Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a bit of a caricature in popular culture, isnt she? A tall, sleek black woman with a British accent starring with Dolph Lundgren in 80s action movies and wearing over the top costumes. Its a bit about race too, isnt it?and the place black women occupy in popular culture as either the attentive Mammy or the sexually insatiable Jezebel. Grace recalibrates how to occupy these positions, it seems.

Along with being a singer and an actress, Grace was also a model. Her body was her ticket. Case in point, "My Jamaican Guy." A series of shots in the video has Grace bent over, nearly crouched, hands on the floor, bending her knees, raising her arms inspired by African tribal dance. Shes dressed in a form fitting steel gray suit with cropped pants, uniform of the corporate 80s. (Pure perfection if it was an Armani.) It's hard to literally place and fix Grace into one spot. The spotlights tryin to contain her, to time its tracking with her movement but where and who is she? A black woman in corporate attire singing a song about a Jamaican guy with some African dancing interlaced with her sitting on ascending boxes, like a giant staircase, singing with a mic. We dont get much of a clue of where to place her either. The video starts with a close up of Grace, her face painted in the de rigeur protocol of 80s style- plum cheeks and eye lids, matte finish, glossy red lips- followed by alternating close ups of a similar shaped face, but with no make up, the other distinctive feature being the sound they make: Grace's "Eeeeee" to the other's "Ugghhhh." There's a play with sex and gender here. Grace as androgynous rather than strictly female or male and messing up the idea that black women as being either too masculine to be feminine or as the epitome of feminine licentiousness while squarely addressing the relationship between black women and black men. She stands up for her Jamaican guy: "he's laid back, not laying back." Her man's cool *and* hes got a job. (Im all about men having jobs.) After a side shot of the male face kissing an unreceptive Grace- lip smacking sounds included- the video shows two black faces looking squarely at the camera and the viewer, slowly swaying. The shot pans out and you see the two dancing closely, Graces hands cupping her partners behind. Rather than a binary or a dichotomy, rather than black men and black women fighting, theres a homology and a correspondence and a physical union between two black people.

There were a lot of female singers and bands making their mark in the late 70s and 80s: Blondie, The Go Gos, Cyndi Lauper and, the biggest of them all, Madonna. You get the odd mention of Tina Turner (who deserves another posting on her own for a whole bunch of different reasons) but most of these groups and women are white. Grace is a footnote or a joke. But check out the video for "Im Not Perfect (But Im Perfect For You)." A bit of a vanity piece but you cant be a pop star without indulging in this habit. And Grace is cheekily aware of this as theres shots of her getting a massage, talking to her therapist and getting a massage. Madonna's rise from suburban Detroit to the Lower East Side's counterculture is part of her myth but this video gives some context to Grace Jones' role in the culture scene of the 80s. When Andy Warhol says youre perfect? Well, you pretty much most likely prolly are. Race, sex and gender are all still at play here. She has white men, gay white men, literally working for her. Aside from Andy, there's Keith Haring painting inside a giant canvas that ends up as Grace's giant skirt. In another shot, she's lowered into a bathtub full of milk, referencing the Annie Leibovitz shot of Whoopi Goldberg. She's aware of what's involved in her representation.

Amongst Grace's infamous appearances is her "slapping" Russell Harty. (Though what appearance of Grace isnt infamous everyones waiting anticipating wishing and praying shes gonna say or do something crazy.) She's not giving attention, she's seeking it- her threats to leave if she's not interviewed, her pouting and her hitting, her baby tiger pawing? This could be read as proof positive of her infantile development or it could be taken as her insistence she's worth paying attention to, that she's worth a second look.

She kinda is.