Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image

by Bennetta Jules-Rosette

Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was a dancer, singer, actress, author, politician, militant, and philanthropist, whose images and cultural legacy have survived beyond the hundredth anniversary of her birth. Neither an exercise in postmodern deconstruction nor simple biography, Josephine Baker in Art and Life presents a critical cultural study of the life and art of the Franco-American performer whose appearances as the savage dancer Fatou shocked the world. Although the study remains firmly anchored in Josephine Baker’s life and times, presenting and challenging carefully researched biographical facts, it also offers in-depth analyses of the images that she constructed and advanced. Bennetta Jules-Rosette explores Baker’s far-ranging and dynamic career from a sociological and cultural perspective, using the tools of sociosemiotics to excavate the narratives, images, and representations that trace the story of her life and fit together as a cultural production.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

392 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Victoria Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure when I first read the Foreword: "A Luminous Humanism," by Simon Njami in Bennetta Jules-Rosette's book "Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image" whether I'd learn anything significant about the performer, from this book, or not. I'm happy to say that once I finished it I not only learned a lot I was also inspired. Controversial, stylish, proud and courageous the most important lesson I learned from Baker's life was how to take a painful past rife with poverty, hardship and racism and turn it around through creativity and innovation.
From a fan and fashionista's point of view the parts of the book I enjoyed the most were the ones that described her years as a performer in the 1920s and 1930s, associations with famous designers of the day and her cinematic triumphs, and from an humanitarian point of view I appreciated the trials and tribulations of her civil rights struggles. Tied together in one flawed, but phenomenal, human being this book helped me understand why Baker still captivates us to this day.

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Early on, Jules-Rosette says that this book is not a biography. Well, heck. I signed up for a biography. Instead I got this academic treatise that "offers critical reflections on the symbolic Baker and the images that she and her collaborators constructed during the era of modernity and for the post modern future." Ignoring the academic jargon, I plowed on in the hope that I would learn something about Baker. But the going was too tough for me, and I didn't get far. I didn't sign up for a university course and was in no mood to begin a study of Baker that uses "the tools of sociosemiotics to excavate the narratives, images, and representations that trace the story of her life and fit together as a cultural production" as it says on the back cover. I wish I had read that before I bought the book.

[Lindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be visiting Josephine Baker's former castle home, Les Milandes, in about a week's time, so I decided to read more about her. I selected a title from the library catalogue based on several factors: it was recently published (2007), illustrated, and written by a woman. When I had the book in my hands, I realized that it was far more scholarly than I'd expected. It required more focus than I had planned, yet I was captivated by the story of Baker's life.

Born into poverty in St. Louis in 1906, she achieved fame as an entertainer in Paris, starting in 1925. She became a French citizen, fought with the Resistance through WWII and adopted 12 multiracial children in the late 1950s. The "Rainbow Tribe" was her dream family, housed at the Chateau Les Milandes in the Dordogne. The place continues to be a tourist attraction to this day. Baker received a Legion of Honour medal in 1961.

I found that I was familiar with many of the photos; Baker wearing nothing but beads and her iconic banana skirt, in fabulous designer gowns, and seated backstage at a mirror. My favourite is of her crossdressing in a tuxedo. New to me was a 1975 image of her in a white beaded motorcycle outfit in Paris, when she rode a motorcycle onstage.

Here's a taste of the writing style: "Baker's life is a microcosm and a laboratory test case for the study of assimilation, acculturation, and identity invention." (p. 71) "Fashion allows its wearers to assume and discard virtual identities. Viewed in this way, fashion emerges as a discourse, or expressive form, independent of the codes of style, yet constantly referencing them." (p. 142) "Baker's danse sauvage and banana-skirt images are part of a colonial discourse and syndrome in which the subject is at once derided and desired. [...] Even when she had outgrown the dance, Baker was unable to abandon the cultural baggage of the banana skirt's problematic image." (p.153) In reference to a 1986 documentary film, Chasing a Rainbow: The Life of Josephine Baker: "A more detailed analysis of Baker's universal brotherhood project in relationship to similar utopian movements is necessary to contextualize this portion of the film." (p. 108) "The kernel of iterative narrtives of Baker's life remains the same but is repeated over and over in different motifs." (p. 279)

Baker is "a fascinating and ambivalent figure in feminist discourse." (p. 263) Her influence on younger black artists like Grace Jones is explored towards the end of the book. Intellectually stimulating.

[John Vettese · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light three stars. Fascinating subject with a fascinating life, and I learned a lot from it, but once again, my god, academics have no idea how to write. Glad I didn’t toss this book aside the first time the word “semiotics” appeared, but also, it was absolutely a chore to get through.

[Michèle Callard · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many biographies of Josephine out there. This is not one of them, but a study of how she fitted into her times, both as a person and as an icon. The author analyses Josephine's performances from her POV as a dancer, her song-and script-writers, her public, her fans, her detractors, the FBI and the government of the countries where she performed. Josephine was not a complicated person. Now that she has been Pantheonised, she had attained yet another dimension. If you're a fan, this book will deepen your understanding by distilling influences that would thrill Princesse Tam Tam herself with their accuracy. If you are okay with using the tools of socioemiotics to excavate narrative and images, you are in for a treat. I loved it.