Butterscotch Queen: The Get Down’s Female Star With Attitude

I LOVE The Get Down. The music, the story, the characters, the WRITING, I find it all fantastic and powerful. The Netflix original short series is about The Bronx in the 1970s and the racism, gang, street art and the up and coming hip hop vs the dying age of disco music scene that the burrow was controlled by. It features young male and female’s trying to chase after their music dreams. In episode 1, a lot unravels and a lot of characters are introduced, but Mylene stands out among them. She has enough attitude to remain true to herself, but still open up and be vulnerable. She is very real, in every sense of the word, and she should be celebrated.

The show begins with a modern day star setting the scene to travel back to the beginning of his journey to fame. Then he is the young Zeke whose journey is about to unfold. Zeke preforms his poem to his reflection in the kitchen window about Mylene before she is introduced. He describes her as his Butterscotch queen and calls singing voice her tender, like red velvet.

Mylene is then sining in her Father’s church with her loud, glorious talented voice. From this first scene we know she is passionate and talented, and this is where her search for her dream really begins.

What is great about Mylene is she isn’t afraid to chase her dream, but she does it her way, with her two best friends by her side. When Zeke calls her stupid for going to a club to try and get the famous DJ’s attention she replies “you’re stupid” in a mocking tone and doesn’t listen to his advice. She wont give in to his attempts at dating her because she wants to be a famous musician more, and doesn’t want anyone holding her back. In the first episode Mylene sees a clear path ahead of her to achieving her fame, and she is going to head down that path until she truly can’t anymore.

At the club one very powerful and wealthy man, Cadillac, is infatuated with the sight of her. She talks to him with one goal on her mind: getting her tape to DJ Malibu. He lectures her about seeing herself as a star with which she confidently replies “I do” with a glare in her eyes. He then brags about having connections in the industry and she promptly asks “Do you know Malibu?” He then brags about “owning” Malibu so she says, dripping with sarcasm, “Wow you must think you’re a real big man huh? You ain’t the first big man I met.” One of her friends gives her some serious side eye but her facial expressions remain strong.

When Cadillac says he likes her style she grits her teeth and looks away, as if she is very unimpressed and almost offended. She brings herself to ask him if he can get the tape to Malibu and he sees an opportunity. He replies “sure. But lets talk about what you’re going to do for me. You like Hotels?” Offended, Mylene snatches her tape back and says “I’m not like that” while walking away with her two friends reluctantly following. The two girls told her from the beginning that she would have to be willing to get down with someone to get noticed, she didn’t want to believe them. Being faced with the truth she knew to listen to herself no matter how badly she wants to be a star.

Mylene is supposed to be about sixteen or seventeen in this show. She has the attitude that most women give up when trying to make it in the music industry because it is so heavily dominated by masculinity. You have to feed into a man’s ego rather than destroy it. She is consistently strong in this show, despite huge road blocks and traumatic events. Just that night at the club she witnesses a shooting, killing some including DJ Malibu. Then she returns home to an angry father that attempts to beat the devil out of her. And she still continues to chase her dream.

With this Netflix being about the creation of hip-hop in the 70s it is so important that a strong female is present in the show. It is equally as important that the male isn’t aggressive or degrading but actually very soft and invested in his new found craft of rapping. Sylvia would be proud to see hip hop represented with such powerful characters illustrating a fantasy version of her very own hometown burrow.