Todd Bowser
American Studies Seminar
December 16, 2012
She Watch Channel Zero: Post-racial Elements of Flavor of Love
A nondescript mansion appears in a long crane shot on a lot in Encino, California. Its design is classic housing-boom chic, While it is obviously built to embody its price tag, in terms of exterior design, it could belong to anyone. Or could it? There is a statue in the front yard. It is a dinosaur. The dinosaur has gold teeth and wears a clock around its neck. The interior is more palatial: marble floors, statues, paintings in gilded frames, and on a platform, twenty young women, fashionably dressed, some in very revealing outfits.
“Inside this Hollywood mansion, twenty women have gathered, because they all have one thing in common...their love for one very special man.”
The shot cuts to an inside view of the front door. The door opens, and a small man bursts through in a hot pink tuxedo, complete with tails (carried behind him by his assistant), top hat, an enormous armload of flowers, and an oversized wall clock that resembles a Movado watch hanging around his neck. “YEEEEEAAAH GIIIRRRRRLLLSS!! FLAVOR FLAAAAAAAAAV!!” This is the setting for VH-1's Flavor of Love.
Twenty women are vying for the affections of Flavor Flav, the self-dubbed “hype man” of the influential rap group Public Enemy. Born William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., Flavor Flav has gained fame and notoriety as the flamboyant foil for Public Enemy's hardline lyricist and principal rapper, Chuck D.
Flav's performance accentuates Chuck D's lines, doubling key lyrics in the songs, adding his own miniature rants and raving bits that punctuate, mix up, and, for lack of a better term, add flavor to the band's signature sound.
Considering the reputation and controversy that surrounded Public Enemy in their heyday (the late 1980s and early 1990s), a reality TV show in which women throw themselves at Flav can be disturbing. Even the network responsible for Flavor of Love, VH-1, put Public Enemy's “Bring The
Noise” at the top of their 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time. This is the man who ranted on “She
Watch Channel Zero,” a song that decried women's idol worship and passive television watching. In a way, the song's very existence breaks racial barriers, being on Def Jam, a label created collaboratively by Russell Simmons, a black man, and Rick Rubin, a white man, who was also responsible for signing the thrash metal band Slayer to the label, whose song “Angel of Death” is the prominent sample behind “She Watch Channel Zero.” Chuck D brought the bulk of the lyrical content that the band was and is known for. Flavor Flav contributed the rants. From “Channel Zero”:
“You're blind baby you're blind from the facts on who you are / 'cause you're
watchin' that garbage. “
“Yo baby, can't you that's nonsense you watchin'? Look, don't nobody look like
that, nobody even live that, you know what I'm sayin'? You watchin' garbage,
not'in' but garbage. Straight up garbage. Yo, why don't you just back up from
the TV, read a book or som'in. Read about yourself, learn your culture, you
know what I'm sayin'?”
While he still tours and makes records with Public Enemy, Flav has found what seems to be his true calling in a series of reality television shows that could only exist with the politicized rhetoric of
Public Enemy out of mind entirely.
Twenty-plus years since Public Enemy's breakthrough album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Flav's VH-1 series Flavor of Love is a vastly different experience. Each week, the girls are assigned various challenges, the winners of which get a date of some form with Flav. Every episode culminates in an elimination ceremony. Flav's assistant, “Big Rick,” exists as a straight man-- a balance to the eccentric Flav, and Rick also keeps the timing of the show rolling. The female contestants lose not only their racial identities, but their names, in the very first episode. With all twenty women in the living room, he puts “Hello my name is” name tags on each of them, making up nicknames that they will be referred to by for the duration of the show. The women have a unique dynamic among themselves, distinct from their interactions with Flav. A mix of camaraderie and competition manifests itself in extremes. There are friendships formed between these women, as well as catfights, as they vie for Flav's affection.
The animosity between the competing women is stoked to create dramatic situations. Animosity turns to arguing, arguing turns to screaming, and the situation always falls just short of physical violence. At one point, one of the women becomes a snitch against some of the other women, not only endearing herself to Flav, but stabbing the competitors in the back. At the end of the season, after the winner has been declared, a reunion episode airs, shot a few weeks after the fact. It is taped in front of a studio audience and is presented in the style of the Jerry Springer Show. It is an obvious forum to excite once again the energy (both positive and negative) the season created, but hidden within it is a moment to reflect, and perhaps try to sum it up and find its intrinsic value.
