The Doubted Certainties: Morrison's Critique of American Ideals

Rules are inevitable. The disastrous nature of human conduct generates the need of a governing central power and of policies that everybody must abide to as lawful citizens. Scientific and mathematical developments also bring about theorems and rules that are universally accepted as certain and true. While these essential and fundamental laws establish themselves in human minds, so do other more obscure and abstract social rules and standards of beauty and hierarchy, driving people to accept and follow the ideals and creating social division and hierarchy.

The Golden Age of Certainty

Isaac Newton, 1642 - 1727

The Age of Reason, often referred to as the Enlightenment or the Mechanical Age, depicts an era of physics development when the scientists aimed to take everything apart and to analyze them thoroughly. They believed in the possibility of defining and interpreting the behavior of all particles with mathematical analysis and proposed that the motion of an object from one stationary point in time to another is always connected and continuous. This idea of continuity suggests that if the position and momentum of a particle are determined, its state at any time in the future can also be predicted. Isaac Newton, an important physicist and mathematician of the era who developed the use of calculus (the mathematics of continuity) in his laws of motion, put forth a relevant idea: the clockwork universe theory. He stated in the theory that the world functions as a clock created by God, and all the particles in the universe advance, just like machines, with the linear progression of the clock and follow the general rules of Newtonian mechanics, leaving all moments in time entirely predictable. However, as Newton argues for the predictability of future events, he completely abandons the idea of free will. Since everything is certain and predetermined, nothing happens on the basis of human will.

The Age of Uncertainty

Quantum mechanics, however, deconstructs the widely believed notions of the Age of Certainty and challenges the Newtonian mechanism. Originally proposed by Heisenberg and later revised by Kennard, the uncertainty principle asserts a limit to the precision of the momentum and position of an object that can be determined. Heisenberg argues that the more precisely the value of one is known, the less precisely the value of the other can be determined. The principle challenges Newton’s earlier idea of continuity, in which the predictability of future states is based on the knowledge of the position and momentum of the particle in its present state. Another central argument of the quantum theory is that particles do not move in a continuous way, but instead come in discrete units. For instance, the position of an object at one moment in time is completely independent of its position in the previous moment; likewise, its position in the next point in time is also absolutely random and uncertain.

Certainty in The Bluest Eye

These two opposing extremes can be applied to Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. In the novel, Toni Morrison depicts a society that functions similarly to the one presented in the Age of Certainty. The society displays the seemingly certain and inalterable ideals of beauty and hierarchy and runs like Newton’s clock, leaving no free will or possibility of change to the minorities in the society. The poor, instead of appreciating their unique natural self and their own identity, strive to approach the standards of the whites and to be accepted by the society. Geraldine, a middle-aged black woman, rejects her own identity and conforms to the certainties of the society:

They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian. And the sounds of these places in their mouths make you think of love. When you ask them where they are from, they tilt their heads and say "Mobile" and you think you've been kissed. They say "Aiken" and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn wing. They say "Nagadoches" and you want to say "Yes, I will." (81)

          As an introduction of her in the book, Morrison chooses not to present a specific character but instead to generalize with the plural “they,” emphasizing Geraldine’s lack of individuality and her conformity to the American ideal of beauty as presented in the Dick and Jane story. She, along with many other black girls, tries to look and behave like the whites, searching for ways to straighten her hair and soften her skin. The girls have no pride or appreciation for their ethnicity and culture and show resentment towards their own race in attempt to fit into the white society and to approach the certainties that the white society present them with.

The Deconstruction of Certainty

Despite the failure of various characters’ attempts to challenge the fixed system of ideals and their ultimate conformity to the standards, Morrison attacks the certainty of the society by alluding to the harm and destruction it brings to the characters’ life. Morrison opens the novel by presenting the Dick and Jane story, which serves as an embodiment of the American ideal and are taught to children not only for English-learning purposes, but also for them to understand the American culture and the accepted values such as gender and family roles:

Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The kitten will not play. See Mother. Mother is very nice. Mother, will you play with Jane? mother laughs. Laugh, Mother, laugh. See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile. See the dog. Bowwow goes the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the dog run. Run, dog, run. Look, look. Here comes a friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will play a good game. Play, Jane, play.
  

