Racialism and the Media. Venise T. Berry
all African Americans live in poverty or in the inner city, yet somehow American society seems to believe that black equals ghetto. In her book Ghetto Nation, Cora Daniels (2007) argues that in the twenty first century ghetto no longer refers to where you live but how you live.
It is a mindset, and not limited to a class or a race. Some things are worth repeating: ghetto is not limited to a class or a race. Ghetto is found in the heart of the nation’s inner cities as well as the heart of the nation’s most cherished suburbs; among those too young to understand (we hope) and those old enough to know better; in little white houses, and all the way to the White House; in corporate corridors, Ivy League havens, and, of course, Hollywood. (p. 8)
Ghettofabulous is a problematic pop culture frame that refers predominantly to a bias about black culture displaying extreme tendencies like loud talking, garish dressing, bling blinging, fighting, and certain levels of ignorance. It has become a repetitive image in pop culture where white college students throw ghettofabulous parties (Wise, 2010), Miley Cyrus’s twerks at a VMA performance (Hare, 2013), Cardi B holds a $500K ghettofabulous baby shower (Heller, 2018), average women flaunt long nails with extreme manicures like Niecy Nash in Claws (Penrice, 2018), and a California yoga studio gives out do-rags for their booty-shaking, ghettofabulous classes (Baker, 2013).
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Domonoske (2014) said, in a NPR interview, the word “ghetto” has evolved from meaning a segregated, restricted neighborhood to an individual context such as acting, dressing or talking.
[It is] Being ghetto, or behaving in a low-class manner (see also ratchet). Ghettofabulous, flashy glamour without the wealth. Ghetto as an adjective, roughly synonymous with jury-rigged, for anything cobbled together out of subpar materials.
Daniels (2007) adds that ghetto as a state of mind is hard to describe but easy to recognize. For example, she spots an ice cream truck rolling down the streets of Brooklyn blasting Lil John’s “Okaaaaay,” she watches a contest on VH1 where they are searching for Nelly’s Miss Apple Bottom (a regular girl with an irregular waist to butt ratio), she lambasts the Oscar nominated film Hustle and Flow when the pimp-wanna-be-rapper sings “Beat that Bitch,” she complains about young people who are calling each other baby daddies or baby mammas (a term she sees as dismissive), she admits frustration concerning the number of youth living in today’s depressing culture of nihilism and self-destruction, and she wonders why in school if a black child is not ghetto then they are seen as “acting white.” Because the popularity of ghetto in American society is based on a lack of self-respect, Daniels worries most of all that too many of these biased frames embrace the worst instead of the best of black culture.
Giles (2010) defines media framing as the process by which a topic is presented from a particular angle (or a variety of angles), inviting audiences to draw particular conclusions, and to make particular allusions to other topics. Entman (2007) describes the process of biased framing as introducing or raising the salience and importance of certain ideas, to some extent getting audiences to think, feel or decide in a particular way.
The text contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain key words, stock phrases, stereotypical images, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgements. (p. 52)
In this chapter, the biased framing of black culture as ghettofabulous on television, in film, through rap music, for news, and as urban fiction is explored. According to Mukherjee (2006), ghettofabulous offers new standards of cool and the spectacle within popular media emerges less as subcultural resistance and more as hegemonic cooptation through capitalism.
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Ghettofabulous in Television
Reality television shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta (2008) and Love and Hip Hop (2010) are the ideal exemplars for ghettofabulous TV. Audiences tune in each week to watch African American women and men cussing, arguing, fighting, and displaying certain levels of ignorance. To some extent that problematic and biased frame has become a staple when it comes to rap music and hip hop, but The Real Housewives of Atlanta (RHOA) features a number of prominent black women who became stars in their own right, yet still fit the mold. For example, Kandi Burris-Tucker is a Grammy award winning singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur formerly part of the popular group Xscape (Mitchell, 2017). Cynthia Bailey is a supermodel who has walked the runways of New York, Paris, and Mulan. She owns the Bailey Agency School of Fashion in Atlanta (Anderson, 2013). Kenya Moore was named Miss USA in 1993 and landed in the top six for the Miss Universe pageant (Hensley, 2016). Eva Marcille won the third season of Americas Next Top Model and has since become an actress, television host, and entrepreneur (Koerner, 2017).
