50
Popular Culture Review
These vignettes can be dismissed as Goldberg performing stand-up
comedy; after all, she is a comedienne. Examined within a larger historical
context of popular culture, however, Goldberg’s literary venture begs for a more
critical review. The Black woman’s vagina was considered only for its ability to
accommodate the Black penis for breeding purposes during the slave regime and
for its availability to the White colonialist penis. In the case of Sarah Bartmann,
an African girl displayed in a cage half-naked as the Hottentot Venus in England
and Paris, the Black woman’s vagina became the site of medical curiosity by
European physicians and scientists as it was exhibited in the realm of popular
culture. Bartmann’s genitalia was prodded, probed, and ultimately dissected
upon her death as nineteenth century European anthropologists and medical
doctors scrambled to prove differences between Black and White, and, in
particular to prove ludicrous theories regarding Black women’s inherent
lasciviousness (Gilma