“Masculine”: an ever-changing word in an ever-changing world. As evolution and revolution challenge centuries of oppressive macho aspiration, some of us finally are redefining what it takes to be a man.
“Who wears the pants in this relationship?” is an increasingly antiquated, chest-thumping relic from a bygone era of red-blooded heterosexual manhood. It’s been perfectly acceptable for women to wear trousers, even at home, for decades. And nowadays, men, both gay and straight, no longer have to if they don’t want to.
That includes black men. High-profile ones like rapper Young Thug, celebrity offspring Jaden Smith, and singer/actor/Pose star Billy Porter have been bending gender by slipping into something more comfortable than pants because, well, they can look just as good in a dress!
Reactions have been mixed. Last year, Young Thug earned the ridicule of Nicki Minaj in her song “Black Barbie,” and when Porter wore a black tuxedo gown to the 2019 Academy Awards in February, social media applauded and gasped at the same time.
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The gasps weren’t just about the LGBTQ-ness of it all. Some took offense to a black man, especially an openly gay one, daring to do such a conventionally un-masculine thing on an iconic and very public red carpet. Some of the loudest racial carping didn’t come from the usual suspects — racist white people — but from blacks who should know better by now.
Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will and mother of Jaden, publicly praised Porter’s sartorial choice and thanked him for saving Black History Month.
Thank you @theebillyporter for saving Black History month???????? pic.twitter.com/MRUS3143Rk
— Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) February 25, 2019
Smith’s heart was in the right place, but she was missing the point, too. The tuxedo dress had absolutely nothing to do with black other than its color, and by making it a race thing, she poked the homophobes who think a black man in a dress is somehow an affront to black masculinity.
“Jada Pinkett Smith should be ashamed of herself,” YouTube personality Willie D declared in a video rant that racked up more than 500,000 views in one week, with 18,000 likes and 1,500 dislikes.
“When you raise a boy, you raise a boy. When you raise a girl, you raise a girl,” Willie D pontificated, exasperatingly. “That is the natural order of things. When you interrupt the natural order of things, you will have calamity. You will have disaster … Even animals know better than that.”
To Willie D and at least 18,000 viewers, Porter’s unconventional tux wasn’t just a fashion disaster. It was a bad old-fashioned Disaster.
“The black male is under attack on all fronts,” Willie D continued. “They’re trying to kill us with the bullet. They’re trying to take our lives, our freedom with mass incarceration. They’re purposely trying to prevent us from being gainfully employed.”
The latest big, bad threat, in the racist world according to Willie D: black men in dresses and the black women who support them.
Apparently, in the eyes of Willie D and the rest of the outraged, a man in a dress is just an extension of the g-word. As Kevin Hart would have said circa 2010, “Stop that! That’s gay!” The lazy link reinforces the rampant homophobia that continues to blemish the black community, inside and outside of hip hop, while undercutting the black fight for equality by spotlighting the hypocrisy of some of its fiercest warriors.
As a gay black man, I’ve had to deal not only with being the target of white racism and homophobia. I’ve also had to duck criticism — and occasionally, punches — thrown by the very folks who should be my strongest allies. Now, homophobic blacks like Willie D are using guilt as a weapon. To them, a black man wearing a dress to the Oscars isn’t merely promoting sinful homosexuality. It’s emasculating black men everywhere, including ones, like me, who couldn’t care less about red-carpet fashion.
Although Willie D doesn’t go so far as to advocate violence against the dress-wearing scourges on black masculinity in the video, he’s stepping into a danger zone. It’s a place where gay black men grow up feeling frightened and ostracized times two. It’s a place right next door to the racist danger zone that’s been dragging down black men in America for centuries.
If we consider white people racist when they equate the actions of one black man with the actions of all black men (as Liam Neeson did, circa 1979, in the controversial story he recently told of looking to destroy a “black bastard” to avenge his friend who was raped by a black man), then what do we call it when black people do the same thing?
Even a holy roller who defends homophobia by quoting Biblical scriptures can’t rationalize putting the weight of black male masculinity on the shoulders of a few famous black men in dresses. It’s like saying that gender-bending white men, from David Bowie to Marc Bolan to Boy George to Perfume Genius, have been tearing down the masculinity of all white men for years. Sometimes a dress is just a dress.
If anything is compromising the masculinity of black men, it’s the homophobic and self-righteous fashion police telling them what they can and cannot wear. To be masculine, in the most traditional sense, is to be brave and tough. Defying the status quo by dressing how you want to dress certainly qualifies as both.
The emasculation of the black male has nothing to do with what he wears. If we want to blame anyone or anything, we should point a finger at the toxic masculinity that uses fear, shame, and now guilt to force black men — all men — into a box that threatens to suffocate us all.
