Blake’s Big Booty Backlash

Blake Lively recently posted what she thought would be just another pretty picture of herself with a seemingly light-hearted caption, but instead she was immediately faced with an onslaught of accusations from the internet — calling her “racist” and accusing her of cultural appropriation.

So no one else can have a big booty?

Lively’s Instagram photo was a split look at the actress in her gown at the Cannes Film Festival and a view from the backside with the caption “LA face with an Oakland booty,” a line from Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit, “Baby Got Back.”

While Baby’s photo sure proved she “got back,” it prompted immediate backlash from Instagram and Twitter users and criticism from media outlets ranging from MTV to The Huffington Post.

While the internet calms down from the spike in criticism and defense over big booties and calls for “rich white women” to stop braiding their hair and flaunting certain assets, the question remains: If we want to be “equal,” then why are certain features only allowed for certain people?

“Let’s get one thing straight about the phrase ‘L.A. face with the Oakland booty … ” explained MTV on the derrière debacle. “It’s loaded with a lot of s*** white people might not understand from a casual listen on the jukebox at Dave & Buster’s during a Tuesday night happy hour with their coworkers.” 

One Twitter user lamented, “Another day, another rich white woman using WOC’s bodies as a punchline and commodity. As if Blake Lively wasn’t the worst already.”

“WOC” means “Women of Color.”  

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The general theme to Lively’s backside backlash was that a white “privileged” women could not possibly understand the implications of — much less resemble — an “Oakland booty.”

In fact, by picking and choosing certain “features” from women of color, like a big butt or a hairstyle or reciting lyrics by certain artists, she, along with the other privileged white women, are appropriating a culture that is not their own, thereby stealing words or features meant to celebrate and only belonging to women of color.

So no one else can have a big booty? Or quote song lyrics? Is Blake Lively’s well-endowed backside a threat or taking away from “WOC”?

Lively isn’t the first to be accused of cultural appropriation and hijacking what (apparently) is only allowed for one type of woman.

Katy Perry tweeted the same lyrics years ago — before, apparently, everyone had to be offended by something — and more recently Khloe Kardashian posted a picture of herself from a side view with the same lyrics.

Neither instance received as much immediate criticism as did Lively, but the Kardashians are no new “offenders” of this crime and have long been the example for the cultural appropriation police.

Criticized for their big lips, even bigger rumps, cornrows, and even their choice in men, the Kardashians have been accused of “stealing from the black community” and cited numerous times as just another example of white people wanting to pick and choose from the black culture and making a commodity of it.

But isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

If you subscribe to the train of thought that claims these certain features as their own and calls them beautiful, then wouldn’t women like Lively and the Kardashians be actually affirming the desirability of those features? Furthermore, wouldn’t that be an example of equality? That two different sets of peoples share characteristics and desire to imitate others?

Sir Mix-A-Lot himself had to reappear from his 1990s time warp to comment on the issue, and agreed that Lively’s reference to the “Oakland booty” was not a hurtful step backward but praise for a (much-obsessed over) feature.

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“For her to look at her butt and that little waist and to say ‘L.A. face with an Oakland booty,’ doesn’t that mean that the norm has changed, that the beautiful people have accepted our idea of beautiful? That’s the way I took it.”

Even The Huffington Post’s coverage of the booty debacle, which sided with those who weren’t one of Lively’s over 700,000 Instagram likes, contradicts itself and only affirms what Mix-A-Lot himself had to say about it.

HuffPo’s article, which told Lively: “Just … no,” ended by pointing out that Lively “isn’t the first white celebrity to use a line meant to celebrate black women’s bodies.”

Break that comment down: Lively is a white celebrity who quoted a song lyric that celebrated a part (not all, mind you) of a black woman’s body.

Celebrated, which is universally a positive word.

Lively is white, therefore she could not reference or quote something that was celebrating another woman’s body.

Therefore, no women can agree that another woman’s unique features are beautiful and desirable or draw similarities between the two?

This line of logic not only defeats the stated purpose that so many claim to desire of equality and appreciation among all types of women and their bodies, but it also is horribly narrowing and only does more to separate the two.

Since race is such a touchy subject today — even with the low standards for what constitutes touchy subjects, i.e. microaggressions and the overly PC culture — maybe the overemphasis on backsides and who’s allowed to have the largest is just an easier way to broach the subject?