Here is the house it is green and white it has a red door it isery pretty here is the family mother father dick and jane live in the green-and-white house they are very happy see jane she has a red dress she wants to play who will play with jane see the cat it goes meow-meow come and play come play with jane the kitten will not play see mother mother is very nice mother will you play with jane mother laughs laugh mother laugh see father he is big and strong father will you play with jane father is smiling smile father smile see the dog bowwow goes the dog do you want to play do you want to play with jane see the dog run run dog run look look here comes a friend the friend will play with jane they will play a good game play jane play  

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 Over the course of two pages, however, Morrison takes away the spacing and the punctuations, destroying the vision of the ideal household and leaving the whole piece meaningless and insignificant. By tearing the story apart, Morrison hints that underneath the façade of certainty, the values in the Dick and Jane are only fabricated deceptions that bring children to learn to respect the idealized and constructed cultural values and lose their own individuality.

The Destruction of Certainty

Pecola Breedlove, a poor black girl who stands at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, barely receives any love in her childhood experience and learns that the reason her mother prefers the white little girl more than her and the reason her classmates mock and isolate her is because she is poor, ugly, and, unlike the popular white girls in her school, does not have blue eyes. Driven by the longing for love and people’s attention, she accepts “blue eyes are beautiful” as an established and certain rule, yearning and praying to attain them. 

Ironically, Cholly, the only character who is willing to reach her and offer his love, does so in a perverted and inappropriate way. He, just like Pecola, did not grow up in a loving environment, has not been loved, and does not now how to love because of his low social status and his race. Pecola, as a result of the sexual violation his father repeatedly performs on her, is driven mad at the realization of the remoteness of the ideals from her. She, as Claudia points out, almost becomes an embodiment of ugliness that they look upon to uplift their own esteem. Because of the pressure the ideals and the so-called certainties have put on her, Pecola has to comfort herself with a imaginary friend and imaginary blue eyes to get a sense of confidence and involvement in the society. 

By demonstrating the effect these constructed ideals of beauty and American values have on Pecola, Morrison effectively depicts and argues against the destructiveness of certainty. 

Likewise, the ideals turn Soaphead Church into a pedophile.

Geraldine, in her appreciation for white beauty, abandons her own family. 

The carefully constructed world of ideal values and certainty is gradually falling apart. 

The Appreciation for Uncertainty—Morrison's Call for Naturalness

Morrison's attack on certainty also reflects through her writing style. While the Age of Reason proposes a linear progression of time, Morrison sides with the uncertainty and intentionally offers a more free-styled and circular narrative with the use of seasons and multi-perspective in the book. Her rather random form of narrative, with multiple narrators speaking in erratic orders, coincides with the idea of independent and discreet units in quantum theory, where the next moment is always uncertain and subject to change, implying the possibility for the minorities in the book to change their fate and to advance in the social hierarchy. Morrison, mainly through the voice of Claudia in The Bluest Eye, attacks the certainty of ideals and standards of the American society and calls for appreciation for the black’s unique “funkiness of nature” (83).

Unlinked Sources:
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye: A Novel. New York: Vintage International, 2007. Print.

The Door: Americanization of Immigrants and African Americans

Americanization is a fascinating process that generations of sociologists have attempted to explain. In 1782, a French-American writer proudly praised the country as a melting pot, with Utopian visions of the emergence of an American “new man”. However, American history is fraught with clamorous and silent confrontations, persistent clashes of different cultures, and heated debates about values. After the ninety-seventies, the desirability of assimilation was challenged. Advocates of pluralism coined the alternative metaphor of a salad bowl, in which cultures mix but maintain their distinct shapes. 

In Prospective Immigrants Please Note, Adrienne Rich, a half-Jewish, half-gentile poet, offers a multifaceted interpretation of the Americanization. On one hand, she warns the immigrants of losing their ethnic traditions. On the other, she hints at the danger of rejecting assimilation. Ultimately, she expresses a desire for personal choice and self-determination: an immigrant should be free to select elements from his home culture and American (in this case, mainly white) culture. She writes about the same belief using personal experience in Split at the Root: An Essayon Jewish Identity. 

