Explain and analyse Grace Jones's “postcolonial androgyny”

Grace Jones today stands as a household name within popular culture, identified particularly from her 80’s albums, 'Slave to the Rhythm’, 'Warm Leatherette,' and 'Nightclubbing', without forgetting her acting roles in the cinematic productions 'Conan the Destroyer' and 'A View to a Kill'. She originates from the previously colonised Spanish Island, Jamaica, and is widely known for her androgynous, multifaceted persona. She ranged from a ‘spectrum of personalities’[1], pushing the gender line, but she never was a man, as Guzman rightly pinpoints, despite much controversy. Within this essay I will analyse and interpret her publicised postcolonial androgyny. I will also evaluate the psychology of the inferiority complex inherent for Black Americans at the time, as supported by philosopher Frantz Fanon. I will be analysing whether Graces’ art works tackled this, and subverted expectations about identity. In addition I will try to interpret whether her ever changing sexuality, and role as a muse and performance artist, resulted in creating a strong empowered identity, and in effect normalising that of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)stigma.

Figure 1: Grace Jones in one of her modelling campaigns, with her iconic angular suit and cigarette.

Grace revelled in performance and first came to the public’s attention in the 1970’s due to her striking image (as a model, figure 1). She is coined today as a supermodel, record producer, singer, lyrist and actress. The question that causes much discussion is whether her art works reflect the sufferance of stereotypical postcolonial oppression and whether her public image intensified this. This is because the media, if given any substance, will augment any fault or public criticism. BBC journalist Katya Foreman, states Jones is seen as the ‘spiritual godmother of Rihanna and Lady Gaga’, embodying, both ‘startling’ stage outfits and performances, ‘a genuine force of nature’[2]. This force of nature, as Foreman quotes, is supported by clubber Roger McFarlane’s inference on seeing Jones stating that her ‘powerful, strong attitude defined glamour and androgynous style and in-your-face sexuality’, is a clear ‘unapologetic expression of who you are, regardless of where you came from.”[3] This completely contradicts the question of her work being subject to postcolonial antagonism, despite her considerable fame.

However it was another story entirely for Black Americans as a whole, for the sufferance of postcolonial oppression was an omnipresent force within society. This is supported by Professor Benjamin P. Bowser in his statement that ‘at the beginning of the 1980’s blacks within the central city, as well as within newer suburban enclaves, are as tightly confined as ever in segregated communities’ [4]. Prejudices continued even after the dissolution of the Jim Crow Laws in 1954 with institutional racism and segregation permeating multiple aspects of the society in which Jones lived. Through housing, banking, insurance, jobs and access to health care, however, unrest was met through changes such as the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, but as Bowser accurately pinpoints, ‘racial progress is indeed conditional’[5]. With economic demise, as seen in the second decline of the U.S economy in the 1970’s and 80’s, came more prominent forms of seclusion and mistreatment. For example, the mistreatment of Angela Davis by an all white jury in 1972, following her support of George Jackson and 2 others, through publicising racism within the prison system in 1970. In addition, the Tawana Brawley case in 1987, where a 15 year old African American girl accused 6 white men of having raped her which resulted in her being accused, in October 1988, of having created the appearance of an attack herself, and was subsequently sued. This exemplifies what Jones and her work may have been subject to if it weren’t for her rise to fame and prominent position in society.

This is supported, further, by philosopher Frantz Fanon, who states that here is an ever-present, ‘Inferiority Complex’[6]in connection with black ancestry in a Colonised Empire. Disregarding whether you came from the Caribbean or the most Western parts of Africa, through the white man’s eye a black man will always be supplementary. Fanon highlights in his book ‘Black Skin White Mask’s’ the reality of the blacks man’s existence as not being an individual with human rights to the white people, but as a ‘negro’, a commodity with worth only when affiliated to the white man. This is further supported by Aimé Césaire, Fanon’s professor, who although contrived the theory of ‘negritude’, of which Fanon is acknowledged as one of its, ‘harshest critics’[7], put forward, as Fanon did, the philosophy that ‘colonialism is a dehumanizing mask, but one which inadvertently feeds on its subjects’ humanity’[8]. Césaire, argues, as Fanon cites in this book, the colonizer had disciplined them to ‘tremble, to kneel and behave like Flunkeys’[9].

