Lessons from Whitney
Whitney Houston saved so many of us, but I think we killed her. Or, more politely put, we wrung her dry — squeezing out every last bit of her once-in-a-century talent for ourselves. Then we expected her to always conjure up more magic from whatever secret fountain she alone had access to. Without a break. Without a thank you.
Black girls must die exhausted. That’s the phrase — made popular by a recent bestseller — that played on repeat in my head while watching the new Houston biopic, “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring British actress Naomi Ackie.
The movie itself isn’t very good. It’s more of a YouTube mash-up of the icon’s greatest hits stitched together with ripped-from-the-headlines moments. But the idea that mainstream success not only cannot save a woman of color but will actually kill her in the end stuck with me long after the final scene depicting one of Houston’s (anyone’s) greatest vocal performances.
What the singer represented at her zenith — a voice that lit you on fire, a face made for magazine covers, a crossover image so powerful it was undeniable — was its own powerful pill. A body-numbing antidote to a seemingly never-ending Cold War, war on poverty and war on drugs. I know because I was practically addicted to her myself.
As a latchkey kid growing up in a majority-White town during the Reagan era, the “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” singer was like a talisman to me. If I ever felt out of place, unpretty, unseen, I could always hum a Houston tune and know that I was none of those things. There was a Whitney Houston out there in the world. She was perfect and acceptable, so we could be too.
She was the kind of Black performer the Girl Scout moms in our conservative Christian town could get behind. Everyone loved her. No one could deny her. So when my mother decided I should sing “Greatest Love of All” for the annual Rotary Club talent show, 8-year-old me was beyond geeked. The plan was to belt out the lyrics — No matter what they take from me/ They can’t take away my dignity — and blow minds. That night I took home third place, in an emerald-green taffeta gown with sleeves as puffed up as my pride. I used her, too.
Pitchy I may have been, but channeling Whitney’s perfection for those three minutes onstage in an elementary school auditorium filled with faces that didn’t look like mine was enough to get me through the next few years of forced selfdoubt. She filled me up. Meanwhile, the music industry, the pop-culture peanut gallery and Houston’s rocky private life were pulling her down.
Houston’s brand of perfectionism and exceptionalism was critical to her success, acting as a sort of cape for her (and for fans like me) until the weight of doing the impossible proved to be just that. She died in 2012 by accidental drowning at the Beverly Hilton hotel hours before a planned performance at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy party.
In one of the most contemplative scenes of the film, Houston is trying to make a comeback after another stint in rehab. She sits alone in front of a bathroom mirror, singing the melody of “Home” to herself in the hopes of reigniting the Voice. It’s not going to happen. The audience knows it, and on some level so does she. But the struggle, the longing for what once was, is quietly heartbreaking as the water for the bath runs in the background.
“Yes, I’m exhausted,” Houston tells her guru, Clyde, earlier in the film. “All Black women are exhausted.” There were more than a few whispered amens in the theater after that line. The movie finally put a period on a point that too many Black women already know. If Houston couldn’t navigate the mainstream, could any of us?
“If you never get a vacation, you’ll find a way to take one,” she says in the film, rationalizing her addictions. More ummhmms followed.
Carrying elections, entire political movements and industries across the finish line is superhero work. Imbuing little Black girls you’ll never meet with confidence is a yeoman’s effort that for too long required sacrifices and a sort of sectioning off of one’s identity. Just ask Michelle Obama. Too bad we can no longer ask Houston, whose legacy (beyond the Voice) might be a lesson in taking back what they don’t want to give up — yourself.