   

Prospective Immigrants Please Note  

       Adrienne Rich 

Listen to Adrienne Rich reading the poem.

Either you will 
go through this door 
or you will not go through.  

If you go through 

there is always the risk 
of remembering your name.  

Things look at you doubly  
and you must look back
 and let them happen.  

If you do not go through 
it is possible 
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position 
to die bravely  

but much will blind you, 
much will evade you, 
at what cost who knows?  

The door itself makes no promises. 
It is only a door.

 Inside, or Outside

Either you will/go through this door/or you will not go through. 

Door is a widely used literary symbol, very likely due to the complexity and duality its simple structure unifies: an open door signifies opportunity and acceptance, whereas a closed door symbolizes rejection and disappointment; an opening door is often associated with new adventures, and a closing door usually stands for farewell. In the poem, to “go through this door” means to assimilate, to Americanize, and to blend in. The outside is immigrants’ native culture, and the inside is American (in the context of this poem, white) culture. “Either…or” has the connotation of arbitrariness, suggesting that whether a person successfully Americanizes is judged by others.
                    



The first stanza as a whole implies that the society demands a devotion to American standards from immigrant. The society does not recognize immigrants as complex, autonomous individuals. Immigrants are either embraced as new Americans, or regarded as outsiders. Therefore, should anyone strive to reconcile two sides of the door, incorporating some aspects of Americanness into his cultural background, the society demands him to forfeit one for the other.

This door metaphor, though written for immigrants, applies to colored people well. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores African Americans’ quest for identity. Morrison presents most people as eager conformers, shedding their racial identity in order to go through the door. The character Geraldine represents mulatto girls religiously pursue “white” appearance and manners.

“The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions. Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; where it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies… when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair” (83).

Funk refers to various natural imperfections of humans: body odor, breath odor, skin crusts, “lips too thick”, “edges of their hair”… For African Americans, “funk” includes their blackness. Geraldine is therefore fighting against her nature, against her African American descent. The words “erupts”, “crusts”, “drips, flowers, or clings” animate the funkiness, as if the girls view it as some kind of stubbornly, indefatigably growing weeds. Their light complexion, white manners, and property have sent them through the door: the society gives them a place above the black people. But they have to cautiously watch what they have attained, and continue the battle against “funk”, totally denying their African American identity.

 The Insiders’s Loss

If you go through/ there is always the risk/ of remembering your name. 
In the second stanza, “name” represents vernacular. Since language is the agent of culture and traditions, “remembering your name” means the awareness of racial and ethnical identity. “The risk” is the anxiety and fears of any exposure of the nature self.

Jewish Immigrant Family

In Split at the Root, Adrienne Rich recounts her father’s influence on her. The man is a second-generation immigrant. When young Adrienne was casting Portia in The Merchant of Venice, he instructed her to read the word “Jew” with scorn and contempt. She could see there was “a kind of terrible, bitter bravado” about her father’s instruction, yet she hesitated at questioning him. It was when she became a college student that she began to understand her father. One day she bought a dress in a small shop and a Jewish seamstress came to do alterations for her. She recalls,

“Something about her presence was very powerful and disturbing to me. After making and pinning up the skirt, she sat back on her knees, looked up at me, and asked in a hurried whisper: ‘You Jewish?’ Eighteen years of training in assimilation sprang into the reflex by which I shook my head, rejecting her, and muttered, ‘No’.”

Adrienne Rich realized that the image of a frightened immigrant, a wandering Jew terrified her, an American college girl having her skirt hemmed. “And I was frightened myself,” she wrote, “because she had recognized me.”

Geraldine attests to Adrienne Rich’s realization. When Geraldine returned home and her son Junior accuses Pecola of killing the cat, she looks at Pecola and abhors the lowness of black girls. “You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house.” she says (92). The fact that she herself is black generates no magnanimity, because Pecola is an undesirable reflection of her race. Pecola’s blackness instigates Geraldine’s insidious contempt and self-denial, as Geraldine is reminded that she can be ostracized from the “white” middle-class for her blackness.

Double Consciousness 

Things look at you doubly /and you must look back/ and let them happen.  

