Shelved Dolls: Josephine Baker - Topless Dancing Ahead TheGloss

josephine baker

Oh, you’re pleased that I am doing a non-white Shelved Doll? I’m sorry. I don’t see skin color. I ONLY SEE SOUL COLOR.

Souls are the color of assorted skittles. The tropical flavor kind. The weird kind nobody likes. Nobody except God. So, there are a lot of turquoise, and that sherbet shade of orange that is hard to look at for a long time, and a really nice shade of blue that is inexplicably labeled “melon berry burst”. I guess it was labeled by someone more color-blind than I, or someone who had never seen a melon nor read a book about melons.

Josephine Baker’s soul? Her soul is mauve.

Now, you might be thinking that’s just because I like the color mauve – which I do – but it’s also because mauve dye (the color, really) was discovered in 1856. It was the first synthetic organic chemical dye. In my story Josephine Baker is going to represent a lot of firsts for a lot of people.

She is our first Shelved Doll of color. Which is going to be different than when American Girls made Addy because, thank Goodness, Josephine Baker isn’t going to be all wholesome and spouting inspirational quotes like “If you fill your heart with hate, there’s no room for love.”

LOSER.

Instead, she’s going to take her top off, wear some bananas as a skirt and spy on the Nazis. Not all at the same time. Still. And she’s going to live in a chateau. And adopt a bajillion and four children. Approximately.

Let’s fade in on this:

Celia

I LOVE JOSEPHINE BAKER. Seriously. She is the most wonderful, graceful, warm, intelligent, talented woman to have ever walked the earth. Thank you so much for posting about her!
LCT

One of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a very long time. What an amazing woman! I think I need to buy a biography or two.

And I’m off to make a poster of that quote of hers about skin color.
Celia

Just a sidenote, you did Eva Peron who wasn’t white as well.
- Annie
  
  There are only three anthropological classifications of race (Caucasoid, Mongoloid anf Negroid). You can be one, or a combination of two or all three. Eva Peron was white (Caucasoid). Her socio-linguistic group was Hispanic/Latin.
  
  Back on subject, I love the Shelved Dolls series. This was the perfect way to write about Josephine Baker.
- Celia
  
  Please, there are clearly more than three race classifications in use in the USA. Just look at any government form.
BeccaTheCyborg

Beautiful.

Josephine Baker will forever be the most inspiring, brave, stunning, talented, brilliant woman. I feel like she’s one of the better arguments made in favour of humans.
Jaclyn

Fantastic Shelved Doll!! I love this series. I’d buy the book…hint, hint.
MR

Is this a good time to say we’re all happy you didn’t do that Nazi, Eva? :)
Sara Wagner

This has been my favorite installment of Shelved Dolls yet. I had never heard of Josephine Baker before today, now I think she might be one of my heros. She’s so charismatic! and funny! and athletic! From now on whenever I hear someone making the outrageous claim that funny and beautiful can’t go together in a woman, I will post a video of Josephine Baker.
Cate

I have loved Josephine Baker for years and years now, but I never knew she had pet rabbits. for some reason this small fact makes me love her even more.

I wish I could time-travel back to 1927 and we could have playdates with our rabbits and drink champagne and eat the bananas that her skirt was conveniently made out of. It would be so fun.
Chelsea

Before I go on reading this… you’ve got Addy f***ed up. She is awesome. I feel like since I had the doll and all the books, I have to defend her.
ScienceGeek

I am in awe. I mean, I’d heard of her, I knew she’d achieved fame as a dancer when being black was practically a crime, but I had no idea she was so amazing.
Thank you.
Elwar

“I believe she probably just liked the fact that for the first time in her 19 years, her black skin was considered something erotic and beautiful, and not something ugly, to be ashamed of and covered up.”

My favorite line. Cuts right to the heart of all that crazy stuff about feminism and the black female body. So many feelings are in that line. Thank you.
Katrina

Jennifer, you really outdid yourself on this one! Well done!
Sharron

“I know certain politicians talk a lot about the “good old days” but I am not sure if this is what they’re referring to.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what they’re referring to. A time when it was okay to hate and hate freely. When they didn’t feel like their “supremacy” was being challenged.

Nice article, btw.
julia

a beautiful woman who led a beautiful life.
Renee

“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak to one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”

Damn. Perfectly expressed. Josephine Baker gets added to the list of awesome women I admire. I hadn’t really known anything about her before, so this was delightful.

Can’t help but ask, based on previous Shelved Dolls articles, did she have ANY dirty secrets? Cause she sounds pretty perfect. “Fight the Nazis! Adopt a dozen children! Be a sex symbol!” What else could you want? Warrior, mother, lover, artist…damn.
…erg…

She did some great things, yes, but she also had some MAJOR personality flaws. She was also kind of batshit insane, not to mention a spoiled brat. Her kids had some major issues with her, she seemed to think of them more as a collection of symbols than actual people. She allowed people to tour the chateau and peer at them like they were animals in a zoo. She dragged a long-time friend through the mud all over the media for years because she had to wait a while for her table at his restaurant on a very busy night. I am just not a fan. I’m a fan of the good things she’s done, sure, and I’m not making light of those things, but there’s just a lot more to her as a person than this somewhat one-dimensional image.
Whitney

Hmmm…while I don’t think this essay or any of the Shelved Dolls essays are particularly well written I am glad that this one about Josephine was written. It has given me an inspiration to research more into her history.