Black States of Desire: Josephine Baker, Identity and the Sexual Black Body”

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Josephine Baker‘s performance of the black female body on the Paris stage in the 1920’s and 1930’s is one example of the commodification of black sexuality. It had its precedent in the nineteenth century in Saartjie Baartman, known as the “Venus Hottentot”, who became a symbol of deviant sexuality. White men felt lured by the “exotic” and “the other”, and Josephine Baker would highlight her backside in her dance performance to arouse male desire, providing her audience with a spectacle of the primitive. As a result, the female body that had been the object of sexual exploitation in the times of slavery transformed itself in the means to entrap and sway the white coloniser’s erotic impulse. Thus, what this article aims to prove is the contribution of Josephine Baker to a new female black identity using a postcolonial and post-positivist approach to her performances on stage and her own life. She gave a new meaning to the black female body through agency and sexuality, transforming black women into speaking subjects. RESUMEN: La puesta en escena de Josephine Baker del cuerpo de color femenino en los escenarios de Paris en los anos 20 y 30 es un ejemplo de la comodificacion de la sexualidad femenina. Tiene su precedente en el siglo XIX en Saartjie Baartman, conocida como la “Venus Hottentot”, quien se convirtio en un simbolo de la sexualidad desviada. Los hombres blancos se sentian hipnotizados por “lo exotico” y “la otredad”, y Josephine Baker realzaba su trasero durante su baile para provocar el deseo masculino, proporcionando a su publico un espectaculo de lo primitivo. Como resultado, el cuerpo femenino que habia sido objeto de explotacion sexual en la epoca de la esclavitud se transformaba en el medio para atrapar y dominar el impulso erotico del colonizador blanco.

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