The third stanza, interestingly, describes a kind of double vision: an immigrant’s action is judged by both cultures he is associated with, and he examines himself in two perspectives: an immigrant; an American. This idea is strikingly similar with W. E. B. Du Bois’s “double consciousness”, which he states as “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”. 




The experience of immigrants parallels that of African Americans with Americanization being the common direction. Both groups are painfully aware of their difference from the Anglo-Saxon race and voiceless in the white-dominant society. In the Bluest Eye, the discrimination and indifference of others throws Pecola into the conviction that she is hopelessly ugly, so “she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people” (46-47). That all she would see were others’ eyes implies that Pecola is preoccupied with people’s views about her. She consents unconditionally to whatever labels the world puts on her- “you must look back/and let them happen”.

The Outsiders' Loss

If you do not go through /it is possible /to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes /to hold your position/ to die bravely  
but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows? 

What complicate the poet’s argument are stanzas four through six. Fourth and fifth stanzas offer a romantic depiction of ethnic nationalism: by adhering to traditions and upholding cultural values, immigrants can live respectably and worthily. However, the sixth stanza points out that those who refuse to Americanize face costs.

Adrienne Rich identifies the Jewish defense against non-Jews as a quality required for survival over generations of persecution. Jews must arm themselves in a world full of potential slanderers, betrayers, people who “could not understand”. However, she questions, “What happens when the white gentile world is softly saying ‘Be more like us and you can almost be one of us?’ What happens when survival seems to mean dosing off one emotional artery after another”? She portrays people of Jewish descent who exclusively interact with their family members, shutting the door at the rich possibilities America offers. They live in a bland world, laughter restrained, angers curbed, and tears withheld. They conform to their original culture, and thus surrender the precious freedom of determining what they want to become. They lack the courage to break free from chains of ethnicity and choose their paths.  

Inside, and Outside

The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door.

The end of the poem returns to the central picture of an emotionless door. It is neither hopeful nor hopeless, neither welcoming nor rejecting.

Since The Bluest Eye precedes Prospective Immigrants Please Note by several decades, it reflects an era with harsher racial climates. Most people were forced to conform to the white-dominant society and adjust to its standards. Furthermore, many immigrants do not share the history of slavery with African Americans, and they do not wear their ethnicity with skin color. Therefore, Morrison mainly aims to celebrate the nature, the root, and “funk”. Adrienne's poem, however, taken as a whole, suggests that people should be free to determine their own ethnicity instead of being categorized into insiders or outsiders by environment. The journey toward self-identification is not painless. As Adrienne Rich writes in Split at the Root, at different times in her life, she wanted to push away one or the other burden of inheritance, to state merely “I am a woman”. Fortunately, in a writing career that spanned over seven decades, she found her own identity: not gentile, not Jewish, but both; a feminist, political activist, and passionate writer. 

Lil' Kim: A Heroic Harlot

Lil' Kim: clearly promiscuous, completely open and comfortable with her sexuality...should the American society she lives in praise or condemn her for her lewd behavior?

"How Many Licks" by Lil' Kim (featuring Sisqo)

Like many other female R&B, Hip-Hop, and Rap artists, Lil' Kim has no problem showing her body and embracing sexuality. Why is the female celebration of sensuality so strongly frowned upon in American society? Openly sexual male Hip Hop artists, like Snoop Dogg, rap about women who please them sexually, receive historically receive less criticism, while when female artists, who say the same thing, essentially, receive more criticism because the message was voiced from a female, like Lil' Kim. There are people that would simply affirm his lyrics and make statements along the lines of "Snoop is such a baller," and wouldn't comment on his blatant disrespect towards women, or question his behavior. On the other hand, it seems that when female Hip-Hop artists, like Lil' Kim cannot seem to escape ridicule. It seems that many of the same people who render themselves avid fans of artists like Snoop Dogg cannot bring themselves to appreciate similar messages from female artists. If there are Americans that can accept men who explicitly express their enjoyment of sex, why does the double sexual standard exist? 

