Race & Gender in Pop Culture

Race & Gender in Pop Culture

By: Donna Lewis Johnson



If you are the mother of a teenage girl, as I am, you know the name Justin Bieber and the intense effect the mere mention of the name has on girls. Justin Bieber is to my daughter’s generation what Michael Jackson was to mine – the man we wanted to marry. With his eponymous Bieber bangs, soulful charisma, impish charm, and bona fide musical talent, Bieber is a Boy Wonder who in 18 months rose from an aspiring recording artist in small-town Canada to an international phenom who sold out Madison Square Garden in 22 minutes. I know Bieber’s story because I accompanied my daughter and her classmate to a sneak preview of “Never Say Never,” a 3-D biopic about the 16-year-old mega star who girls faint, squeal, and fantasize over.

Sitting in the theater among dozens of adolescent and teenage girls who were clearly awash in Bieber fever, I wondered what to make of the whole thing.  The Bieber Effect. Is it a harmless crush like the one I had on Michael Jackson? Or the exploitation of impressionable girls who see their worth relative to a celebrity’s view of them?  The latter question is legit. As a standard feature of his concert, Bieber serenades a girl from the audience, promising her “there’s gonna be one less lonely girl.” The chosen girl sits in the middle of the stage, under a halo of strobe lights, while Justin croons intimately. Without fail, each girl at every concert paws her face, swipes away tears, and trembles at her astonishing fate.

I have a couple of problems with the theatrics.  For one, all the “chosen” girls are white.  My daughter is African American. Based on the consistent selection of white girls, it’s reasonable to assume that my daughter would not make the cut, which leads to my second issue that I’ll get to in a minute.

Bur for now, how anachronistic of Justin and his team. This is not the ‘50s when interracial dating was unlawful in many states and taboo across America. The crumbling of racial barriers through civil rights activism combined with the growing number of people of color in America creates a new social milieu where blacks, whites, browns and others couple freely.

Here’s the other issue. Girls are objectified in the movie. The dynamic of one guy in demand by hundreds of thousands of girls vying to be the object of his affection troubles me. Pick me. Pick me. Oh, those desperate pleas.

Maybe I’m making way too much of the effect Justin Bieber has on his fans.  After all, I went on with my life after realizing as a teenager that I would never be Mrs. King of Pop.