Generational Blooper of Black Girlhood
Chloe x Halle
This piece was originally written & published under an earlier project, maybe to be revived/refurnished, entitled Disturbance E-Mag. This piece was published on February 20th, 2022. As such, all ages & timelines reflect the year the piece was written.
Also, I am trying something new & have made the pieces of writing on this publication free. Additional offerings created from the things that I gather related to the subject of the piece are still only available to paid subscribers. If there is a paywall on the piece, it pertains only to the additional offering (more to come on this soon). Free subscribers may now read the pieces in full. Click to here view our archive & catch up pieces you previously did not have access to.
However, I am still a Southern Black Woman crafting a wayward, vernacular, assemblage to call my life and that alone is more than enough reason to financially support the journey. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to further support the unruly path I am charting. To read more about why you should consider becoming a paid subscriber click here.
Chloe Baily, known as a solo act as Chlöe, 23 is making a name for herself for the first time since her best friend entered the world. The best friend being, her younger sister Halle Bailey, 21. Together they form the well-known Grammy-nominated creative musical duo Chloe x Halle. On January 19th, 2021, while the United States of America was getting ready to usher in a new Presidency, the Bailey sisters were hoping to begin a new chapter in their lives as well. However, the internet used this to further separate the sister’s identity in a myriad of problematic ways.
The Bailey sisters launched their separate Instagram Accounts to share their individual lives, interests, and creative outlets with the world. Halle chooses to express herself in what many may call “natural environments”. Specifically, in nature, minimum makeup, working out, and dolled-up photos throughout her Instagram feed.
While her sister, Chlöe, chooses to express herself through a myriad of creative photoshoots, dance videos, and fashion. The similarity between the two is their unconditional love and support for each other as well as their music.
Halle commonly receives comments calling her angel or natural beauty. While Chlöe receives comments referring to her body. Or more specifically, the dismemberment of her body by focusing on only parts of it. Chlöe first broke the internet with the posting of her Buss it Challenge, followed by a celebratory dance video for reaching 1 million followers. Before posting, what would soon become controversial, a video of her using palo santo to cleanse her room.
The video, posted on January 30th, 2021, featured Chlöe in a t-shirt and cheeky panties joyfully dancing around her room. The response from the internet was brutally scrutinizing Bailey choosing to reveal her body in this way.
The scrutiny brought Chlöe to tears and prompted her to respond to the hate by going live on Instagram. Chloe felt the pressure to provide a narrative of substance to the internet, of her self-love journey in order to justify her self-expression.
She discusses how she has been “really insecure for a long time” and how she is “finally at a place where I have self-confidence,” said Chlöe while wiping away tears.
A crucial part of Chlöe reaching a moment where she felt she could fully embody her own body is through dancing. By allowing her body to move freely in the space she chooses to occupy Chlöe empowers herself.
“I do it musically with my songwriting, with my producing, I feel so badass. And I get the same feeling when I dance in my room, just own who I am and my body,” said Chlöe.
Chlöe goes on to admit that this present moment of her life is pivotal. It is a pivotal moment because she has come to the realization that there is a power in possessing the freedom of your own body. As well as the freedom to possess the representation of your own body.
“It’s a pivotal time for me. I’m just now learning at 22 almost 23 that it’s okay to be all that you are and to stand in that power,” said Chlöe.
The photographic portrait of Sojourner Truth taken by an unknown photographer in 1864 comes to mind. This portrait comes to mind specifically when thinking about self-representation of the Black Woman’s body. Truth has chosen to portray herself in a seated position which shrinks her tall stature. Additionally, her left arm is seen leaning on a table with a vase of flowers and holding the yarn she is knitting. One could say, that her left arm seems to be supporting herself as she gazes into the lens of the camera in a pristine dress and white shawl and hat set. Furthermore, Truth’s right arm seems to be guarding her mid-section. Truth has presented a demure, tightly put-together image, of a free Black Woman in America. At the bottom of the portrait, Truth chose the words I sell the shadow to support the substance.
Why has it taken a little over two decades, for a young Black woman from Atlanta, Georgia, to become comfortable in standing in the power that is her body and the self-representation of it? This question is essential to learning more about Chlöe’s image especially because it did not appear from thin air. While Chlöe is currently occupying her pivotal moment luring in men and turning them into stone (per her Have Mercy Video), this magic has existed within her from a young age.
“Ever since I was a little girl since I was 4, I’d be shaking my butt in front of the tv, watching my idol Beyoncé. So it’s just always been a part of me, and I think you all are just now seeing it,” said Chlöe.
Why is it not until 2021 that we are seeing it? The answer can be found in a video uploaded to Chloe x Halle’s YouTube channel on September 1st, 2013. The video is entitled “Cover Bloopers- Funny Moments with Chloe X Halle”. The Bailey sisters started posting covers of songs on YouTube nearly 10 years ago! The first cover video was a cover of Best Thing I Never Had by then-idol and now mentor Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
The four-minute and 10-second video appears to at first be filled with truly hilarious bloopers of the sisters forgetting words, joking around when recording, and in true sisterly fashion getting annoyed with each other. However, the funny moments were sharply interrupted by their mother, Courtney Bailey, at 3 minutes 35 seconds.
“I want you to take that off and I don’t want that on camera. It makes you look grown. Go put on something else. Can you just put on a regular T-shirt? It looks like you're trying too hard, that’s my thing,” says Courtney.