                             Versus              

Sigmund Freud's Madonna-Whore Dichotomy details the initiation of  the sexual double standard. Men with this complex habitually classify women as being either virtuous or whorish. However, this mindset disallows true happiness because these men cannot be sexually satisfied by the pure, virginal women they profess to love, yet at the time they cannot come to love the type of whorish women that they are sexually attracted to. In American society, women's expression of sexuality is a Catch 22. Men eminently transmit frustration towards the Madonna because of her prudence, but continue to seek these women. Though when a woman, like Lil' Kim, behaves conversely and expresses her sexuality freely, she is often subject to public scorn. This sexual oppression indubitably manipulates a large number of women into believing that this type of binary identification is realistic. Women that struggle to overcome the standard are under the impression that they must either obliterate their Madonna status, causing men to lose respect, or they must remain a Madonna who is criticized and also miserable since they must restrain natural inclinations to sustain that status.

Lil Kim' and Toni Morrison use their works to debunk societal perceptions based on the Madonna Whore Dichotomy. The motive driving these women being the challenge of guiding women to unlearn the self-prejudice they may have learned. In Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the women in the novel are strictly classified as either Madonna figures, like Geraldine, or whores, like Miss Marie, Miss China, and Miss Poland. Morrison attempts to redefine the construct of beauty, which directly correlates to the strict societal convention of women's sexuality. The author emphasizes the societal pressure to succumb to the sexual stereotypes through characters, like Gerladine. While Lil' Kim, over sexualizes herself, striving to enlighten women, and free them from definitive sexuality. Through their different mediums, these women present American culture's mechanical control over how women should define their sexuality.

In the the initial factory setting of the Hip-Hop artist's "How Many Licks?" video, Lil' Kim establishes that society controls the idea of what it means to be a woman. The screen shot of the liquid mannequin mold, as the word "original" flashes across the screen, symbolizes many women's vulnerability to society's pressure to a become a Madonna. Without the shell, the liquid is not required to take any specific shape. Similarly, without the double standard,  women would not feel that they are either a whore, or a Madonna, but a woman whose sexuality is only a function of her humanity. The second frame of the cooked mold, with the word "realistic," suggests that the influence of the shell, or societal pressure, prevents many women from taking on their own identity. However, these women are entrapped in the shell, believing they must take on the perfectly refined Madonna mold. The influence is so strong that women, like Geraldine of Morrison's The Bluest Eye, might as well be a one of the molds in Lil' Kim's video.

In the novel, the white iconic figures of the media cause these black women to reject their identity, preventing them from embracing their bodies and connecting intimately with others. Because these women cannot be the Shirley Temple valued by society, they consume their energy assimilating whiteness. The influence of societal perceptions is so extreme that when Geraldine-like women, have dreamed of being free of their identity insecurities, they "have looked long at the hollyhocks in the backyards"; they focus on the flowers typically native to Asia, in otherwise natural foliage (82). Instead of admiring the nature, Geraldine and the type of women she represents, solely stare at the beauty of the flower that should not be there; the identity they should not be rooted in.

Geraldines reject their black identity because they haven't learned to love the identity that fits them. Therefore they are ashamed of their body and do not know that they "got in goin' on" ("Big Momma Thang," Lil' Kim, ft. Jay-Z, Lil' Cease). In fact, their shame and inherent self-consciousness galvanizes an inability to connect emotionally and physically during sex because they do not consider themselves beautiful. When Geraldine and her husband have sexual intercourse, he must only lift "the hem of her nightgown to her navel" (84). Since the Geraldines do not have to reveal their bodies fully, they evade the humiliation of completely facing the "racial self-loathing" that is normally suppressed. Despite that they "wonder for the six hundredth time, what it would be like to have that feeling," the Geraldines are not proactive; they do not seek to engage themselves sexually with other people. Instead, their dream Their dream of unobtainable "beauty," induces them to compensate the lack of intimate, sensual connection. Attempting to fulfill the role of sexual interaction, Geraldine nonchalantly engages with her cat as a substitute. She often "will accept the strangely pleasant sensation that comes when he writhes beneath her hand and flattens his eyes with a surfeit of sensual delight" (85). She does not render the interactions strange because  of the extent of her sexual frustration, nor because a cat substitutes masturbation; she describes the feeling as strange because she is not accustomed to sensual gratification.