CobraPowers
It’s just a dress, get over it. But also let’s not pretend he’s somehow a hero or “stunning and brave” for public crossdressing.
Josh447
Looking like a dizzy czzozzczzk roach really has nothing to do with masculinity.
Morrisson
The definition of masculinity has not changed; it is not fluid it is static and defined. It is for this reason it is constantly attacked and referred to as toxic by outlets. Semantic change requires a natural, organic and willing progression. I think outlets like the Huffpost and Queerty believe if they bang on about it long enough their fringe views will become accepted, but they wont. I don’t believe Billy Porter wanted to make a political statement, I think he just wanted to wear a dress, but wasn’t brave enough to admit just that. This is not some bold political statement it is just a boy who isn’t strong enough to own his own truth. Willie D is a moron he sees a black man exercising freedom of choice and some how manages to turn it into a race issue. No Willie it is a hate issue within the black community aimed at limiting the choices of others who think differently about femininity.
TheMarc
I am curious as to what your definition, this universally accepted and static definition, is.
Morrisson
I don’t have my own definition. I tend to stick to the readily accepted dictionary definitions of words. Available in all good bookstores.
Jack Meoff
FFS save us from these attention seekers
Catholicslutbox
No it’s not, but that dress is revolting.
It should be burned, along with any visible proof that it ever existed.
TheMarc
I have A LOT to say about this; but in short; masculinity these days is so superficially defined that of course it can not suffer a man wearing anything “feminine.” But as usual, certain critics desire to defend masculinity by attacking Billy demonstrates this while at the same time continuing to diminish the value of “masculinity.”
Kangol
Masculinity isn’t fixed in all societies across all times, and the clothes that men wear vary by place and culture, and change over time. Just travel anywhere across the globe beyond our borders and you’ll see this. Men wear long robes, djellabas, cassocks, shifts, sarongs, and other skirt and dress-like garments in many parts of the world, and some religious orders in this country still do so (cf. Catholic monks, Islamic imans, etc.). In the West wealthier men once wore wigs, heels and make-up; the richer they were the more they emphasized their bodies through clothing and self-presentation, then Western societies went through a shift and this changed. If you look at 19th century photographs of wealthy white men, especially in the period before the US Civil War, some curled and styled their hair when they were in the late teens and early 20s, which they wore long; then, during and after the war, especially in the North, their hair grew shorter, but they started to sport beards, which were taken as markers of masculinity, etc. In the 1940s and 1950s, short hair for men was in, but by the mid-1960s, longer hair was in, and by the 1970s, hair expression did not follow strict patterns; among Black men in the US and other countries, straightened or pressed short hair gave way to natural hair in the late 1960s and then was increasingly afros in the 1970s. Men no longer wear knickers (the US kind) and plus-fours as they once did, which were big in the 1930s, and tight, tapered slacks for men, which were big in the 1960s, gave way to form-fitting bell-bottoms, which accentuated (straight, gay, etc.) men’s butts and crotches in the 1970s, which gave way to baggier shirts and pants in the 1980s and 1990s, which became thin and skinny-leg pants in the mid 2000s, etc. No one thinks twice about men in shorts 24/7/365 though once upon a time outside of resorts and certain professions this would have been an outrage. I mean, clothes, like the masculinities they index, change and shift over time, and the idea that they’re fixed, like the idea that clothes that signify sexualities, also changes. This is as true for Black men in the US as elsewhere across the globe.
Josh447
Good coverage though I will say, at no time in history did men trade out male garb for full on formal ball gowns, nor anything remotely like such. And there is nothing feminine about robes.
It seems this display here is a crossdresser’s ever drolling on coming out ceremony, to which most blow off with a head shake and an eye roll. Many find it fairly revolting that some side show would try to make this common place in everyday society.
MikeM
Dictionaries are organic. They reflect the evolution of the meanings of words over time. Words and their meanings are not set in stone.
tjack47
Relax those sphincters.
OzJosh
Billy Porter might be wearing a dress, but does he really look feminine? He’s a hunky, athletic, well-toned black guy with a goatee and a very male haircut. And no trace of make-up that I can see. He’s actually not remotely feminine, even given his attire. So it’s only the billowing dress that has everyone in a flap. They should take a deep breath and consider for a moment that a good third of the world’s male population wears garments that might otherwise be called a skirt or a dress. As for Willie D… has masculinity ever been more fragile than his?
Josh447
“A good third of the world’s” men do not dress in woman’s formal ball gowns. Unless you have new stats on that. Do tell.
Zambos271
Unfortunately since there are so few black men in the spotlight succeeding, the few that are represent black men as a whole (per the black community). For every David Bowie, there was Mick Jagger. It’s a different comparison.