Chlöe was not in possession or control of her own shadow. The shadow being the physical body, image, and reproduction of self-image. While in contrast, the substance can be in relation to nonphysical attributes that contribute to a full loving life.
Nell Irvin Painter, retired Princeton University Edwards Professor of American History Emerita, breaks down what Truth’s name means in Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol on page 75.
“On one level, Sojourner Truth means itinerant preacher, for a sojourner is someone not at home, and truth is what preachers impart,” said Painter.
Truth was always in search of a home for herself and her family once she attained freedom. Furthermore, Truth used the profits from her portrait to support her speaking tours. This desire, as well as her faith, generosity, and who she was as a person can be attributed to the substance that is Sojourner Truth.
Although Truth has chosen to present the image of a free Black woman in America as demure and tightly put together, her right hand gives a glimpse into a different symbol. While her left arm is leaning on the table, her right hand stiffly holds a knitting needle. The needle has white yarn racing in a river down the neatly pressed pleats of her dress.
What appears to be a put-together, neat, guarded image is Truth supporting the substance of her self, humanity, and soul (left hand on the table) through desperate sacrifice. Truth is desperately making the sacrifice of knitting together the racing river of white yarn into a united item of substance. Much like the Union was doing during the Civil War in 1864 and what The United States of America has been attempting to do ever since.
The substance of Chlöe is in sharing the confidence and pride she feels in seeing that “a Black woman can be strong and stand in her power in every single way”, she told her fans via Instagram Live.
What appeared as a funny blooper in a series of moments in a video, is unfortunately an untentional blooper that appears in all young Black girls’ lives. One moment you are 13 and 11-year-old kids, and then you are forced to change your shirt because you are too grown. The shock, and quite frankly the trauma, that comes from being forced to straddle the line of existing in both girlhood and womanhood simultaneously is tumultuous. This tumultuous confusion can be seen on then 13-year-old Chloe’s as she listens to her mother. Her smile and excitement to be emulating her idol disappear from her face as her mouth stays ajar in the air. Not yet aware of the words needed to express the confusion and hurt.
Because Chloe is at the forefront of the video, dressed in a green off-the-shoulder top with ruffles, it is fair for one to assume that her mother is speaking only to her. However, when Courtney uses the words too grown and trying too hard, in the foreground Halle holds her hands rigidly as she looks to the side in confusion. Before looking down at her own square neckline tank top, over her 11-year-old chest, and starts to ponder her mother’s words. Whether these words were directed to her or not, they are said in her presence, and therefore they are the catalyst for future actions and beliefs about the Black woman’s body.
“I don’t want that on camera”, said Courtney Bailey.
Halle looks down questioning what about her body, about her shadow, is not supposed to be captured by the camera.
The last frame of this confrontation is a still of Chloe and Halle, gazing straight into the lens of the camera, mouths sealed shut, shoulders facing forward, jaws locked, and both wearing different shirts. However, from the smiles plastered on the Bailey sisters faces on the official cover of Best Thing I Never Had, one would never be able to guess that their girlhood was questioned leaving them perplexed.
The word both is emphasized because while the internet has tried to create two vastly different archetypes for the two Bailey sisters, this image tells the true story. The same thing that has always been a part of Chloe, sensuality, exists within Halle too.
These four images encapsulate the generational blooper of shaming and hyper-sexualizing of black girls bodies. Courtney Bailey initiated the verbiage, Chloe is impacted first as the older sibling, and Halle watches her sister’s reaction to learn that something about her body is also not meant to be captured.
Halle is made into the ethereal angel-like little sister while Chloe struggles to find her footing after the rug was pulled from underneath her by her own mother. They both suffer by not fully being able to possess their shadow by filling it with the substance that makes them uniquely them.
Halle receives criticism for posting pictures displaying skin because they don’t fit the public’s perception of her angelic sensibilities. While Chlöe is criticized for always “doing too much”. The same exact three words her mother told her at just 13 years old making a cover by her idol. These three words would go on to make 21-year-old Chlöe admit via Instagram Live the difficulty of finding beautiful sensuality in her body.
“It’s really hard to think of myself as a sexual being or an attractive being quite frankly,” said Chlöe.
While Truth presented a neat constricted image of a free Black Woman in America in 1864, I wonder if in 2022, is it possible for a free Black Woman in America to be free if she is not put together? If she is not guarding her midsection, constantly looking down at her shadow, and is forced to knit the fluidity of her substance into stone to be worthy of full complex humanity?
We are just seeing this part of Chlöe and Halle because they are both in possession of their shadow and substance for the first time. A blooper is a mistake typically edited out of the final form of a project. We as a society can no longer afford the flattening of Black girls and Black women’s sensuality to be a blooper. What’s at stake is the loss of the fluid river of yarn in what would otherwise be a pristine and stoic picture of Sojourner Truth. In other words, the fluidity that comes from being a fully rationalized human being.
Black women could potentially lose the power to move freely in the world by bringing stillness to it. Instead, the modern-day Medusa is at risk of turning their own fluid, powerful bodies and hearts into stone. The substance dissipates into the separate shadow that has been forcibly created by society. Ideally, the goal is for the substance and shadow to merge softly giving Black women full autonomy of being a whole human. So that there is no choice, shadow or substance, of which to sell; rather just the choice of authentic self-expression.