Because there are a plenitude of American women today affected by societal perceptions and struggle with sexuality, female artists like Lil' Kim over sexualize themselves in order to teach women that sexuality is simply a function of humanity. In the "How Many Licks?" video the singer communicates that she aims to diminish the vapid notion of sexuality as the mannequin transforms into Lil' Kim. This screen shot conveys the artist's message that women possess the power to take control of their sexuality. They do not have to be the mold society pressures them to be. From this video, one can easily observe that Lil' Kim has found the strength within herself to negate the double standard, ultimately giving her the ability to embrace her body. She can freely express her sexuality and even comfortably discuss times at which she was the "only one that could handle him" with pride (53). The manner in which she boldly struts down the runway, explicitly describing some of her sexual experiences suggests that Lil' Kim does not allow others to define and inhibit her.

Rather, she transforms a concept many women accept: the components female power. From a young age parents teach their daughters that the female body is precious, the value of virginal preservation, and the male responsibility to serve women through heroism and chivalry. Lil' Kim's personal philosophy seems to be that if men are to serve women, she would like them to serve her sexually. Thus, she refuses to implore the parent taught components of female power by refusing to provide a womb and follow specified gender roles. She also embraces the power all women have over men, but asserts it uniquely. Lil' Kim creates a personal sexual standard that is appropriate for the type of life style she desires to engage in. Most importantly, because Lil' Kim remains in control of her social interactions and actually enjoys them, she does not allow others to punish her by labeling her a whore.

Disclaimer: In the below paragraphs, I am not advocating prostitution. Thousands of women are forced into prostitution as a necessary means for survival. There is also an extreme amount of women abducted and exploited in sex trade every day. I believe prostitution is an injustice no woman should ever experience. I am, however, arguing against the double sexual standard.

The Bluest Eye prostitutes are similar to Lil' Kim in the sense that they embrace themselves fully and do not let others define them. Even though their clientele may perceive them as a service, they possess the confidence the Geraldines lack. When Miss Marie playfully teases Miss China about her skinny legs, China retorts, "Don't worry 'bout my bandy legs. That's the first thing they push aside," and "all three of the women laughed" (52). The prostitutes are clearly not ashamed of their sexuality and because they embrace it, they do not feel the pressure to be a Madonna or assimilate whiteness. They do not practice self-prejudice, but embrace their black identity, keeping their hair curly, unlike the Geraldines who straighten their hair (53). More simply, they tell "haters, I paid y'all no mind" ("No Matter What They Say," Lil' Kim). The prostitutes are also the happiest characters in the novel. Not only do they frequently joke and laugh, but they do not complain about money or the work they do. Miss Marie tells Pecola that when she found out somebody would pay her for sex that "you could have knocked me over with a feather" (55). Thus, not only does Miss Marie take delight in her occupation, but she chose to be a prostitute, she is in control, like Lil' Kim.

Though they possess the liberty the Geraldines envy, Morrison indicates they only possess it because of their whorish identity. The author does not create any other openly sexual female characters in the novel; indicative of some Americans misconception that all openly sexual women are whores, or "sluts," while other women are prudish and restrain themselves, like Geraldine. In Black Star's song "Thieves in the Night," Talib Kweli and Most Def extrapolate on the "law of The Bluest Eye" (ll. 3). America claims to be a "land of opportunity," where diverse peoples and beliefs are welcome, yet many people suffer from  various types of binary identification. Referring to American culture Most Def states,"We either niggaz or Kings/Bitches or Queens"; we are not complicated individuals, but unrealistic stereotypes, placed into categories based on theories and constructs like Biological Determinism, beauty, and the sexual double standard.

"Thieves in the Night"

Blackstar

Songwriters: TALIB KWELI GREENE, DANTE SMITH, CHARLES NJAPA

The Bluest Eye; Barbie's Effect on Modern Day Children

Throughout the centuries, young children often look up to various role models and icons and emulate and try to be like them. Young girls particularly feel as if they must look and act perfect in order to fit in to society and be liked. In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Shirley Temple and Mary Jane are the prominent figures in which young black and white girls look up to. In today's world it is no different. Even though the racial prejudices shown in The Bluest Eye are somewhat gone now, the perfect looking figures that children look up to are still here, such as Barbie dolls. Typically, Barbies are white skinned with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfect body. Because many girls in the United States own a Barbie at a young age, they are being taught how they should to look and act in the eyes of society. Similarly, Shirley Temple was seen as the 'perfect' girl in the 1940s, which is why so many children, including Pecola, felt inferior when they did not look the same way. 