Of course, there are other cast members who have built their fame and fortune from the show. For example, NeNe Leakes’ has milked ghettofabulous for all it is worth. Her original claim to fame before RHOA was as a stripper, but she has now launched a one-woman comedy show, appeared on Glee as a swim coach, co-hosted the Today Show, and acted on Broadway in Cinderella (Ferrise, 2018). Portia Williams went from a subservient athlete’s wife to a co-host on the nationally syndicated talk show Dish Nation (Ho, 2014).
The display of ghettofabulous in RHOA is obvious. There are ostentatious pictures of expensive houses, cars, and name brand products in every episode (Hawley, 2014). Each cast member seems eager to outshine the other when it comes to conspicuous consumption. On Season 4, NeNe Leakes told Sheree Whitfield (former cast member) “I am very rich, Bitch!” (Orr, 2019). Orr discusses how over several seasons, Whitfield and Kenya Moore battled about the size and quality of their homes: “Chateau Sheree” vs. “Moore Manor.”
Baby showers and weddings are ghettofabulous. Kenya Moore created a fairytale shower filled with princess ballgowns, tiaras, gold wigs, crowns, and capes in a room staged like a royal court, including an enchanted forest, with an oversized gold throne (Quinn, 2018). When Kandi Burress married Todd Tucker they had a Coming to America themed wedding that included African Dancers, drummers, and real lions (Palacios, 2015). Finally, Phaedra Parks ordered 12 different birthday cakes for her son’s first birthday party (Parks, 2012).
The cat fights among these upper-class, grown women are constant and ugly. For example, Sheree Whitfield got into a lot of battles. She and Marlo Hampton ←27 | 28→went at it in Africa when Marlo was purposely excluded from an activity (Lucas, 2012), she pulled off the wig of former RHOA cast member Kim Zolciak, and had an argument with her party planner Antony that resulted in the popular phrase “Who gonna check me, boo?” (Moylan, 2014). Kandi Burress has gone several rounds with various cast members as well including Portia Williams who she attacked for accusing Burress of planning to drug her for sex (Mathers, 2018). Burress and Phaedra Parks fell out behind a business deal with Burress’s husband, and later Burress was livid when she found out that the drugging allegation originally came from Parks (Quinn, 2017).
Sexuality and looks are over-the-top on the show. Kandi Burrus has launched a line of sex toys as part of her internet show Kandi Coated Nights (2018–) and produced a sold-out burlesque show in Atlanta. During Episode 12 in Season 11, the housewives visit Japan and in one crude scene they pretend that a pickle is a dick and imitate various sexual acts on each other. There are stories about some of the women having breast implants, liposuction, nose jobs, and butt lifts. The clothes that many of the cast members wear usually expose large sections of their huge breasts, thick thighs and wide bottoms. Parks and Moore even had a ridiculous blow up in Season 5 concerning the production of a DVD video that ended in a controversy over “stallion booties” vs. “donkey booties” (IMDb, 2013).
Empire (2015–) has been ranked as the number one broadcast drama among the 18 to 49 demographic (Berg, 2017). There have been many situation comedies, but a prominent black drama is rare on prime-time television. It is not surprising this black drama on television about a successful music company is ghettofabulous. The show is riddled with controversy based on the stereotypes perpetuating ghetto life including criminals, murderers, drug dealers, and thugs. The executive-producer, director Lee Daniels says, “It’s all set against a “boughetto” (that’s bougie + ghetto- try to keep up) backdrop of gunplay, glitz and gold diggers” (Williams, 2015).
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