“The tropes and stereotypes of Black women - there’s about 4, 5, or 6. These tropes always come up in art & film, television depictions. A lot of times they’re detrimental…The first one: Mammy. The Mammy trope has roots all the way back to slavery. They are usually heavy-set, matriarchal, jovial, Big Momma, subservient, almost like maids, dark skinned, motherly, self-less, always trying to do everything for everybody, homely, asexual, not sexy. That’s the external idea of a Mammy. The internal is ‘I’m selfless’. Gotta do everything for my husband. Everything for my kids. Everything for massa. Everything is about pleasing other people. Another one is: Jezebel. So Jezebel is sexy. The woman who is the nemesis of respectability politics. The nemesis of a 'good woman’. Good, wholesome woman. The opposite. She’s the ho. She has no morals. She’s the oversexualized woman. She’s got the sexy coke bottle figure. She’s promiscuous. The bitch you don’t want around your husband. This is the one your mama taught you about. Them women! Them street walkers. Them sex workers. Them women that be in the church trying to sleep with your husband. Then we have the Queen. There’s a positive and negative to Queen. The negative is more of the side of 'Welfare Queen’ - They live by themselves. They are lazy. They live on the government. They are just breeders. They just have babies. Just having babies to file for them. The positive Queen is the motherfuckin Erkyah Badus. The Jill Scotts. She got her hair natural. She’s pro-patriarchy. She knows her place as a woman is to serve her Kang! She’s the ultimate Pickme. She knows her place as a woman is under a man. It’s that good, respectable, 'Mammy’ too, but she’s a 'woke’ Queen. She looks like she smells like Shea Butter, sage and soul food…They are like the Hotep niggas. They are usually 'sexy’ because they are under the male gaze. The last one and why it’s relative to Pose is - The Sapphire. The Sapphire is feisty, masculine in a feminine way, castrating. She’s the type of woman who always looks down on men. She always has something smart to say. She don’t take no shit. 'Oh honey, you ain’t gonna do that to me!’ That feisty Black best friend. She will fight. Candy on Pose was The Sapphire of the show. She was the main Sapphire. Usually when we have a conversation about colorism,your proximity to whiteness means you are more 'feminine’ when it comes to female’s tropes…A lot of times, back in the day, even to this day, clearly to this day because of Pose, the softer, more feminine girls, typically light skinned are gonna be given this imminent image of femininity and softness, and the darker girls are gonna get the harsher Sapphire type of images….Look at Pose. Who of the girls has the harsher personalities and images? Candy & Electra! They are the darkest girls of the show. Electra’s outward appearance is refined. She puts on airs of this 'active refinement’. Just as soon as Candy pulled a knife, she pulled a blade. She’s very heartless and feisty as well. Electra isn’t soft as far as her personality. Her outside is. She got the furs and stuff! Saaphires are villains. They are depicted as the bad ones. I think because the creators and writers of Pose thought that positioning one of the darker girls - Electra as one of the pinnacle beauties was enough to balance that colorism thing! But when it came to personality and character arc, they failed because they went back into those same level tropes. The lighter girls are made to be soft and more 'considerate’.. Candy had to be the one who was a catalyst to die and teach everyone a lesson. That goes back to the social norm that Black women have to be the mules of social change.”