Post-racialism is a term that has only been in widespread use in the last five years. It is the idea that our culture is somehow beyond racial definitions and racism. It became a popular idea with the election of Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency in 2008. The concept existed previously, but some believe that with Obama's election, it is now somehow validated, as though the single event could undo the entire racial framework of the country, and the effects of racial difference in our culture. Numerous arguments exist on the topic, both for and against the validity of the idea. It is possible something as seemingly shallow as a reality television show and still find some signs of this phenomenon. The concept seems to function for some as a blanket to throw over conflicts that might arise. “The post-racial model seeks to skew the proletariat perception of social reality by imposing a false-consciousness that conceals existing relations of racial subordination and exploitation.”
(Sundquist 483)
The hip-hop community’s view of the election as a post-racial breakthrough is examined by Travis
Gosa. “In a country defined by anti-black racism, the election of a black man is deemed a moment to pop champagne bottles, and to throw money in the air” (Gosa 8). Gosa cites a widely read statement on this phenomenon by Flav’s counterpart in Public Enemy, Chuck D: “It does the people of the planet little good to hear that an artist is famous and rich, will wear expensive jewelry straight from the mines, show it off, stay at the hotel, ride in limos, do the VIP with chilled champagne in the clubs, ape and monkey the chicks (meaning not even talking) and keep the dudes away with slave paid bodyguards when real people come close” (13).
This very setup exists throughout Flavor of Love, but Flavor Flav is an extreme, pleasure-seeking version of what Gosa calls “a more mainstream, less alienated black identity” (9). Flav achieves this effortlessly. He has never compromised his own eccentricity or his identity as an African American.
The way that Flavor Flav is contained as a character-- the house he lives in, the variety of women selected, and the events of the show rarely play to a specific racial frame. All of the women have an equal shot with Flav, and everyone gets to participate. Everyone is invited to the party. He becomes a racial symbol in a deliberately de-racialized setting.
If there is a place where post-racialism can become a reality, it is in our popular culture. In the end, we will have to decide what it means-- if we can portray it on television, is it possible to validate it in actuality? Beyond this question, we must decide whether this is a good thing. A competitor in
Season 2 of Flavor of Love nicknamed “Buckwild” (whose dress and dialect are an adorably confused mix of urban style cues) makes a statement in the first episode that speaks accidental volumes: “I was raised by television.” Popular culture cares less about our racial differences than we do. It places a premium on sensation, and doesn’t appraise its own value until the audience starts to dwindle.
If there is an impermeable center of race identity in the show, it is its star. Flavor Flav's mannerisms build upon an evolved and signature set of African-American stereotypes, which he orchestrates as a performer, and even more meticulously in his role on the show, where this is his purpose. In the introductory first episode, he says, “Y'all heard of that show called The Bachelor?” The camera cuts to the interior of his stretch SUV where Flav is opening the sunroof. It cuts again to an exterior shot of the moving vehicle, where Flav sticks out of the top and shouts, “Flavor Flav is the
Black-chelorrrrrrrr...... !” On the other hand, this is the one instance where Flav verbalizes his race, and rarely does he define the women by race, except to appreciate physical features attributed to that race. The major instance of this occurs in Flav's nicknaming of the women.
Another element of racial identity is Flav’s bodyguard, “Big Rick”. “Big Rick” appears to be the main stabilizer in the show’s plot, a referee that keeps the game moving. At the beginning of each day or episode, Rick presents the “Flav-O-Gram,” a letter from Flav greeting the ladies and outlining their assignments for the day. He keeps the challenges moving on time, as in “Rub a Dub Flav,” when Flav challenges the girls to create their best romantic environment in individual rooms at a hot tub facility.
Because there are 15 women, Flav is limited to just ten minutes with each woman, and “Big Rick” stands outside of the rooms with a whistle to keep time. At the end of every episode, Rick oversees
Flav’s deliberation process for the eliminations, where the clocks are kept on a wall and Flav must choose which women receive a clock (resembling the clocks that are Flav’s signature accessory) that signifies their proceeding to the next round. “Pull the curtain back, my brother,” Flav says to “Big Rick,” and Rick pulls a rope to remove a velvet curtain that hides the gold clocks—each with a photo of the woman it belongs to on its face. “Big Rick” serves a dual role: while he is “the help,” he is also Flav’s closest confidant. The controlled interaction of the events in most episodes leave Flav with no one to share his thoughts with. The viewer might be so accustomed to his cartoon-like mannerisms that his feelings and thoughts are not considered. The discussions with “Big Rick” are the safe place where
Flav is able to let his guard down briefly and be a person. “Big Rick” also lends moments of butler humor: while he is far from stodgy, as in the stereotypical English butler, his character is inhibited enough that he is able to break that character to create moments of comic relief. In “Family Flavors,”
Flav tries to spend quality time with the women’s parents. “New York”’s father is a tennis buff, so Flav takes them to a tennis club and tries to play tennis with the father. “Big Rick” appears in his signature suit, but with the arms of his jacket removed and the pants cut short, with a bright red sweatband, to oversee the match. As he takes on these multiple roles, “Big Rick” blurs the borders of status and racial stereotype.
