Growing
up, Josephine Baker spent large portions of time dancing on the streets (Brown).
Her artistic talent developed through her street performances allowed her to
reach a fame only a few other Black artists were able to match. At a first
glance, her role as an artist seems to represent the New Negro: an independent individual
conscious of their history and their role and contributions to the society they
live in (Locke). At a closer look however, her performances reveal and
reinforce the White’s views towards African Americans of savages and inferior
beings.
Baker
had a goal to “represent the universal ideals of brotherhood and equality”
(Brown, 253). Many of her performances however involved her mimicking the
movements of animals (Brown). Although
she had good intentions with her performances, a message that could be seen
through them is that a black performer was easily able to copy the movements of
wild animals; this observation led many to reinforce their beliefs that the
Whites were further evolved and that the black race was more closely related to
the animal world. Baker was commonly seen as an example of the savage who was
civilized (Brown). Baker however was not completely unsuccessful at achieving
her goal for the promotion of justice and equality; she was able to use her
power as a respected and loved performer to push for these ideals. She was most
able to show her support for equality
during World War 2 where she showed her support for de Gaulle’s resistance
(Brown). Even when she became ill and bed-written, the de Gaulle’s resistance
leaders used her sickroom as a meeting spot where they could plan out their
next moves (Brown).
Her
dual role as an artist created contradicting views such as Du Bois’ and Locke’s.
On the one side, Baker embodied the White’s stereotypical view of the Black
individual. In her performances in the United States she became the wild,
stupid, and primitive African American (Brown). She showed the audience,
predominately white, what they wanted to see (Stewart, 08/26/2013). Once she
moved to France and began performing abroad, her roles changed to represent a
sexual object (Stewart, 08/26/2013). Her work in France is mainly her taking
the role of a sex object; showing the Black Body could attract White eyes. Most
of these details are what Du Bois would observe from Baker’s performances. She
was not expressing herself for the sake of expression, but was instead directed
as to how she must perform in order to attract the White audience. It appears
under this light that Josephine Baker was in the film and theatre industry not
to prove a point, but instead was there to entertain the White patrons and reinforce
their view of the Black body. Throughout her career she was unable to portray herself
as simply an individual with a voice; she was either an object to be fantasized
about or a primitive successfully integrated into a White society.
Locke
would have a different perspective in which Baker not only attained the
attention of the Whites, but she also won their love. He had a belief that
propaganda perpetuates the position of inferiority (Stewart, 08/26/2013).
Although Du Bois would consider Baker’s career propaganda more than art, Locke
sees Baker’s career for what she was able to accomplish using her artistic
expressions and not for what her performances represented. Baker through her
performances gained great political and social power, especially in France
(Brown). She was able to use this power to pursue equality and representation
for her race. One could also argue that Baker was self-conscious of how she and
her race were viewed. This knowledge allowed her to use her artistic talent and
daring modes of expression to win a White audience which would later support
her in her struggle for justice. Locke saw in Baker an artist expressing
herself in a way she enjoyed while at the same time using her art in her favor.
As an
artist Josephine Baker underwent several hardships including rejection and
criticism. The most difficult struggle she most likely went through was leaving
St. Louise. Baker’s early childhood was spent working until finally near her teenage
years she began to dance and perform (Stewart, 08/26/2013). Being a Black
unprotected young child performer made her vulnerable to many dangers. While
performing in the United States she achieved little, she was seen as an “unappealing
female subject” (Stewart, 08/26/2013). For her to be able to leave St. Louise
she had to conform to the views of the White audience. In addition she had to
entertain them by showing them what they expected and wanted to see from a
Black performer. To leave St. Louse Baker had to represent her race as ignorant
and primitive. Lucky for her, her style of dancing attracted the attention of a
producer who would take her to Paris and she transitioned from an unimportant
performer into an influential erotic dancer and ultimately an actress and
singer (Stewart, 08/26/2013). She had to do what many other African American
performers before and after her had to do to become successful in their field,
they had to conform to the white normative gaze. This means that in their art
they had to project the White race as superior to Black race. In addition they not only had to accept the
false idea that Blacks were uncivilized, stupid, low class, and silly, but they
were also forced to promote it if they wanted to be able to support themselves
from this career.
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