Underlining the extent racism affected the majority of Blacks in Jones’ time, shows the scale of repression and, as Foreman indicates to Jones’, ‘only fed her imagination’[10]. Due to her strict indoctrinated Pentecostal upbringing, when arriving in New York she through caution to the wind and scrabbled for lost time, ‘her genes and family background contributing to her theatrical nature’[11]. Jones stated to Ruby Wax in an interview in 1992, ‘I wasn’t allowed to do anything. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, I wasn’t allowed to wear fingernail polish, I wasn’t allowed to play any games or even listen to the radio, so when I got out and got the States I was like... motorcycle gangs, Hell’s Angels, taking all kinds of stuff and getting totally hallucinating, out there. I was lucky I survived it.’ [12]This is exemplified in how she once arrived at a club in New York, wearing a black hood, riding a motorcycle, and, as an onlooker quotes, once entering the bar ‘she knocked all the glasses off the bar and then she proceeded to lay back on the bar, putting her high-heel shoe on top of the cash register, and sang La Vie en Rose.’[13] This indicates how she used her music as a form of release and liberation, letting out the postcolonial restricted child she once was. This does not, however, rule out her reference and acknowledgement of oppression within her songs.

The mistreatment, as put forward by Fanon and Césaire, signifies a disorientated unstable mentality, of which Jones is not personally classified, however, is she publicising this within the words of her music? This debate is clearly seen within the interpretations of the meaning behind her famous album and song, ‘Slave to the rhythm’, 1985. The lyrics, on one hand, imply Jones to be referencing that of the history of enslavement of Afro-Americans. This is exemplified in the lines, ‘Axe to wood in ancient time/Man machine, power line/Fires burn, hearts beat strong/Sing out loud the chain gang song.’ When analysing the lyrics closely, particularly when looking at the last 3 lines of the second verse ‘Sing out loud, the chain gang song, Never stop the action, Keep it up, keep it up,’[14] the lyrics, sung by Jones, inference the historicism of enslavement in America.

Slavery in America originated in 1619 when the first series of African Slaves were imported to help with the labour production of the commercial by-product, tobacco, to Jamestown, Virginia. This enslavement was in order to aid America’s economy, carried on throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Jones’ reference, to ‘the chain gang song’ refers to the practice which existed, at first solely in the southern states of America, in which ‘a group of prisoners were chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land.’[15] This clear reference to the history or racism and enslavement in America by Jones shows her utilising her position and creating a political shift through her art work in bringing to attention to the public the hardship underwent by past black African Americans, and, arguably, the ever present inequalities.

Figure 2: A group of African American, male prisoners, in a chain gang working, on a railway track.

On the other hand others believe the meaning behind the lyrics to refer to how the music industry exploits its musicians and therefore becomes, as the song states and repeats in each verse, ‘a slave to the rhythm’. In support, Professor Gregory Freeland states, ‘music generated a sense of nationalism in Jamaica during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and as such provided strength for independence, stability and some of the courage’[16]. This underlines the importance music has and does play in Jones life and how perhaps her publicised fame, and therefore her great demand, enslaved her to her trade. Jones’ performances and persona in the public eye, however, refracts any notion of being enslaved. Her androgynous, wild figure infers a woman not afraid to push the boundaries, as seen in her stage presence and performance, let alone her outfit when she performed ‘a slave to the rhythm’ at the Queen’s Jubilee concert in 2012 (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Grace came on stage with her hoop, which she started spinning, as she launched into her smash hit song Slave To The Rhythm at Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Jubilee concert in 2012.

Jones is identified by many in modern culture as an icon with a variation of identities. This androgynous position, as Francette Pacteau defines, ‘represents a denial, or a transgression, of the rigid gender divide, and as such implies a threat to our given identity and to the system of social roles which define us’[17]. Her role in films such as ‘Conan the Destroyer’ and ‘A View to Kill’ ‘embodied common stereotypes about black sexuality’, however ‘her music repudiates these traditional roles’.[18] Jones was, for example, painted as the stereotypical presentation of a black woman in Cinema, with a fiery temper and hench physique. This exemplifies her being subject to the oppression of the postcolonial gaze within cinema. Jones’ fiery character, however, owned the film, which she gained more recognition for than any of her counterparts. As May Day she saves the day (figure 4) as well as being the attractive partner of Mr Bond. Her music video and performances of ‘The One Man Show’, in 1982 are, however, an, ‘unusual relic of the music scene in the 1980’s’,[19] counteracting this stereotype completely. It revolved around the false advertisement of ‘promising the audience something fundamentally untrue that its star is a man’[20].

