Tyra Mail! This is UnBeWeaveable.

Tyra Banks is will reveal her natural hair, ditching her weaves for the season 5 premiere of her CW talk show, airing Sept. 8.

This season on The Tyra Show we’re taking it to the next level and getting more real than ever before by encouraging women everywhere to own and rock what they’ve got and be proud!” she says in a press release. “For the season 5 premiere, I will be doing just that – no fake hair, I’m rocking my REAL hair. This will all be going down on September 8, 2009, which we’re declaring National Real Hair Day! We welcome everyone to go natural with me! -Source

On Twitter she wrote:

Guess What! I’m rockin’ my REAL hair on my talk show September 8th. No fake hair at all! Will be the hair coming out of my scalp! 4 all 2 C!

Then, she took it to the streets with her Flash Mob, stripping down to flesh-colored bodysuits and tossing away their weave in NYC’s Union Square.

 

Who does Tyra think she’s kidding?! This is all about ratings, folks. DO NOT take your hair off for National Real Hair Day. Take it off because you want to, when you want to. What does she mean, “getting more real”? Nonesense. At a point in history, Black women were said to wear weaves because they wanted to be white; they were denying who they “really” were. But, not anymore. A lot of Black women are proud of their hair and wear it natural and others are proud of their hair, but choose to wear a weave. It really comes down to convenience and choice. It takes a lot of work to maintain natural locks. And frankly, one day a woman might want volumous, textured hair, and the next day, long straight hair. And that is why (in my opinion) people, including myself, wear weaves. Convenience and versatility.  And for those very same reasons women of all colors have adopted wearing weaves.  It’s just another form of expression. “THIS is how I feel today.” Just like changing your nail polish or choosing which shoes to wear in the morning. Basically, “what do I want to present to the world today?”

There are still some ugly and mean spirited people out there, though. If you dare, check out some of the comments made by justjared.buzznet.com readers on the issue. I refuse to quote them here, but the readers implicitly and explicitly assert that Black women’s hair is inferior. Spread love people.

Tyra’s good at spreading love. And I hope she has a good explanation for all of this on September, 8.  Cause really, Tyra, “I’m taking off my hair. Stay tuned.”?

Am I missing something? Is there really an issue with wearing a weave?

When Fashion and the Law Collide: Salacious Obscenities

One visit to the American Apparel website, and it’s clear that they aren’t just selling T-shirts (that I so adore). Adolescent-looking models, with dear caught in headlights expressions, in “come hither” poses, are like, well, the retailers trademark. And nipples are often exposed.

Attitudes regarding nudity in Western cultures are often more critical than attitudes in non-western cultures. For example, in the U.S., exposure of female nipples is a criminal offense in many states and are not  allowed in public at all, while in the U.K., nudity may not be used to “harass, alarm or distress” according to the Public Order Act of 1986.

However, it was a British advertising watchdog that recently criticized the clothing company for the ad pictured below, after a reader complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the ad, which originally ran on the back cover of Vicemagazine in the U.K., but with a series of six images — instead of three — in which the model further disrobes from her flex fleece and where her nipple was partially exposed in one shot, was “offensive and inappropriate because the model appeared young and it could be seen to sexualize a child.” Reuters reports:

 American Apparel said that it did not think the partial nudity in the advertisement would cause widespread offense. It said that the model was 23 years old and did not look under 16, nor was she portrayed as a sex object. (because you look naturally sexy wearing a hoodie, right?)

The ASA disagreed, calling the images “provocative,” and adding,

“Because the ad could be seen to sexualize a model who appeared to be a child under the age of 16 years, we concluded that it was inappropriate and could cause serious offense to some readers.”

Sexual materials range between erotic art (which usually includes “classic nude forms” such as Michelangelo’s David statue) and the generally less respected commercial pornography. The differentiation between sexual materials is a particularly difficult one and a contentious First Amendment issue that has not fully been settled. Many cultures have produced laws to define what is considered to be “obscene”, and censorship is often used to try to suppress or control materials that are obscene under these definitions. The definition differs from culture to culture, between communities within a single culture, and also between individuals within those communities.

