So...I'm going to write about The Spice Girls. At least until something else comes along. Yesterday's post was kind of rough and I just want to write about something silly and mindless...and well...we'll see how that goes.
It all started with this hilariously awesome music video:
Now, I love basically everything that Postmodern Jukebox does. It's nerdy in the exact kind of way that appeals to me. Expert musicians recreating music from an older era with covers of modern songs, fusing them in ways that really shouldn't work, but somehow totally do. Mostly because of their incredible skill and musicianship. It's amazing. And it probably makes me a hipster to think that. Well, so be it. Good things are good and I like them.
But, it occurred to me while I was watching this music video that I don't think I've ever actually seen the real Spice Girls "Wannabe" music video. Now, this isn't super surprising. Wannabe was released in 1996 when I was all of seven years old. Not prime MTV viewing age. Although, to be honest, no age in my life has ever been prime MTV viewing, turns out. Now, I'm not sure what people thought of this video at the time. It seems pretty '90s to me. Interesting technique with the one shot, long take, which I always admire when it is done well, although this doesn't strike me as particularly done well. The lighting is strange, the timing is a bit off in places, and the whole cheeky-girls-disrupting-fancy-hotel-thing, maybe it just has better mileage in the UK. It looks a little cheap now. Like something a group of high schoolers might make. Well, just watch :P
But it did make me think about the Spice Girls more than I have thought about them in a long time, maybe more than I have ever thought about them. And, I know, if pressed I could have given all five nicknames "Posh," "Ginger," "Sporty," "Baby," and "Scary," however, I didn't really have faces to put with those names and I certainly couldn't have told you their first names. Victoria, I suppose, I could have done. I maybe could have gotten to Mel.
Honestly, my main exposure to The Spice Girls of the '90s was a production of The Taming of the Shrew that my sister was in in middle school or high school where a bunch of the female characters dressed as the Spice Girls. I think my sister was Baby? Maybe? This is all hazy and I don't have time to track down the details.
All that being said, as I was putting faces to the nicknames something occurred to me that I had never noticed before. There's only one Spice Girl that isn't white. And she's called "Scary."
Yikes alert.
Now, I am super late to the party on this observation, turns out. I found think pieces going back five years talking about how maybe it was problematic that we called the Black girl Scary. Why was she Scary? And why didn't anyone seem to care about the answer that question at the time?
It makes me hearken back to an attitude I feel like I perceived growing up in the '90s on a range of issues, which was something like "It's just entertainment, you don't need to take it seriously. Also everything's fine now." I feel like there were a lot of issues like that. Some things in Home Improvement, for example, that really make me cringe now. Boy, what were thinking? Or, rather, why didn't we think these things through a bit more.
From what I can tell, "Scary Spice" wasn't a name that Mel B chose for herself. It seems to have been assigned to her during a PR meeting where the other girls got their nicknames as well. But she doesn't seem to hate it. She still identifies as "Scary Spice" on Twitter. And there is something empowering about it. Like yeah, a strong, talented woman who speaks her mind and won't compromise? You should be scared. There's maybe even something a little intoxicating in the idea that you could cause fear in someone else. It might make you feel a little less afraid yourself. So, who am I to question that what adjectives Mel chooses to embrace about herself?
And once again, if all things were equal between the white experience and the Black experience, this wouldn't even be an issue.
But that's not how it is and it's not how it was. Mel B recalls an experience when she was shopping in a high end store, with her bandmates, when the shop assistant asked her (and only her) to leave. She's mentioned other blatant moments of overt racism that she had to face in her life. And I can't help but think that when that journalist looked at her and his first was "scary," he wasn't just talking about her strong personality, however well the monicker may have fit. Just like I suspect that if you showed a picture of the Spice Girls to a child today that has never heard of them, and asked her to pick which one is Scary Spice, she might point to Mel B.
Because racism is deep and it infects.
I don't really find this specifically a cause for action. The Spice Girls are not a thing anymore and I find it a pretty weak argument to say that this might be doing cultural harm. Though I did find this video very moving:
I don't want to #CancelScary or anything like that. I more find it interesting to notice. Like flaws in the woodwork of my house, the more you look for racism, the more you find it. Subtle and pernicious. Where have I heard that before?
And I might even feel differently about this if there were two Black girls in the group. Then Scary wouldn't be the only thing that a Black girl could be.
It's frustrating because if Mel B. wants to be Scary she should be allowed to be Scary. But also maybe we shouldn't be so scared.
Anyway, that's what I'm think about tonight. I still have 12 minutes left in the Pomodoro, so I guess I'll keep writing. Poetry month starts tomorrow. Maybe some poetry to round the night out.
Wannabe
I don't wannabe Scary.
To be honest, I never really did wannabe any.
Baby, grow up.
Sporty, no thank you.
Posh, not for me.
Ginger, what even?
I don't wannabe you.
I wannabe me.
I know that's not what the song is about.
It's about friendship
And not abandoning friends for lovers
And slamming your body down
To wind it all around
Zig a Zig Ah, darling, Zig a Zig Ah
But the five muses
Were types that I
Just didn't fit in.
And that friendship that never ends?
It was nice while it lasted.
I'd rather be Nice Spice
or Silly Spice
or Comfy Spice
or Smart Spice.
That's not what they saw when they looked at you.
Or Fierce Spice
or Captain Spice
or Feminist Spice
or President Spice
or any other thing that isn't about appealing to men
or the color of my hair.
I wannabe Spice
But better. And more.
Tell me what you want.
What you really, really want.
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