Big Freedia Twerks for the Privileged

Something didn't sit right with me as I left the Big Freedia concert. I don’t know whether it was the inherent guilt that comes with twerking for two hours in a wife beater and tight overalls or something deeper.

In attempts to counter cultural appropriation and allow black bodies to claim back their own culture through twerking and bounce music, Middlebury happened to sneak in a more sophisticated identity — a black, super-femme gay man.

People around me expressed their excitement to see a “trans woman” twerk on stage and “feel their oats” to the beat of “Na Who Mad” and “Mo Azz.” I, too, cannot deny that I was hoping for Big Freedia to liberate all parts of me.

But in the midst of all the booty shaking, 808 beats and sweaty bodies that surrounded me, I noticed that Big Freedia Queen Diva was reflecting and possibly even owning the sexualization of black, femme and queer bodies. To me it felt so right to see the back-up dancers and Freedia twerk up a storm on stage, but it felt so wrong because it contributed to the systematic ways in which we see black women and black queer bodies in society.

Middlebury is already an environment where diversity is celebrated and tokenized as a product, rather than an experience. Big Freedia’s performance was an extension of that philosophy that allowed others (the cis white hetero majority of Middlebury) to see black queer bodies as entertainment or tools of sexual desire — even as disposable.

Another thing that didn’t sit right with me was the way in which Big Freedia marketed his identity or rather chose not to identify so overtly.

It is fair to say that he was here for his music and persona and not his identity, but one cannot deny the visible politics that come with being a tall black man with hair extensions. The ways in which queer black bodies identify and go about their days do not go unnoticed.

Seeing the Big Freedia flyer around campus filled with glitter and crowns led me to believe that a trans rapper would finally grace the Middlebury stage and slay all of our souls.

But when faced with the reality that Big Freedia is not a trans woman, but a femme gay man, does his identity erase the need for genuine trans visibility in our society? Or in other words, does the mindless transcription in seeing Big Freedia as a trans woman contribute to the systematic marginalization of trans bodies?

It seemed to me that the ambiguity of his identity was at the expense of trans bodies since the audience was just able to categorize him as the most “other” — as a trans person. This idea could also be a critique of the audience as well.

There was a Pre-Grooveyard open discussion on the “mindful consumption of music and art” in attempts to accurately frame the Big Freedia performance and I appreciate their behind the scenes work to address these issues.

Interestingly enough, I met with Goddess, Queen, Sister, Lourdes Ashley Hunter the next day. Like Big Freedia, she too slayed the campus. She remarked on being a trans woman of color at the “Living in the Question: The Ongoing Process of Curiosity” event held by TedxMiddlebury. Her focus on “deconstructing feminist analysis and acknowledging all the ways in which structural oppression manifests in the lives of Black Queer Academics in white cis dominated spaces” was something that ironically resonated with our sexual response of commodification to Big Freedia just the night before.

Students around campus flocked to the front line of the stage to witness Big Freedia Queen Diva twerk his art into existence but these same students didn’t seem to generate enough buzz about the presence of a politically active black trans woman speaking at a podium.

Of course, there are many underlying factors that have to do with the marketing of each event and the way college students want to spend their weekends but it would be ludicrous to dismiss these issues at hand. How can the administration, along with the help of the student body, work to deconstruct the “tokenizing” and “eroticizing” ways in which “marginalized identities” are being presented to the privileged on campus? Similar questions were asked at the forum held by the College President earlier this month.

Was Big Freedia’s job as an entertainer to only liberate our asses? Or was his presence on stage shading the true liberation of queer and black folk?