Spectacles of Nature
what can I say? I'm hooked on analyzing the films of Spike Lee(40 Acres and a Mule Productions). Here is a compare and contrast: It's about the representations of black women in two Spike Lee films A perfect example of the objectification and sexualization of women of color is Saartjie Baartman also known as The Hottentot Venus. “She became the main attraction and a thriving business for the London showmen who exhibited her. Baartman’s genitalia and the “abnormal” protuberance of her buttocks, or what was termed steatopygia, served as the central model for Black female “otherness” in the nineteenth century. To this day, Baartman’s preserved buttocks and genitalia are in a jar at the Musee de l’homme in Paris” (Young 699). It was the curiosity of the Europeans that drew them to this “main attraction” with the natural “protuberance of her buttocks” that was so unnatural to viewers. The African woman and the European woman were placed on opposite ends of the spectrum wit