Eroticization of women of color

There is a clear pattern to the way women of color are portrayed in the media. They are exotic, beautiful, and untouchable. Their differences make them interesting, alluring and men are almost magnetically drawn to them. At first, this sounds like a wonderful thing - after all, most women would love to fit this portrayal. However, I think the problem starts when this becomes the only way women of color are portrayed in media. This eroticization is also dehumanizing - by only showing women of color as objects of beauty or of sex to be enjoyed by (mainly white) men, the media neglects to portray them as people.

This view of women of color is hardly new. In the 1963 film Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor (who interestingly enough is white) paints on enough eyeliner to play the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, whose beauty bewitches both Caesar and his successor Marc Anthony. Memoirs of a Geisha (which was actually written by a white man) tells the story of a woman who is essentially an upscale prostitute, trained to use her body and mind to control the men around her. In fact, her test is to see if she can stop a man in his tracks with a single look (shown towards the end of this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYzqz3dMBCo). Halle Berry won an Academy Award for her work in Monster's Ball but as many critics pointed out, she also participated in a graphic sex scene in the movie.

Of course, there are counterexamples too. There are certainly women of color who are portrayed as people, not objects, but the objectification and eroticization of women of color is still far too common today.