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"The fat black woman’s body has come to play an instrumental role in the creation of spectacle in both the calypso and dancehall arenas. Fat bodies contribute to the disruptive spectacle of these two expressive forms, primarily because of the hypersexualizing of those bodies, which is immediately apparent in dancehall tradition. Dancehall has been the venue for the exposure of the fat black female body beyond the platform of the hefty higgler whose association with food and later the supply of scarce imported goods helped to firmly cross-pollinate the higgler’s social function as both a literal supplier of goods and an icon of abundance. Gina Ulysse suggests that, “Dancehall not only projected this full black female form into public arenas, but asserted both its desirability and sexuality” (159).
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Nowhere has this projection of the large sexualized black body been more apparent than with the unofficial crowning and sustained reign of Carlene the dancehall queen. Carlene came to power in the dancehall arena in the early 1990s via a series of fashion clashes in which she and her posse of women competed against professional models from a local agency (Ulysse 161). Carlene and her crew were situated as a part of the underprivileged Jamaican masses, although technically they did not necessarily fit into this category, while the bodies of the professional models were read as middle/upper-class commodities. The models performed fashion appropriations of female behavior that fell within the boundaries of middle-class propriety, but Carlene and her group set out to astonish. Uninhibited by codes of female propriety, at one clash, barely clad in fishnet and lingerie, Carlene did a dance routine in which she imitated the experience of an orgasm (Ulysse 162). This willingness to shock her audiences by engaging in sexually risqué behavior has helped Carlene become a permanent fixture in Jamaican popular culture, and she has appeared on television in a variety of commercials and has been spokesperson for a brand of condoms.
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However, Carlene’s ascendancy to fame is complicated because not only is she full-figured, but she is mixed-race and very light-skinned. Carlene’s embrace by Jamaica’s corporate world suggests that her “brownness” has facilitated her corporate and social mobility by rendering her crude public displays more palatable since the site of enactment is a brown and not black body (Edmondson 7). Nevertheless, Carlene’s size has been instrumental in her success and I believe in sustaining her popularity with the black working class on whose approval she is ultimately dependent. I read her fat as an evocation of blackness that helps to resituate her near-white body as a part of the extended body politic of Jamaica’s masses."
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Quote:
"The fat black woman’s body has come to play an instrumental role in the creation of spectacle in both the calypso and dancehall arenas. Fat bodies contribute to the disruptive spectacle of these two expressive forms, primarily because of the hypersexualizing of those bodies, which is immediately apparent in dancehall tradition. Dancehall has been the venue for the exposure of the fat black female body beyond the platform of the hefty higgler whose association with food and later the supply of scarce imported goods helped to firmly cross-pollinate the higgler’s social function as both a literal supplier of goods and an icon of abundance. Gina Ulysse suggests that, “Dancehall not only projected this full black female form into public arenas, but asserted both its desirability and sexuality” (159).
9
Nowhere has this projection of the large sexualized black body been more apparent than with the unofficial crowning and sustained reign of Carlene the dancehall queen. Carlene came to power in the dancehall arena in the early 1990s via a series of fashion clashes in which she and her posse of women competed against professional models from a local agency (Ulysse 161). Carlene and her crew were situated as a part of the underprivileged Jamaican masses, although technically they did not necessarily fit into this category, while the bodies of the professional models were read as middle/upper-class commodities. The models performed fashion appropriations of female behavior that fell within the boundaries of middle-class propriety, but Carlene and her group set out to astonish. Uninhibited by codes of female propriety, at one clash, barely clad in fishnet and lingerie, Carlene did a dance routine in which she imitated the experience of an orgasm (Ulysse 162). This willingness to shock her audiences by engaging in sexually risqué behavior has helped Carlene become a permanent fixture in Jamaican popular culture, and she has appeared on television in a variety of commercials and has been spokesperson for a brand of condoms.
10
However, Carlene’s ascendancy to fame is complicated because not only is she full-figured, but she is mixed-race and very light-skinned. Carlene’s embrace by Jamaica’s corporate world suggests that her “brownness” has facilitated her corporate and social mobility by rendering her crude public displays more palatable since the site of enactment is a brown and not black body (Edmondson 7). Nevertheless, Carlene’s size has been instrumental in her success and I believe in sustaining her popularity with the black working class on whose approval she is ultimately dependent. I read her fat as an evocation of blackness that helps to resituate her near-white body as a part of the extended body politic of Jamaica’s masses."
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