The so-called subversion that occurs when a Black person takes on the persona of a white character is not something discussed very often. Mainly because it rarely, if ever, happens. A Black person isn’t exactly going to jump at the chance of putting on literal whiteface to achieve the same look as a blanco. Maybe that says more about their sensitivity than white people’s–or maybe they’ve learned enough from history to know there is a double standard for just about everything Black people do.
Whatever the case, Megan Thee Stallion has done something uncommon as a Black woman: adopted a character associated with “white iconography.” Really, one of the whitest characters you know: Regina George from Mean Girls. To boot, Coach is a brand that attempts to associate itself with a certain “daintiness” that goes against the stereotype of the “aggro Black woman.” One supposes, they started to “branch out” with J. Lo being a brand ambassador, and apparently it opened a floodgate for the marque to cease a sort of unspoken alliance it once had with Paris Hilton types… and their dogs sticking out of the handbag (and yet, Paris is still highly tied to the brand, based on her recent campaign). After all, fashion must stay “relevant”–and there’s nothing less so than the skinny white bitch. Which, incidentally, is precisely what Regina George is. Yet another reason Megan affecting the persona is so revolutionary. Because even though people would like to think Ariana Grande is Black, her portraying Regina in the video for “thank u, next” wasn’t the same.
Dressed head-to-toe in Coach shit (which, alas, still doesn’t render the “luxury” label fashionable just because Thee Stallion is wearing it), Megan appears on the football field in the same setup as the movie during which Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) first introduces Cady (Lindsay Lohan) to the Plastics from afar. It can be noted the girl trying to embody Janis makes one more offended than a white supremacist would be by Megan as Regina.
“Janis” commences, “Don’t let the hot girl shit fool you. She’s more than that. Megan the Stallion. Where shalt we begin?” From here we go into the montage of fellow students offering their take on their “school’s” ultimate celebrity: “Megan thee Stallion is flawless.” “One time, she locked eyes with Medusa, and all the snakes unionized.” “Each of her dogs has its own bedroom, and country home. In France.” “Shakespeare wrote five sonnets about her… yeah, she wasn’t alive yet, but… he knew.” Back on the football field, Megan blows a kiss in the direction of her fawning admirers (all of them except for one being men of color) and, unlike Regina, she manages to knock them all over with that invisible “blow.”
The talking heads portion continues with, “I heard her favorite movie is an anime based on her own life. And it won best picture.” “Her nails are so long, she accidentally gouged my eye out–and it was awesome!” “I heard that she was walking down the street and a guy saw her, and the guy crashed his car. It was so fetch. Or not fetch. It–it was awesome.” “She’s perfect.”
Not having enough air time to show more Janis Ian narration, as well as Cady getting handed the map of North Shore, wherein she refers to a table of Black women as “unfriendly Black hotties” (why are they “unfriendly,” huh?–because they’re Black women?), the commercial cuts with the “She’s perfect” line after Megan looks into the camera and sticks her tongue out.
It’s unfortunate there’s no room for Cardi B to play Cady, but those are the limitations of a budget and time allotted for “TV” consumption. In many respects, Cady’s absence is the entire point. To highlight Regina, the true “star” of the operation, despite Lohan’s best efforts to make her own character the standout of the movie. Plus, it doesn’t evoke the question from Karen (Amanda Seyfried) demanded of Cady soon after this scene, “So if you’re from Africa, why are you white?” Or Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) subsequently shushing, “Oh my God Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white!” Or, further still, why they’re Black. And Megan Thee Stallion is counting on that in her own rendering of this “mean girl” (now remade as a “hot girl”). Because if no one bats an eye over the skin tone-flipping script, that entails Megan has achieved an ultimate kind of “subversion.” A supplanting of expectations aided by the fact that you’re not going to see white folk try to go back and “white-ify” something like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It simply wouldn’t be kosher (for one thing, because Black stories are scarce enough as it is).
What’s more, soon after the Coach commercial, Megan Thee Stallion showed up to the Grammys in what she called her Marilyn Monroe look, saying she wanted people to think of it as a Black Hollywood aesthetic. Some, of course, would try to spout that Megan is turning her back on “Blackness” (à la Ginny dressing as Britney Spears in Ginny & Georgia) by catering to “real white girl shit.” Others would argue she’s rewriting the history of oversaturated whiteness with a dash of Black. Something far more intelligently undercutting than slapping on some whiteface. For as we all know, blackface was (and still, unfathomably, is) consistently used by whites as a means to denigrate and demean, whereas here, not only is there no need to paint one’s visage a certain color to get the point across, but the intent is not to devalue so much as to take one’s previously non-front and center position in the narrative (something Gabrielle Union knows all about thanks to her “B” character roles in movies like 10 Things I Hate About You and Bring It On).
Yet there is always that faction of people who will try to say a Black person–especially a Black woman–should never try to be “like them.” Especially since it’s clear that white folk have, for so long, been trying to graft the aspects of Black culture they like best once it became apparent to them that being “Aryan” was not chic anymore after the 60s (yes, surprisingly it took the post-civil rights era as opposed to the Holocaust to make that point “crystal”). And if white people don’t even want to be themselves (save for the Trump supporters), why should anyone else? Unless those “emulating” are specifically doing it as a subtle rebellion that destabilizes the idea that Black women can’t be the star of the show once always reserved for white ladies.
For more on 00s pop culture, check out Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life: A Satire of the 00s.
