This Blog Post is All About Shaking Your Booty

I present to you three videos...
Video #1 The music video for Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back"
Video #2 A Youtube video titled "White boy dancing like a black girl"
Video #3 Music video from French comedian/rapper Fatal Bazooka called "J'aime trop ton boule" which roughly translates to "I really like your ass."

Dancing is something we all do whether it is for fitness, for social purposes, or we're just plain forced into it, but nevertheless it is a body practice. But where do we find our praxis, how we act, on the dance floor? These three videos all utilize the booty shake in different ways all drawing on a deep seeded association of the booty shake and females dancing (usually black or some other non-white ethnicity).

Both music videos are examples of places we look to form our own body practices. Just as we analyzed the how-do-we-learn-to-stand connection with the portrait of Eve, we can look at these (fairly) modern music videos as cultural texts that show us how women are expected to dance. Our body practices are learned from representations and music videos are some of the most prominent representations that are out there along with TV and films.

"Baby Got Back" presents the intelligible body for the black female. The big, round butt that can shake at incredible speeds is presented as something ideal, not easily attainable by any means. This also brings on the problem of the double bind; booty shaking, in the way it has been presented is not only presented as strictly gendered but it is also racially divided as well. However, both the Fatal Bazooka video and the "White Boy" video challenge this idea that only black women can shake it by presenting white men doing all the same things that black women have been doing in music videos. But, there is still the fact that when men dance by shaking their booty they are not seen as men dancing like men but merely men imitating women. Even in the title of the white boy dancing video it explicitly says "like a black girl" rather than just "white boy shaking his ass" or something like that.

To wrap up my point, through the medium of music videos, dancing, particularly this booty shake body practice is argued to be strictly feminine and desirable to men. Sir Mix-a-lot certainly makes this message clear with just the lyrics of his song, but we learn by example and the black women in his video certainly set the standard for acceptable dance moves that have been imitated on dance floors ever since.

Hooked on a Feeling

How do we, as human beings, become addicted? How do our bodies play into our social behaviors? A cigarette, for example, has nicotine, which our bodies will physically crave. Opium, whether it is in the form of painkillers or heroin can have addictive qualities as well, but marijuana doesn’t have the physical component that makes it addictive. So, why do potheads exist? Repeat pot smokers, according to Becker, need to be introduced not only to the drug, but the proper social circumstances when they initially try it. There is a certain expectation already set up when a person tries pot, especially in a social situation. The experience is social construction, it is the atmosphere around you that really gives you the good feeling and the act of smoking the marijuana is just a vehicle to get to that good feeling.

One of the main points that Becker seems to be getting to is that the body and mind are somehow connected. (Imagine that!) So, if your mind is having a good time, for instance, you are chilling with your pals, shooting the shit, and just having a good time, your body is going to react to that. As a subject, it is always a possibility to be shaped by the object, in this case marijuana is the object (whether it is a bong, a joint, or however else you use it) and it is shaping how your body reacts in that situation. To take another example, going out to the bar for the first time with your friends can determine whether you will come back. (Being under the influence of alcohol can be really fun or downright terrifying, it all depends on your surroundings.) If you go to the bar with your friends and you drink and have a good time you are far more likely to go back and do it all again than if you went out, got trashed, had a miserable time, and woke up with a nasty hangover, you might think twice before coming back. Your body practices are shaped by your social practices to the point where you can have physical reactions (pleasurable or painful) to the circumstances or an object. It is entirely logical for your body to make associations with what it finds pleasurable or painful so the next time you encounter something associated with a pleasurable experience your body knows what to expect.