The women competing for Flav's affection are of multiple races, mostly African-American.
Throughout the show, as they interact with Flav, and interact with each other, their racial identities are seldom highlighted. This is the post-racial presence in the show. We see the women adopting various mannerisms and traits outside of their particular racial stereotypes. Likewise, the affections between two races suggest a post-racial state. Flav is intimate with a variety of women of various races. The show itself came about as a result of two previous VH-1 shows-- The Surreal Life, whose third season featured Flav and saw the beginning of his relationship with the statuesque Brigitte Nielsen, and
Strange Love, an entire show following the course of their affair. Nielsen reappears in Flavor of Love as a confidant for Flav, as well as an interrogator for the other women, drilling them about their personal history and motives in a polygraph test.
At one point, the last white woman left standing, “Pumkin,” appears with her hair done up in cornrows, an urban hairstyle that the viewer by now has seen on several of the other women, and numerous times on Flav. We don't see the process by which this comes about, nor do we hear any explanation from “Pumkin,” or any question from anyone else.
“Pumkin” becomes a focal point in the show when considering its handling of race, primarily because she is a white woman who comes so close to winning the contest. She becomes more and more prominent as others are eliminated, and she gets as far as being one of the final three women.
In episode three, “Sweetie” is treated to a prize dinner at Red Lobster with Flav after one of the challenges. Meanwhile, the other girls are together at the house. “Pumkin” gets a dance lesson, because she “dances like a white girl,” says one of the women. “She is so white,” says another. “Yeah, I am white,” “Pumkin” says. “Pumkin” has a moment much later in the series where her differences with Flav and the other women are becoming a real obstacle:
“I always have a hard time understanding Flav...the terminology or the, you
know, not being prejudiced but the black lingo, like where they're from, you
know, the slang terms, I kind of have a hard time following it, so he'll say shit
and Hoopz or whoever will be just cracking up and I'm sitting there like,
[nervous laugh].”
This could be the moment where the show's producers had a real racialized moment to use in the show. Conflict, in any form, is generally allowed to escalate as far as it can in reality television. The medium thrives upon conflict and the more out of hand the conflict gets, the more people will watch.
There are screaming matches between “Pumkin” and “New York” (the first runner-up; “Pumkin” was the second) throughout the show, but racial differences did not come into these run-ins, even at their most severe. This has not always been the case in reality shows. The 13th season of Survivor pitted four teams of five contestants against one another, as in past seasons, but with one wrinkle: the two-man, three-woman teams were all divided racially: one team of white participants, one Latino, one African
American, and one Asian American team. Drew describes the slow but increasingly apparent appearance of racial elements in the plot of the show. In the first three-fourths of the season, only one white person is voted off, but eventually the other teams become aware of the trend.” There is a great deal of identity politics, internalized racism, and divide/conquer strategies that pit People of Color against one another, allowing white people to remain full competitors and 'safe' in the game” (Drew
4). Perhaps that case was a warning about getting too comfortable in a post-racial society, if that is truly what we have become. It is meaningful that a group of producers deliberately planned a reality show this way, and it is all the more telling to see the subjects in the experiment fall into racial divides just as they were expected to.
It is up for speculation whether a real presence of racial tension would have been played up that way in Flavor of Love. In the premiere episode, a white competitor, “Applez,” confesses her anxiety about the mix of backgrounds her competitors represent: “I wasn’t sure how ghetto some people might be,” though a conflict of “suburban-versus-ghetto” never seems to arise, nor does one of black versus white, as catty as the characters are.
This could be the place where the show's construction is the crucial consideration. Flavor of
Love may have its post-racial aspect imposed upon it by the producers. The panning shot across the platforms where the women stand at elimination comes up over and over again, presenting a rainbow of skin tones that are African American, Asian American, Latina American, Caucasian, and a number of cast members of mixed race. The show puts these women at odds with one another and even as tempers get out of hand, and then really out of hand, the race aspect is ignored. The height of violence of the show is the second-to-last elimination ceremony, where “Pumkin,” the second runner- up and last white woman, is eliminated. By this point, “New York,” one of the other finalists, has shown herself to be a cut-throat competitor, and has isolated herself socially from the other women, at odds with nearly every other woman in the running at some point in the season. As “Pumkin” walks past to leave the house, “New York” makes a final comment and “Pumkin” responds by spitting on her.
