Sir Mix-A-Lot has responded to the recent Blake Lively controversy, expressing his genuine surprise that her Instagram post with the caption ‘L.A. face with an Oakland booty‘ prompted cries of racism.
The line, if ya’ needed a catch-up on your early 90s pop culture, is in reference to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s seminal 1992 booty anthem, ‘Baby Got Back‘, which you either know 95% of the lyrics to, or you are lying.
Blake captioned a recent Instagram post with the line, and the internet promptly blew up.
However, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sir Mix-A-Lot – real name: Anthony Ray – said that while the song was written with African-American women in mind, it was in celebration of women with curves everywhere, and was in fact a direct reaction to both the one-dimensional portrayal of African-American women in the early 1990s (i.e. overweight) vs the heroin-chic beauty ideal (i.e. Kate Moss and co) promoted at the time.
“If you go back and look at 1990, 1991, you only saw African-American women and Hispanic women who were either a maid or a hooker,” he says. “I watched a lot of Law and Order, Gimme a Break, Mama’s House and all those shows, and you saw the same thing. They were always my size: overweight, and that’s the way they wanted to see us. I don’t know who “they” is, but it seems like the powers that be in Hollywood or the heads of magazines or whatever wanted to see us that way.
“Now at the same time, what was promoted as beautiful was kind of really waif-thin, borderline heroin addicts. I don’t mean that literally, I mean the look. That was kind of pushed at us, and we were told that it was beautiful, and what I started to see was some people of colour either being ashamed of who they were or trying their best to assimilate. So I wrote “Baby Got Back,” not to say which race is prettier — which is silly, because there were white women with the same curves that were told that they were fat, too. There were people that were actually saying that Marilyn Monroe looked bad. They didn’t say that at her peak, obviously, they said it later on.”
While the initial outrage may have been flamed by the fact that Blake was already under fire for criticising the rape joke made about Woody Allen at Cannes, people were angry that Blake – an actress so white she tried to start a lifestyle blog – appeared to be making African American bodies a “punchline”.
Another day, another rich white woman using WOC’s bodies as a punchline and commodity. As if Blake Lively wasn’t the worst already.
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) May 18, 2016
And a fiery piece on MTV said:
“L.A. face with the Oakland booty” operates the same way. “L.A. face” refers to the white, American beauty standard. Something you possess. It’s why the Daily Mail publishes your photo so many damn times you’d think you were about to pop out a royal baby. “Oakland booty” refers to a large derrière, an undesirable butt that Jane Fonda workout tape enthusiasts from L.A. wouldn’t be caught dead with. It’s the reason you take SoulCycle classes. It’s why you have Pressed Juicery on speed dial. It’s the type of ass that the Kardashians or white people turn into a circus attraction like Saartjie Baartman. You don’t have an Oakland booty. You have a Burbank booty.”
(FWIW, there was plenty of counter-outrage at the initial outrage. Of course there was. This is the internet.)
I refuse to worry about Blake Lively posting a sir mix a lot lyric with a picture of her backside. The revolution does not start here.
— roxane gay (@rgay) May 18, 2016
Mix-A-Lot says that he never wrote this song to be a battle between the races, but to open the media’s mind to different types of beauty.
He also says that it’s all in the way Blake intended her comment – and that yeah, if she meant it in a derogatory way in reference to her recent, pregnancy-related weight gain, then he’d be right there with the critics. But if she didn’t…
“For her to look at her butt and that little waist and to say “L.A. face with an Oakland booty,” doesn’t that mean that the norm has changed, that the beautiful people have accepted our idea of beautiful? That’s the way I took it.”
Read his whole interview over at The Hollywood Reporter.
Photo: Instagram / Blake Lively.