One character in the novel, Pecola Breedlove, comes from an unstable family that is viewed as ugly by society. They live right above a store in one of the worst parts of town, and the store consists of glass walls. The glass walls represent the Breedlove's as a display for society to see; a display of something ugly and undesirable. Their humiliation is not private and they are hyper visible; people know that they are there but choose to stereotype them. Just by looking at the Breedlove family, you "wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source...It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one of them a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The master had said, 'You are ugly people.' They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance" (39). There is no distinct ugliness about the family, however, society automatically pegs them as undesirable because they look nothing like what is considered 'beautiful'. Beauty, as shown in "every billboard, every movie, and every glance," was perceived as being white, just like Shirley Temple and Barbie. Even though today's modern society likes to think that we have grown to be more diverse and that any person can be beautiful, there are still the same expectation that are shown in The Bluest Eye. In fact, our society today relies even more on trying to fit into this role of beauty, by going to extremes to be 'pretty' and look more like a Barbie.  

Given her unstable family, Pecola finds it hard to embrace and find beauty in her natural self, causing her to want to change, and be more like the 'beautiful' little girls: Shirley Temple and Mary Jane. Pecola lives vicariously through these icons on a regular basis. Claudia says that Pecola "was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just  to handle and see sweet Shirley's face" (23). Pecola could not be more different than Barbie and Shirley Temple, however, she feels a slight bit of empowerment when she gets to at least see Shirley Temple. She does that same thing with Mary Jane candy. Pecola yearns for the blue eyes of Mary Jane, and "to eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane" (50). Pecola ignores any bit of uniqueness that she has just so she can be more 'beautiful', even if it is just for a few moments. Because she is so unhappy and dissatisfied with the way she looks, Pecola feels as if the one thing that could fix her discontentment would be to have blue eyes. Girls in the twenty first century lack this confidence as well and think that if they somehow look more similar to Barbie- a bit skinnier, prettier, or different looking in some way- they will be happier. This self degradation has always occurred in children because they see that the most beautiful icon, either Shirley Temple or Barbie, looks nothing like them. 

The exaggerated 'beauty' and perfectness of a Barbie is unrealistic and gives children false pretenses as to what they should look like. Society has manipulated children through advertisements and social icons, however, sometimes it is hard to actually discover where the true beauty lies in these figures. Similarly, Claudia is given a white doll for Christmas, and spends a copious amount of time dissecting the doll, trying to find out the 'beauty' in it that everyone talks about. Even though, "adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs- all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl treasured," Claudia is not yet convinced (20). Most people view a Barbie as beautiful because that is what they see advertised every day as being pretty; any look different from this is often considered not as beautiful. American society forces people to judge others by looking at their physical qualities and automatically pegging them as either beautiful or ugly.

The Power of Ads

The questions that one may ask themselves while reading this novel are, how can one hate oneself so much that they attempt to look, act, think like someone they are not?  To desire something so far from their reach that’s not even worth wishing for? How can they deny the simple things that make one happy to just please society? Morrison’s answer is advertisement of what the majority see as acceptable through the media, magazines, etc.

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In her novel, The Bluest Eye, Morrison points out to her readers that because of all the attention white American girls and women had during the 40’s, it had an undeniable negative effect on the African American female community, like it does to Pecola, Geraldine, Pauline, and to some extent, Claudia.  In this heart-breaking novel, Toni Morrison answers the “how” to the “why” her main characters are they way they are due to society’s perception of beauty.  For one, the advertisements have a major role in manipulating the minds of little black girls, such as the characters in Morrison's novel.  One of the main characters, Pecola, thought that if she had blue eyes, everyone would like her, approach her, and not be repulsed by her.  She desired to have blue eyes because she saw that being like them, the “pretty” girls, was the only way to beautiful during those times.  Not only did she see beauty in them, but she also saw a greater power in the blue eyes: that with blue eyes, the bitter and violent fights her parents had would stop because they would say, "Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” (46). Pecola did not feel beautiful due to those reasons and in result, her insecurity was visible to others around her.  Her low-confidence in herself allowed black boys and girls to pick on her, ignore her, and treat her differently. Pecola, however, is not the only one craving to be more like the white girls, Geraldine is also on that same boat.

