Welcome to Hell!
Trying to Understand the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Violence from Saturday Night Live
In lieu to the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, the writers of Saturday Night Live (SNL) wrote a song about the realities of the world for mainly white women. Knowing that their cast is made up of mainly white people — and for the fact that you can count the cast members who are people of color with one hand — they tried to include the trials and hardships for women of color in the style of an early Britney Spears-esque pop tune, which they present a basic understanding of intersectionality.
All of these big cool powerful guys are turning out to be… What’s the word? Habitual predators?… And it’s like, dang! Is this the world now? But, here’s a little secret every girl knows. Oh, this been the damn world!
There is a sharp juxtaposition between four white women on a pastel pink stage wearing shiny pink and pastel clothing singing a song about sexual violence women face every day. With the staging alone, there is a sense of the video of being associated as a music video for a young white female pop artist. For example, this type of set design can be easily compared to Katy Perry’s music video for her song “Teenage Dream.” So, when you hear “Habitual Predators” being accompanied with an electronic pop track and hyper white femininity, there is a sense of unease because most people do not want to have that image and sound, which are meant to be associated with White Femininity, to be blatantly discussing gendered violence.
With the discussion of white women, there is the question of “where are the women of color?” In the music video, women of color are the back-up dancers, which are below the heightened stage in the video. Kimberlé Crenshaw asserts that women of color are subject to worse sexual violence due to their physical location and their personal identity being a person of color and a woman. In the scene depicted on the left, Crenshaw is being proven to be right. Women of color are on the ground floor to the front, which makes them easily accessible and more vulnerable to be exposed to people walking towards them than the white women. This sort of white woman domination over women of color can also be heard in the music. Melissa Viallaseñor sings various riffs, which are interjections over the four white women singing toward the end of the video. It brings to light the fact that women of color have a hard time being heard in discussions of women’s issues when there are white women present.
Hey, uh, I just wanted to say that I think what you guys are doing is really cool I get it. Uh… but you do know that it’s like a million times worse for women of color, right?
The single line is the only line of the song and in the music video where intersectionality is discussed, and all the white women do is agree to resume with the rest of the song. Yet, there are many popular online articles that praise the inclusion of intersectionality that lasted for a brief moment in the video. Right after this scene there is a list of things that are ruined for women, like Über and hotels. According to Angela Davis, they are forgetting that marriage and the home are also ruined because of the sexual and domestic violence that women face against their loved. As well as, the fact if a black woman is caught with a pink gun, then she will be put into the complicated prison system — if she is not killed first.
Even though SNL’s inclusion of intersectionality could be stronger, at least they mentioned that there are deeper inequalities for women of color. As trying to decide on how read this video, I feel like it comment on how most people understand intersectionality. When I first saw this video, the way that it was stated and not acknowledged further turned a knot in my stomach. So, just briefly mentioning the fact that women of color “have it a million times worse” than white people, did not suffice my craving for a verse dealing with the intersectionality of women of color and sexual assault in Hollywood. There should be an entire song or skit around intersectionality and the different ways women of color are treated than white women. I mean if they can put a metaphor for structural, consciously or unconsciously, then there can be a whole 3 minutes on it. SNL is known for pushing the boundary of what is funny. Maybe with having and promoting a better understanding of women of color and sexual violence, then the hell we live in can be equally as horrible to everyone. As humans, we should actively try to help bring one another up from the fiery pits of hell, rather than leaving people to suffer on their own.
