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Image Slavery and Mass Media Pollution: Examining the Sociopolitical Context of Beauty and Self Image in the Lives of Black Women

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Image Slavery and Mass Media Pollution: Examining the Sociopolitical Context of Beauty and Self Image in the Lives of Black Women Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2012 Image Slavery and Mass Media Pollution: Examining the Sociopolitical Context of Beauty and Self Image in the Lives of Black Women Jennifer Richardson Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Richardson, Jennifer, "Image Slavery and Mass Media Pollution: Examining the Sociopolitical Context of Beauty and Self Image in the Lives of Black Women" (2012). Dissertations. 313. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/313 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2011 Jennifer Richardson LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO IMAGE SLAVERY AND MASS MEDIA POLLUTION: EXAMINING THE SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXT OF BEAUTY AND SELF IMAGE IN THE LIVES OF BLACK WOMEN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN SOCIOLOGY BY JENNIFER LYNNE RICHARDSON CHICAGO, IL MAY 2012 Copyright by Jennifer Lynne Richardson, 2012 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all of the people who made this dissertation possible. I am grateful to the women who participated in this study. They each taught me invaluable lessons about the richness, beauty, and healing power in the telling of our stories. I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Ayana Karanja, and the members of my committee, Dr. Beth Richie (UIC) and Dr. Talmadge Wright for their guidance and vested interest in the completion and success of this project. Dr. Karanja’s nurturing guidance, her invaluable expertise on excavating and sharing the narratives of Black women, and her wisdom and support in finishing this program are all invaluable treasures I will take with me wherever I go throughout my life. Dr. Karanja, thank you for your constant support and positive energy. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues in the Scientific Careers Research and Development Group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Faculty Affairs. I owe you each a special thanks for rallying around me, offering words of encouragement, paving the way for me and being amazing examples of academic scholars and researchers, and being understanding and supportive coworkers and friends. I am especially thankful to Dr. Rick McGee. I am so grateful for the support you offered me in finishing this work. I could not have been blessed with a better work environment. Your dedication to the success of young academics has greatly impacted iii and inspired my own work and career trajectory. I appreciate the coaching you provided to me as I finished this endeavor. You truly are a master coach! Finally I would like to thank my family and friends for being my cheering section and loving me despite my frequent moodiness, exhaustion, and absence. To my girlfriends/ sisters/ mothers, you’ve collected every tear, you’ve shared in so many laughs, you have been my sounding boards and my diary. Thank you for your love and affirmation and for being examples of strong and truly beautiful women. I am particularly grateful for my father who attracted positivity and success into my life through words and prayer. You always dreamed big dreams for me, even when I could not. Thank you for helping me to believe. To my mother, I am honored to be your daughter. I will never forget the life lessons you imparted before you became ill. I hope that your legacy (a woman who was a generous giver; a gentle and considerate care taker of all who crossed her path; an amazing educator, storyteller, and lover of reading and the arts; a mother who unconditionally loved, supported, and bent over backwards for her children and other people’s children) is reflected in the woman I am today. I hope that you are proud of me. And to my husband, your love, encouragement, late night conversations, and support, has made me blessed indeed. Thank you for pulling me through the storm when I could not see the way. Asante. iv For those who came before me, family, friends, and ancestors. In the spirit of remembrance, I cast libation to the North, to the South, to the East and to the West, Ashe. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Into the Lives of Black Women 1 Statement of the Phenomenon 3 Significance of the Study 11 Limitations of the Study 18 Organization of the Dissertation 19 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 22 Troubled Pasts and Telling Futures—Historical Representations of African American Women 22 The Intersections of Identity, Difference, and Media 34 Contemporary Media Inequality and Racist Representations 46 African American Women are More Confident Than White Women?: The Debate Over How Media Impact African American Women 58 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN Just A „Regular‟ Black Girl?: Searching for Answers—An Auto Ethnography 77 Research Questions and Methodological Stance 87 Description of Data, Data Collection Process, and Methodological Framework 90 CHAPTER FOUR: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS Introduction 108 The M Word: A Site of Hegemony and Generational Variance 111 Family and Community: Reading Race, Media, and Beauty 121 Truth Telling: Avoiding Pain and Maintaining Resistance 145 Unfolding My Research Dilemmas: The Baby Boomers—Mary‟s Story, A Vignette 156 Down the Rabbit Hole: In the midst of pain, how Black women talk about media, beauty, and family 160 CHAPTER FIVE: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS PART TWO Introduction 170 From Kitchen Counters and Living Rooms to Counter Stories: Creating healing circles, the invitation to write, and reimagining our future selves 173 Healing Circle Part One 173 Healing Circle Part Two 179 Healing Circle Part Three 189 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 193 Synthesis of the Findings 195 vi Challenging and Deepening the Paradigm 196 Future Research: Moving Ever Forward 199 APPENDIX A: DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION AND STUDY PARTICIPATION 201 APPENDIX B: JOURNAL WORKSHOP EXERCISE 203 APPENDIX C: ARTICLE USED FOR FIRST HEALING CIRCLE “TYLER PERRY‟S NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL WRITING FOR COLORED GIRLS.” 214 REFERENCES 217 VITA 235 vii ABSTRACT The ways in which African American women negotiate the intersections of popular media, dominant discourses of beauty, and identity are rarely explored. This work brings into focus how African American women consume, understand, and make meaning of mediated images and representations of African American women. In order to inform this particular research project, this study engages a constellation of literature and theoretical perspectives and explores historical representations of African American women and beauty messages they contain. Throughout this process I examine concepts of identity formation; discuss connections between sexuality and the politics of imagery; and investigate linkages between structural racism, popular media, and forms of cultural production. Through an interrogation of the complexities in how Black women make meaning of images of themselves, in relationship to mass media, I seek to excavate a set of realities known to many, but rarely articulated in academia. This study utilized empirical and qualitative methods that engage African American women, across four different generational groups, through in-depth interviews, a series of three participant- observer focus groups/ women’s healing circles, and individual journaling workshops. The combination of empirical and qualitative methodology allowed me to excavate and document ideas, struggles, and attitudes of African American women pertaining to beauty, identity, and the politics of media. From a grounded theoretical approach, this study seeks to gain insight into old and new processes of ‘looking’ and attempts to viii provide space for African Americans to counter the enslaving seduction of media images that negatively impact identity and self definition. ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Into the Lives of Black Women This study explores the ways in which African American women negotiate the intersections of popular mainstream corporate media, dominant discourses of beauty, and identity. This work brings focus into how mediated images of beauty impact the identities of African American women. Foundational to this inquiry are the following questions: (1) how do African American women reach their definition of beauty and understand their own beauty politics; (2) what do African American women think about how mediated images and representations impact their short and long term overall well- being; and (3) what do African American women think should/could be done in order to counter how they are represented and viewed in media? In its totality, the study seeks to interrogate the ways in which African American women consume, understand, and make meaning of media beauty images and representations of themselves. In order to inform this particular research project, this study engages a constellation of literature and theoretical perspectives and explores historical representations of African American women and beauty messages they contain. Throughout this process I will examine concepts of identity formation; discuss connections between sexuality and the politics of
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