Shannondoah Buckley: August 2018

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Beauty and Bling Series 2009

‘Beauty and Bling’

The Barbie Doll Sets are photographs of various ‘Ethnic’ Barbie Dolls adapting or attempting to adapt to ‘Barbie Dolls’ Caucasian Eurocentric ‘world’. I also include photographs of Barbie Doll critiquing herself in her world. The Barbie Doll Sets are staged scenes where I create parodies and satires that critique stereotypical Barbie Doll beauty and Caucasian, European standards of beauty.

The Grillz Self Portraits are personas that rebel yet slightly conform with popular culture’s stereotypical beauty ideals. The Self Portrait’s personas loosely emulate the various Barbie Dolls’ ethnicities represented in the Barbie doll Set photographs. The Grillz Self Portraits confront beauty ideals, gender boundaries, various identities and social constructions of race.

Grillz represent pride in many cultures and in Hip-Hop culture; they represent the “flash of spirit”, (Flash of the Spirit : African & Afro-American Art and Philosophy by Robert Farris Thompson) self worth, and rebellion. Typically Grillz are worn by men who are often emphasizing their ‘machismo’. A woman wearing Grillz flips the gender construction associated with Grillz from masculine to feminine. Now the woman wearing the Grillz flashes Her spirit, Her pride, Her self worth, and Her bling.

Both Grillz Self Portraits and Barbie Doll Sets critique notions of plasticity, beauty, identity, and race.

***Joan Morgan talks about hip-hop, gender and race in her book ‘When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost : A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down’.

Morgan states on page 80, “ I believe hip-hop can help us win. Let’s start by recognizing that its illuminating, informative narration and its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations. The information we amass can help create a redemptive, healing space for brothas and sistas.

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