Ellen Gallagher- DeLuxe

Ellen Gallagher- Delux


Hottie


Ellen Gallagher's work examines race through the use of ads from black publications or images of blacks. In her piece, DeLuxe, Gallagher exaggerates the wigs and blocks out the eyes of the black women in the wig ad, creating caricature like representation of the black woman.

This piece speaks to age old trend of black women conforming to European standards of beauty, trading in natural hair (in texture and color) for straight and colored hair in order to 'fit in'. On one level, Gallagher's piece is simply an exaggeration of the unnaturalness of the wigs on the black women. The bright yellow cut out brings out the odd shapes of the wigs, making them seem more like geometric headdresses rather than hair. On another level, the yellow wigs represent the hair colors that many black women chose that generally (although their are some exceptions) do not occur naturally within the black race. On the third level, the whiting out of the eyes shows loss of identity. The individuality of the black woman has been melted into white ideals of beauty, making everyone a cookie cutter image of the blond, straight haired prototype of beauty. The whiting of the eyes also adds to the caricature appeal the piece as a whole.

I'm all about people expressing themselves with their hair or whatever else, but when I see black women out on the street, on t.v, in film, or in print with long, blond straight wigs/weaves, there is something that doesn't sit well with me. I don't believe that everyone black women should always embrace their natural hair at all times, but straight blonde hair seems like such a stretch to meet another races standard of beautiful hair. One of the worst examples of this that I have seen was Hottie from Flavor of Love. She wore a long, thick, blonde wig (See image above) for the entire show and when asked if it was a wig, she said had the nerve to say her hair grew out of her head like that! When I looked at Deluxe for the first time, I thought about Hottie. All that blond hair and those big eyes. Hottie is a walking representation of DeLuxe.