After attending
Coachella I had to write about Beyonce’s performance for the week and skip out
on talking about Jennifer Lopez’s butt. I never thought I would personally say
this, but I am glad that we are discussing her
and her “big bottom” this upcoming week instead so I can write a little
bit about this star’s image. In Mary Beltran’s “The Hollywood Latina Body as
Site of Social Struggle: Media Constructions of Stardom and Jennifer Lopez’s
“Cross-over Butt””, she uses ideas and concepts from Richard Dyer to help build
the idea of what it means to be a cross over star, in particular for J-Lo.
Touching on ideas of how a star’s image is made that we learned earlier in the
semester from Dyer’s readings she explains how a cross-over star “with respect
to film stars it often is used, particularly by the entertainment news media,
to refer non-white performers who succeed in becoming popular with white
audiences” (74). Although upon first
reading this an upsetting definition against the definition of crossover as
being “the process of becoming popular with a new audience” it is valid here,
and Jennifer Lopez definitely grabbed the attention of the white American
audiences she needed to claim this crossover title.
What is most
interesting to me is the way that she was represented in Latino-orientated
media and English-language media. While it makes sense that she would be
represented to both cultural groups in different lights because she is
appealing to those opinions and outlooks, it is upsetting to see how she was
portrayed through English-language media sources. If the definition for
crossover star was “becoming popular with latino audiences” it is hard to say
that Jennifer would have had the same attraction that she did when her “rare”
behind was over emphasized and sexualized in mainstream white American produced
media.
I still struggle with
whether or not I think that Jennifer Lopez has the best of intentions in terms
of any progressive political movement, such as those of a star such as Beyonce.
She definitely does not seem to care as much about these motivations, but she
nicely represents the “kiss my ass” attitude that Frances Negron Munaner discusses
in her article, “Jennifer’s Butt”. I would not say that Lopez is someone I
would rank as high on the list of contradictions that break societal molds, it
is interesting to see the power she did wield through physical appearance and
defiance of typical American beauty standards while maintaining a “healthy American
liftyle (ie. Eating right and working out)”.
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