
25 April 06
In a thoughtful blog entry, author Susie Bright discusses the interracial question in porn:
It is only asked of fair-skinned women, and it only means one thing: will Miss Anne fuck a black guy? Men are not asked this question. Black women are not asked this question. Asian, Polynesian, Chicano, and biracial actors are not given a rag to bite down on. This is the Mandingo-cliche of the film biz, a throwback to the notion of “the flower of white womanhood.” To see it on casting interviews still makes my eyes cross. It’s part of mainstream movies too—it’s just baldfaced in porn casting, for obvious reasons.
Her interpretation of Joanna Angel’s controversial remarks in the House of Ass video is about the same as mine:
Joanna hasn’t simply foregone a black lover in her history—I doubt she’s had COFFEE with a black person before this shoot. You can tell that her life is segregated, like most suburban teens. It occurred to me that that entering a porn career might be many people’s first social encounter of any kind outside their demographic. Hello Amerikka!
Have a look. The essay is definitely worth a read.
[Via Susie Bright’s Journal]
More: Porn, Racism, Racial Bias, Controversy, Joanna Angel, Tristan Taormino, Susie Bright
# ebogjonson 25 April 06
Nice catch. I’m with the Brightster.
I’m curious about reactions to her comment re: junk in various trunks: “the only movies I’ve ever seen where black men played the consorts of middle-aged women are the so-called “fat videos”— where a white woman’s “voracious” appetite is further illustrated by her penchant for black men, all young muscular types.
It’s as if when you’re fat, you finally can go wild and have everything you ever wanted, every taboo wish— without apology. Finally, a relief from White Propriety. More pie? More orgasms? Dig in, Miss Anne!”
Leaving aside the issue of the actual, full scope of the MILFish type genres, the comment needs a little unpacking for me in context of an ethnoerotic aesthetic that holds (fairly foundationally) that real (colored) women have curves. Fat White Female:Just Black, Black Male porn has never struck me as figuring white women who have eaten their way to any kind of sanctified beyond-the-beyond of desire. Instead it’s always struck me as relying on nestled myths about black male desire, like black men have a differential desire schema and appreciate the junky-trunky or, less ethnographic, black men have been rendered “desperate” by various forms of deprivation for “any” white woman, even a “fat” one.
Not endorsing any that, just calling the crap as seen. I’ll also call it typical that Susie Bright sees “so called ‘fat videos’” and imagines her analogues flush with liberation, whereas I see the same movie and get all crazy about the motivations, “desire schemas” and possible pathologies of my analogues. Talk about a frickin black tax.