Core Post 5 - Lauren Sullivan

         This week’s readings focus on Latina stardom and how it relates to the body, with particular emphasis on the butt. It was interesting to delve into the ways bodies have been racialized and sexualized and the roots of, what Negron-Mutaner calls, “Anglo analphobia” (186). The readings illustrate how complex the issue is in relation to Jennifer Lopez’s body and star image. 

          I think a lot of the complexity can be seen in how J-Lo achieved her cross-over stardom. For example, Negron-Mutaner highlights the fact that Lopez presents herself as a serious actress, appearing only on the big screen and not ‘lowly’ television. Negron-Mutaner remarks, “she is not ‘vulgar’ and her claim to Latino fame is through a ‘modern-day saint in Spandex’” (192). With this interpretation, it seems that Lopez must compensate for the lowliness associated with a racialized big butt by elevating her career image, both in terms of high culture and moral purity. I, too, see connections to Marilyn Monroe in the way that she addresses her sexualized body. Like Monroe, she addresses her body openly and often, using humor and levity to diffuse some of the sexuality bestowed upon her body type by others. This acknowledges the racially-charged sexualization of Lopez’s body by white American society and suggests that measures must be taken to mitigate that sexualization to achieve mainstream success.

          Despite this, another interpretation can be made. Both readings also focus on the positive and empowering aspects of Lopez’s star image. As Beltran summarizes, “it is possible to view Lopez not as another victim constructed in a still-racist society as an ethnic sexual object (although there are no doubt elements of this dynamic…) but as empowered and empowering through asserting qualities such as intelligence, assertiveness, and power—while also proudly displaying her non-normative body and declaring it beautiful” (82). Lopez gives an often marginalized and shamed body type mainstream representation. While one might read her enthusiastic discussion of her butt as a way to make light of and diffuse its sexualization, it may also be an assertion of pride and love of her body, and a call for others like her to do the same.

          In completing these readings, it was hard to take myself out of the present and understand body ideals in 1998, considering how drastically different things are in today’s butt-centric society. For so long American white-dominated media has shamed the “curvy” body type and big butts, but now the opposite appears to be true. Now, big butts are everywhere and idealized. Magazines advertise workout tips on how to get a bigger butt and surgical enhancements are increasingly common. Stars like Nicki Minaj and Cardi B openly discuss their surgical modifications. White celebrities, too, seek to appropriate a body type once primarily associated with women of color, as seen in the way the Kardashian-Jenner crew alters their bodies. It would be interesting to apply the same scholarship that analyses the female body in relation to racial/ethnic/cultural power dynamics in American society to today’s mainstream obsession with butts.