Although both presentations of Jones are very contrasting, both symbolise her as a muse and public icon in popular culture, of a woman not afraid to be herself and embody that of both female and male characteristics. Robert Walser describes, in ‘Global Glam and Popular Music: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s’, ‘that cultural representations of male power and female erotic surface’, blur together ‘the modernist notion of gender binaries’ and invent a ‘post modern multiplicity of masculinities’[21]. Psychological measurements of androgyny in the 1970’s in America concluded that ‘embodying socially desirable traits for both females and males’, implied that ‘androgyny seemed to imply the absence of gender stereotyping’. This broadens ‘the scope of behaviours that can be used to handle different situations and thus lead to more flexible and adaptive behaviours’[22]. Grace, with her angular suits and 5’10” height, alongside Michael Jackson, who is referred to as the apotheosis of androgyny in 1980’s with his female sounding voice but male body - outlined specifically in his renowned song ‘Man in the Mirror’ 1988 - paved the way to the cross dressing and androgynous movement of the 1980’s. Grace Jones’ artistic legacy now influences, many acclaimed artists today such as ‘Brazilian Girls’, Basement Jax’, ‘Roisin Murphy’ and ‘Annie Lennox’. Underlining, indefinably, Jones works not being subject to postcolonial oppression. This is supported by Guzman’s statement ‘Jones combined visual references to industrial society, primitivism and fashion with muse that provided an alternative narrative to our cultural history’[23].

Figure 4:Grace Jones as May Day in the James Bond film A View to a Kill, 1985

In 1980 the United States Democratic Party became the first ever, major political party in the U.S. to permit a homosexual rights platform. This sudden, step lead to the development of America’s biggest civil rights organisation, to this day, headed by Steve Endean of The Human Rights Campaign Fund, working towards equality for LBGT. Jones, being a household name throughout the 70’s and 80’s, opened up an awareness and acceptance of the “queer” image even more, through her cross dressing and her role within the gay nightclubbing scene, which she primarily did in support of her gay brother against her father’s strict Pentecostal morals. Grace describes in her memoirs how her ‘Dad denounced him and stopped him playing the organ in Church’, for which he was a deemed a ‘child prodigy’[24] at the young age of ten. Her father took that away from her brother due to societal expectations and prejudices at the time. Grace states that there were complaints, ‘church members were gossiping that he was gay’.[25] Up to the 1960s and 1970’s in America homosexuals within the Church were traditionally ostracised within the Church community for going against God’s words. Jones’ dad believed he was following God in his actions, for in Romans chapter 1 verse 28 it states ‘men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error’.[26]

Furthermore the 1970’s did indeed, in retrospect, give freedom to Gay’s, for it was named the ‘decade of gay liberation’[27]. ‘During that period gay men and lesbians demonstrated for ‘gay rights’, which meant full participation in the economic, educational, political and religious institutions of American society’.[28] In part, by 1980, both female and male homosexuals had a stronger voice and were included and partook in all areas of society. Jones’ brother took hold of this new freedom and, like Jones, did not react well to constraints. Jones refers in her memoirs to how he stated, in response to his father’s actions, ‘well if I’m gay I’ll do what gay people do’. She continues ‘and I’d go with him to the clubs. Being tangled up, having some of the man in me, I loved that.’[29]This opened up the door for Jones into the androgynous gay nightclubbing scene, which permeated America in the 1970’s and 1980’s. As Norment evaluates ‘she is an artist who personifies a spectrum of personalities to audiences but she has never been a man, contrary to rumours that suggested otherwise’[30]. The 1970’s in America were acclaimed for it’s gay nightclubbing scene and Jones was named the ‘Queen of the Gay Discos’[31]. When the popularity of discos came to an end, Jones, as Aaron Mendelson contributes, ‘explored the sounds of reggae and New wave in her music. Her 1980’s albums, ‘Warm Leatherette’ 1980 and ‘Nightclubbing’, 1981, were her best yet!’[32]As Jones quotes herself in describing her gay nightclubbing days in her memoirs, ‘the man in me—as well as the girl—loved men! I felt I was among my own even as I was so far removed. This was when gay life existed deep in the margins of the margins of the mainstream, a system of rumours, innuendo, and scandal.’[33]

