Scandalous Music by Black Men for Black Women

• In Event: Wench: The Male Characterization of Black Womanhood in Popular Culture

Abstract

The musical patterns and soundscape established firmly in the first three seasons of Scandal are inextricable from the persona, wardrobe, hair, and dialogue that constitute the lead character Olivia Pope. Olivia’s serial soundtrack is rendered by sensual and confident Black men who are soul singer-songwriters of the 1960’s and 1970s. Of the fifteen vocal music songs featured in season one, Black men wrote fourteen of them and thirteen featured Black men singing lead vocals. The prominence of Black men as both songwriters and vocalists yields a distinct sonic identity that not only highlights a masculine voice, but masculine ideas, thoughts, and expression through original lyrics that viewers can associate with the primary woman character. The figure of the unrepentantly expressive, political and socially conscious, sexual, and affectionate Black male is not present within the primary cast, but this type of black masculinity finds its way into the production through the music. The sounds and lyrics of Black men about Black women and for Black women, work both to serve and developed the primary character, Olivia Pope. Most of the songs were prominent throughout the 1970s when Olivia Pope would have been born. In the Scandal soundtracks we hear the music of James Brown, The O’Jays, Ohio Players, The Isley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, and Otis Redding to name a few. Soul and funk music help to create the affect surrounding Olivia’s identity as an intelligent leader who can masterfully find solutions through political improvisation. I argue that this performative gesture is produced on Scandal, in part, by consistent presence of soul and funk music by Black male vocalists and musicians who serve the dominant female intellectual character toward expanded notions of Black female sexual expression in ways that undermine the masculine-feminine binary.

Author

• Anndretta Lyle Wilson, University of California, Los Angeles