“New York” lashes out and pushes “Pumkin,” and we see two shots: one from the side of “Pumkin” as she walks and is pushed into the corner, and one from the camera she nearly knocks to the ground as she goes toward the wall. Even in this instance, it is just two women at odds with each other, not a black woman and a white woman.
In the end, “Pumkin” is dismissed because Flav finds she has been on other reality shows and feels this undermines the authenticity of her feelings for him. But what would it signify if “Pumkin” had been the winner? Would that be a post-racial moment, because a white woman ended up with a black man, or would it be a moment of racial antagonism, as a black man assimilates a white woman, proving that they're all after our daughters? Do “Pumkin”'s beginning embraces of African American culture break cultural barriers?
Flavor Flav's distinct African American persona draws deeply from pimp culture. In the second episode, he takes the winners from the previous night's challenge out for a daytime date at a roller rink. The girls put on T-shirts and short skating shorts, and Flav appears in a flamboyant purple pimp outfit, with huge sunglasses and a huge furry hat. Later, on a date in Puerto Vallarta with one of the same girls (New York), Flav spends the night with the girl and as she slowly walks back to her own room in the resort, Flav shouts from the balcony to someone we can't see: “Yo Papa, what up Papa?
I'm a pimp! I'm a pimp Papa! Flavor Flaaaaav! P-I-M-P that you AM!!” It is a dark moment for the women as Flavor Flav marks his conquest. After each elimination ceremony, Flav toasts the remaining women with champagne, pouring a toast onto the floor in the foyer for those eliminated. This recalls the “one for my homies” ritual of pouring a splash from a 40-ounce malt liquor bottle for a fallen brother.
The grand prize, as Flav embraces his girl, is a set of gold teeth. A gold “grill” has been part of his costume for a long time, and is a throwback to 70's black cinema, which has always managed to remain a repeated element in African-American culture. While there is racial content in the moment, the woman who has won out is of mixed race. Hoopz (Nicole Alexander) has a black father and a white mother, who the viewer met in Episode 8 (“Family Flavors”), when Flav surprised the contestants with a visit from their parents.
The show has multiple messages on race, and though a reality show is a product of events and people, though it is not scripted in the traditional sense, there is more than one subtext present.
There is the contrast of Flav's presence in a show like this, while he still performs with Public Enemy, suggesting that if Flav ever shared the militant motives of his band, that ideology has relaxed considerably. He has adopted habits of many other mainstream rap artists, flaunting the luxuries of fame and wealth. Flavor Flav's television career has perhaps outshined his music career, if not in clear profit, then at least in his exposure.
In connecting this to most of the literature on post-racialism, it is important to note that Flavor of Love precedes the 2008 election by more than two years. We didn’t have so much as the campaign
(which is often cited as a post-racial event in itself, in terms of how diverse a group of young people were assembled via the web and social media) to frame the show against. While those attempting to define and validate this concept aren’t explicitly stating that it is an effect of the election, there was little written on the topic at all before 2008.
Flavor of Love's validity as a post-racial text is up to the viewer. It is full of moments of valid racial hybridity and the audience is on its own to recognize and appreciate the show on that level. As much as the show is an amusing distraction, perhaps in actual reality, where racial differences still have real consequences in people’s lives, saying that a society is post-racial is also a distraction. While
Flavor Flav is playing the role of a pimped-out playboy, maybe his professional roots in Public Enemy are a balance to any moral blemish the excesses of his show may carry as a consequence. At his core,
Flavor Flav is an entertainer.
Ultimately, this is entertainment. The point of these shows is to get as many people watching as possible, and the creators have no motivation to place brackets around the potential audience for a television show. Their job is to make something that is as exciting to watch as possible, for as many people as possible. The absence of racial content, especially anything especially negative, is a useful component. On the other side of the screen, a young audience wants to play along with the text, and feel like they get it. This is the way popular culture becomes post-racial, and it is likely for the sole benefit of the bottom line, not out of any kind of benevolence. If Flavor of Love accidentally bridges a racial gap in the process, it is only so evolved as to objectify all of the women involved on a level playing field. Works Cited
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Gosa, Travis L. “The Audacity of Dope”: Rap Music, Race, and the Obama Presidency. Cornell University 2011. Web.
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Rossing, Jonathan P. "Deconstructing Post-racialism: Humor As A Critical, Cultural Project." Journal Of Communication Inquiry 36.1 (2012): 44-61. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.
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