beatingvoicebox:

(as transcribed from my journal)

Dear Woman,
Dear Queen,
Onika Maraj,
Dear Dear Barbie,

Please allow me the honor to introduce myself. For a documentary on you has left me inspired and understanding.
My name is James Sprang. I am a visual artist and poet. Raised by Caribbean women.
And am obsessed, or rather extremely intrigued, with the way one can play the role of a human being artfully within the context of this society.
This life.
Due to this interest I am comfortable with the label “performance art” to describe what it is that I create.

I would like to say that I understand the compromises you must make to exist within the art form you have chosen to be framed within for the time being. However, until recently, though I enjoy your lyricism and delivery, I categorized you with such named compromises.

In the MTV documentary I speak of you explained your acting background and love for the craft. After which, I saw a scene that made everything
fall
into
place.
You were asked a question regarding your personal life by an interviewer (for the purpose of my argument let’s call him a male antagonist) who could not be seen within the frame. And you
began
to cry.
Pulling out a conveniently handy mirror you blocked your face from the camera. Creating an impenetrable fourth wall doubling as a reflective surface.
And so the doc cut to another camera angle. This one from the side, framing a woman with impeccable
almost
porcelain make-up trying her best to prevent her human emotions from eroding her applied archetypal beauty. Unable to do so her make-up artist came to her aid.
And watched.
As you broke down, like the tear that broke
the bank
was induced by your own reflection.
In an empty warehouse.
Lit with florescent track lights
on the floor.
Here you
woman
Queen,
Onika Maraj,
Nicki Minaj
Barbie,
Caribbean and Black,
cried.

I now realize your importance to not only the rap game, but this society. You have created irony out of a music business that has forsaken the music it creates in order to idolize packaging. You have presented irony to a society that opens its eyes every morning to rip off the fresh wrapping paper of these packaged idols.
And you have done it veraciously.
Beautiful Barbie doll.
Amongst them you have embodied an ideology that has been sold to our female children since 1959. And in doing so you have stretched the mold.

A mold that has birthed too many plastic women.
A mold that until now I thought could not be broken…
However, now a countless amount of people refer to you (a breathing
talented,
volumptuos,
immigrant,
and black woman) as Barbie.
And today. I saw Barbie cry while scrutinizing her own face
on unpacked televisions across the entirety of this rotating mass
as if her material world was not perfect.
And ultimately because nothing
and no one
can be.

(via so-treu)