In the United States, the 1973 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Miller v. California established a three-tiered test to determine what was obscene – and thus not protected, versus what was merely erotic and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Delivering the opinion of the court, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote,

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The legal distinction between artistic nudity, and permitted commercial pornography (which includes sexual penetration) that are deemed as “protected forms of speech” versus “obscene acts”, which are illegal acts and separate from those permitted areas, are usually separated by the predominant culture appreciation regarding such. In fact, federal obscenity law in the U.S. is highly unusual in that—not only is there no uniform national standard, but rather, there is an explicit legal precedent that all but guarantees that something that is legally “obscene” in one jurisdiction may not be in another. In effect, the First Amendment protections of free speech vary by location within the U.S., and over time.

However, “mere nudity” was upheld in the Supreme Court case Jenkins v. Georgia , 418 U.S. 153 (1974) and deemed not to be obscene under the constitutional standards announced by Miller. As declared by the judge at trial “… nudity alone does not render material obscene under Miller’s standards.” In the U.S., the word “obscenity” is usually limited to content that directly refers to explicit sexual acts that are publicly accessible, though it has at times encompassed other subject matters, such as spoken and written language that can be publicly transmitted and received by the general public.

With the advent of Internet distribution of potentially obscene material, this question of jurisdiction and “community standards” has created significant controversy in the legal community. So, while the nude content was offensive to some in the U.K. community and it has been banned from distribution through print publication (so that no one else will happen to glance over at the doctor’s office or on public transit to be incited with disgust), the online community isn’t as easily offended by nudity, perhaps, and hasn’t spoken out. So, if you’re in the U.K., and want to see bare nipples, then you’ll have to go to American Apparel’s website, where nipples run free, although, I couldn’t find the other three photos on the website either, only the ones pictured above (there are plenty others, however).

What do you think of the racy advertisements? Offensive? Not offensive?

No Ma’am!

 

Miss J has a book coming out titled, “Follow the Model: Miss J’s Guide to Unleashing Presence, Poise and Power,” in which he (she?) tells of a story about being denied acces to a particular fashion show. When he arrived, a man told him,  “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’ve been told they really don’t want you here.” Miss J didn’t cause a scene, but was embarrased. He writes,

I still don’t know why I was shut out of that show…As fate would have it, the same Brazilian designer later begged the producers ofANTM for two weeks to do our final runway show for cycle twelve with them in Brazil. All I have to say about that is God don’t like ugly, and Rosa Cha was such a a [sic] better choice and a total dream to work with.

Brazilian designer? Hhmm…Idk. But, you got to watch where you step in those stilettos. Source

Tale of the Counterfeit Bag Carrying IP Lawyer

I was at a CLE (Continuing Legal Education) last week sitting in a session on intellectual property when I saw the most unbelieveable thing: another lawyer sitting in the same session on intellectual property, carrying a knockoff Louis Vuitton bag! She looked so confident. Her head held high.

Over the weekend I kept thinking, “What does this mean? There must be some sort of conflict of interest. How can Counterfeit Bag Carrying Lawyer Lady protect the interests of her client, Brand Owner, and at the same time disregard the  legal protection that has been granted to another brand owner? Certainly she wouldn’t buy a knockoff of Brand Owner’s products. Is Counterfeit Bag Carrying Lawyer Lady characteristically unfit?!

Then, my concerns were confirmed when I came across this article about Professor Dan Ariely, who has done studies and written the report, “Faking It: The Psychology of Dishonesty and Counterfeits,”on how counterfeit goods influence people in other aspects of their lives. “The effect on morality, people don’t anticipate,” says the Professor.  Among his findings: People who were told they were wearing “fake” designer sunglasses were significantly more likely to cheat on tests than ones told they were wearing “real” ones.

Prof. Ariely findings didn’t exactly clear things up for me. Counterfeit Bag Carrying Lawyer Lady is undoubtedly held to a higher standard. And she certainly knows better. But is she categorically “immoral” for her faux designer bag carrying ways? There’s an interesting debate about the study going on over at The New York Times. One of my favorite comments:

I question if this if the real online NY Times or the fake version. Both versions might keep me informed but the real version just gives me a certain feeling of satisfaction that is hard to explain.

How do we know Prof. Ariely is a fake and an importer? Did he fake his results after lying to all those people about the brand of their sunglasses. Who checked his morality and results after his deceptions?

Someone should do a study on women who wear hair weaves.