Morrison, interestingly enough, starts the chapter about Geraldine by introducing her as “they”.  By presenting Geraldine as “they, Morrison tries to point out to her readers that there was a social pressure for “colored” women (Black women who imitated white women).  They are expected to embrace the majority, and disregard their individuality to be accepted and allie themselves with the women superior to them, white women.  For example, like many white people in the 40’s, Geraldine is against trying to connect with black folks because they were known as dirty, uncivilized, and a minority to the white men and women.  This hatred of her own kind, leads to self-loathing, a major issue during this time for African Americans that Morrison emphasizes to her readers in this chapter about Geraldine in particular. By hating her own skin, Geraldine becomes very insecure with her body and is afraid of feeling dangerous, risky, exciting, and so on.  By both being disgusted by black men and women and her insecurity, she is incapable of enjoying sexual intercourse with her own husband.  Something that is supposed to be so beautiful and natural is bluffed and meaningless. She wonders, however, “what it would be like to have that feeling...”, but does not allow herself to feel such feelings or desires because she wants to keep her reputation of a clean and civil woman, as colored women were supposed to act (85).

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Nowadays, society see’s beautiful as having the perfect body, skin, hair and, of course,clothes.  Not too much different than 72 years ago, but it has been over exposed now that everything gets around much quicker for everyone around the world to see.  For example you have the magazines such as Seventeen, People, Cosmo, J-14, and tons more that talk about being fit and having the “summer bod” to have all heads turning.  For the majority of all those magazines, their models are skinny, tall, have the ideal body and their skin is flawless.  However, they will be and are photoshopped, which has us believe that people could possibly look like angels or something close to that. And though a lot of its readers know they are photoshopped, they still aim for the goal to have all those “perfect” traits.  Another example is the Victoria Secret models.  Girls obsess to have what they have, to be able to walk in a tiny, ityy-bitty bikini and not have to worry about belly rolls or legs that jiggle like jello. Third, movies, commercials, and T.V. shows also play a big part in the mind-controlling business of advertising.  In most, if not all movies that are of love or for teens specifically, somehow always have the main girl and guy be absolutely flawless.  Of course, after fantasizing to have that one cute guy fall for her, she wants to be like the girl in the movie, perfectly desirable. With T.V. shows its a little different.  Soem reality T.V. shows are meant mostly for entertainment, but unconsciously its advertising to its audience how to behave, appear, and think.  Evidently, these T.V. shows such as Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club, Super Sweet Sixteen, and many more have had an effect on girls, especially, with other shows that show the outcome of these behaviors with 16 and Pregnant and True Life.

The pressure that society a couple years ago, and even now, was putting on teen girls and women had unfortunately caused a lot of issues that back in the 40's were not very known or even done.  More and more girls had become anorexic trying to reach the ideal body, which in many cases have lead to extreme situations having to be done to them or the disease would even cause an early death.  Not only this but for old and young women, plastic surgery was becoming very popular, still is. These choices were and are not made because they actually were in real need of it, but its done to change their appearance to look and feel more like the celebrities and models in perfume, swimsuit, clothing commercials and magazines. Today, society and the media are the little devil whispering in their ears to tell them what is beautiful, and that they are not it and will not be until they have exactly what the beautiful girl in the magazine has. But I cannot say it hasn't gotten better, because it has.  Now, not only women but also men have been realizing the dangers of the media and how much power it has over the minds of young girls, in particular.  In addition there have been sections in magazines and some shows about how to bring yourself up, how to be confident without having to change your looks.  But a lot of girls still want perfection, and its something Toni Morrison suggests we pay close attention to; that the insecurity that Morrison expresses with her readers of what African American women felt during many decades, especially in the 40's, is now in the minds and souls of the black, colored, white, young, and old. It gets to a point were young women and teens try so hard to impress and imitate idolized models and actresses, that they do whatever it takes to get there, and what takes to get there isn't always the best or safest choice.