Thursday, April 1, 2010

Erykah Badu appears on Chelsea Lately



Last night, Erykah Badu appeared as a guest on Chelsea Lately. Typically, guests on the show are relaxed and funny- it makes sense since they are appearing on a comedy talk show. However, Erykah came across very differently, and kind of oddly. She was extremely stiff, straight-faced, guarded, and rigid. She cracked very few smiles, laughed maybe once, and seemed completely uninterested in the host, Chelsea Handler.

When asked by Chelsea why the media was making such a huge deal out of her new video, “Window Seat”, Erykah claims it’s just “a way to sell tabloids” and “bring attention to the media”. What? Really? Erykah was given the perfect opportunity to express the deeper meanings behind her new controversial video, whether it be black women’s oppression, accepting a new womanly body type, or bringing attention to the faults of American society and it’s unwillingness to accept cultural change. It is not a way to sell tabloids. The image of her walking down a street buck-naked and being assassinated on the same street as JFK is going to cause controversy, and hopefully the point of the video was to inspire national conversation which is the starting point for change. I wish I could argue in Erykah’s favor, saying that her video was a social outcry reflecting the character assassination a woman would go through if she showed herself completely. There is no doubt that her video is very powerful, but maybe her intentions were to simply create sales…



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