It's funny 'cause it's true

Off Our Backs, Jan/Feb 2002 by Manzano, Angie

special feature

Sometimes we get letters here at the magazine from men pretending to be women. I've gotten pretty good at spotting the importers. They tend to go overboard, laying it on just a little too thick about how much they love men, how they love the way men treat them, how happy they are to do things for men. The letter usually ends with something like "and I should know (how great men are) because I married one/am dating one, and look how happy I am."

So I wasn't surprised to learn that this Britney Spears song called "I'm a Slave 4 U," was written by two guys. These are the lines that really sounded to me like they were written by men:

Don't you wanna, dance up on me,

Leaving behind my name an' age?

I really wanna do what you want me to.

I'm a slave for you. It just feels good.

I saw Britney on TV doing "I'm a Slave 4 U" in a jungle setting, complete with a live cheetah and a snake wrapped around her neck. This man from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said, "It's ironic that the song she'll be singing is `Slave 4 U' because these animals are slaves... Snakes sometimes have their mouths sewn shut using a needle and thread to keep the animals' mouth[s] closed on stage... You can't hear their distress, but it is real..." On this show, Britney's voice was recorded earlier, so she just mouthed the words to the song so it would look like she was singing. (I think they do this so the performers can concentrate more on the dancing part of the performance.)

Once I went to this antique shop and I saw these figurines of Aunt Jemimas, Uncle Bens, and little Black girls with big white eyeballs and lots of spiky pigtails, They may be slaves in the field, but they sure seem happy. Some of the figures are even doing a little jig for a white audience, smiling black faces, big white teeth, thick red lips wide open, laughing and dancing and having a good time. The guy at the shop told me that the figures are important because they are a part of our history. They help us understand how whites rationalized their exploitation of Blacks.

I think about what kind of figurines I could make to represent modern situations where we have to fake a big smile: "No, boss, I don't mind if you yell at me, or rub up against me in the hall." "No, editors of oob, I don't mind being the prize for the guy who wins the farting contest on Howard Stem. It doesn't offend me or make me feel exploited. In fact, I love it." I really wanna do what you want me to. I'm a slave for you. It just feels good.

I wonder what would happen if we all jus"topped laughing and smiling and doing the jig? Would we get fired, go broke, get dumped, thrown out, beaten, or something worse? What would Britney say if the words didn't come straight from a man's pen to her mouth? What will Britney sound like when she turns off the recorded sound of her own voice? Maybe she'll sound something like the girls in the movie Riot Grrrl, like Kathleen Hannah yelling "kill, kill, kill" over and over and over into a microphone.

I smiled and laughed at that part of the movie-the real kind of smiling and laughing, though.