To conclude, I believe, when analysing Grace Jones ‘postcolonial androgyny’, one must consider whether her work was indeed subject to postcolonial oppression and that of the postcolonial gaze as an actress. Or is she, on another level, oppressed, due to her androgynous, multifaceted persona? Undeniably she did come across a backlash of criticism from her bold images in her work and appearance. I believe, however, that her changing sexuality and role as a muse and performance artist in popular culture resulted in the positive affect of creating a strong empowered identity, and, in effect, normalising LGBT stigma, and in doing so publicised aspects of black oppression. Although racism has not come to an end it can be said that Jones, in her unique attention-seeking role, has had a highly significant impact and has been able to use this attention to express her thoughts and passions towards a mass global audience.

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[1] Maria J. Guzman, ‘Grace Jones In One Man Show: Music and Culture’,(Ohio, the college of fine arts of Ohio university: 2007), 65.

[2] Katya Foreman, Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’, BBC Culture Story, October 2, 2015, accessed April 6, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151002-grace-jones-style-power-and-in-your-face-sexuality

[3] Foreman, ‘Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’.

[4] Benjamin P. Bowser, ‘Race Relations in the 1980s The case of the United States’,(Santa Clara: Sage Publications, 1985), 307.

[5] Bowser,‘Race Relations, in the 1980s’, 313

[6] Frantz Fanon, ‘Black Skin White Mask’s: Introduction’, (New York: Grove Press, 1952), 4.

[7] Reiland Rabaka, Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing the Black Radical Tradition from W.E.B. Du Bois and C.L.R James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, Aimé Césaire and Leopold Senghor Revolutionary Negritude and Radical New Negroes (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), 119.

[8] Daive A. Dunkley, Readings in Caribbean History and Culture: Breaking Ground (New York: Lexington Books, 2011), 192.

[9] Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: NYU Press, 2001), 43.

[10] Foreman, ‘Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’

[11] Foreman, ‘Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’.

[12] Foreman, ‘Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’.

[13] Foreman, ‘Grace Jones: Style and power and in-your-face sexuality’.

[14] Chain Gangs’, Credo Reference, accessed April 5, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gang

[15] Gregory Freeland, ‘Music and the rise of Caribbean Nationalism: The Jamaican case’, (California, California Lutheran University), 2.

[16] Sophia Andre, ‘The Pre-Raphadite Art of the Victorian Novel: Narrative Challenges to visual gendered boundaries: Beyond Gender Boundaries’, (Ohio, Ohio state university press: 2005). 141.

[17] Guzman, Grace Jones In One Man Show, 65.

[18] Guzman, Grace Jones In One Man Show, 6.

[19] Guzman, Grace Jones In One Man Show, 6.

[20] Ian Chapman, Henry Johnson, ‘Global Glam and Popular Music: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s’, (New York, Routledge:2016)180.

[21] Neil J. Salkind, ‘Encyclopedia of Human Development: Androgyny,( London: Sage Publications, 2005), 93.

[22] Guzman, Grace Jones In One Man Show, 6.

[24] Grace Jones and Paul Morely,‘I’ll never write my memoirs’, (New York, Simon & Schuster: 2015), 47.

[25] Jones and Morely,‘I’ll never write my memoirs’, 47

[26] Jerome Cameron Goodwin, ‘The Commented Bible Series: Romans Chapters 1-8’,( London, Createspace Independent Pub: 2011).

[27] Robert E. Beckley, Jerome R. Koch, ‘The Continuing Challenge of AIDS: Clergy Responses to Patients, Friends, and Families’, (London: Greenwood Publishing Group:2002), 178

[28] Beckley and Koch, ‘The Continuing Challenge of AIDS,178.

[29] Jones and Morely,‘I’ll never write my memoirs’, 47.

[30] Guzman, Grace Jones In One Man Show, 6.

[31] Aaron Mendelson, ‘American R & B: Gospel Grooves, Funky Drummers, and Soul Power’, (Minneapolis, Twenty-First Century Books: 2012), 41.

[32] Mendelson, ‘American R & B: Gospel Grooves’,41

[33] Jones and Morely,‘I’ll never write my memoirs’, 48.

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