"Pull Up to the Bumper" - Grace Jones
On Liberation
Sexism, racism, sexual repression - Grace Jones doesn’t give a shit about your discomfort.
There’s a scene in the cheesy as hell 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger fantasy film, Conan the Destroyer (which is a sequel to the equally cheesy Conan the Barbarian) where Grace Jones’ character, a spear-wielding warrior, is approached for dating advice by the virginal waif who hopes of becoming Conan’s main conquest. “How do you attract a man?” asks the inexperienced princess.
“You grab him! And take him!” Jones’ character growls.
“Grab it and take it” sums up Grace Jones’ entire philosophy. Grace Jones makes you uncomfortable. There’s her beauty and supermodel physique. But that’s not it. Your discomfort runs much deeper than any novelty like flawless skin and a symmetrical face. The uneasiness felt when in her commanding presence has roots in a society that taught us to fear powerful women, especially powerful Black women, who don’t shrink themselves to make others feel bigger. Plus, we’re unable to easily categorize Jones’ gender — or who, or how, she should be fucking. Jones provokes fear, confusion, and desire because she isn’t restricted by normative preconceptions of race or gender. It’s all up for grabbing and taking.
Then there’s the music. Her highest charting hit to date, “Pull Up to the Bumper,” is a dance club banger about anal sex.
Pull up to my bumper baby
In your long black limousine
Pull up to my bumper baby
And drive it in between
Everything that Grace Jones embodies — lust, androgyny, confidence, Blackness — all of it is designed to make white heteronormative culture squirm. That’s not to say, though, that she wasn’t still its victim.
Born in Jamaica, Jones and her siblings were raised by their grandparents while her parents sought a better life for the family in Syracuse, New York. Her step-grandfather was a strict disciplinarian and prone to physical violence when she or her brothers misbehaved. By the time she was 13, Jones’ father had found work as a Pentacostal minister in New York and brought the children to the U.S. As a teenager, Grace and her older brother Chris found solace from their conservative upbringing in gay bars. In her autobiography, Jones describes herself as embodying two genders, and that her presentation is the mirror opposite of her brother. She is as masculine as he is feminine. “He played the organ at church, and I would call him ‘church gay,’ or perhaps it should be ‘church feminine.’” she wrote.” I think of Prince that way. A whole new gender really.”
After college, Jones moved to Paris to become a fashion model. She was quickly discovered and booked for runway shows by Yves St. Laurent and appeared in Vogue and Elle magazines. With a burgeoning modeling career, she moved to New York City and became a fixture at Studio 54, often seen partying with celebrities like Andy Warhol and David Bowie. Entrenched in the disco scene of the ‘70s, Jones was offered a record deal to make a dance album. Because of her overtly sexual live performances and androgynous appearance, her first several albums solidified her as a gay icon.
According to Pitchfork, these albums "were fun but somewhat facile, cover-filled reflections of the druggy hedonism of the disco era." T. Cole Rachel writes: "For someone whose very image was seen as somehow deeply transgressive, Jones' music had not yet caught up."
By 1980, the anti-disco backlash was forcing artists to find a new sound. With the help of Island Records, Jones forged a new sound that fused her deadpan vocals with reggae, funk, and new-wave. With a newly coiffed flat-top haircut and powersuit, Jones’ next two albums, 1980’s Warm Leatherette and 1981’s Nightclubbing, would shape the aesthetic and sound for the rest of the decade. No thanks to MTV, though. The fledgling station notoriously underrepresented Black artists in its first few years on the air and even though “Pull Up to the Bumper” was a hit in the U.S. (peaking at No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs) the video wasn’t prominently featured. By 1982, white acts like Eurythmics and Duran Duran, clearly inspired by Jones’ sound and aesthetic, were in constant rotation on the channel. Jones wouldn’t find mainstream appeal on MTV until 1985 with the compilation album Island Life, featuring a re-release of “Pull Up to the Bumper.” Eventually, she would be nominated for an MTV Award in 1986 for her hit, “Slave to the Rhythm.”
Grace Jones had found — or grabbed — her place in the mainstream by the mid-1980s and film was her next conquest. She played several “fuck around and find out” roles including her warrior character, Zula, in Conan the Destroyer. She also made history as the first Black Bond girl in A View to a Kill, where she played May Day, a villain turned lover who sacrifices herself to save Roger Moore’s James Bond from an evil Christopher Walken.
Discussing feminism in relation to the James Bond franchise is a fruitless endeavor, but it is notable that Jones plays the first woman to match Bond’s overt sexuality and physical strength. According to the blog, Girls Do Film, “The film’s tagline: ‘Has James Bond finally met his match?’ The short answer is yes. Jones threatened Bond’s masculinity and was – without doubt – one of the physically strongest characters. Compared to Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) she is hyper-masculine yet androgynous and dangerously sexual: an unknown entity in a man’s world.”
Being portrayed in film and in the media as the “strong, angry Black woman” is a racist trope (that still plagues American culture today) but Jones would manipulate this persona to disrupt the establishment. After a particularly condescending interview in 1980, Jones famously slapped interviewer Russel Harty on live television.
She recounts the moment in her memoir: “We rehearsed the show in some detail; the three of us (Jones, Harty and another guest) politely sat all facing each other in a semi-circle. There didn’t seem to be anything to worry about…On the live show, it was all very different. Harty was rude. I wasn’t going to put up with it.” I lashed out on live television. It takes balls to do that, which could be seen as a little crazy. And then they tried to get me back on the show! The ratings soared. I had done him a favor. They wanted a rematch. It was all so tacky.”
The “aggressive” label would continue to follow her. Five years after the incident, she was asked by a New Zealand television host if he should be “worried about interviewing her” because of her reputation, as if she had no other accolades or interview experiences in those five years. Jones responds:
Jones: “Is that all I’ve got to me credit?”
Interviewer: “But you come across as an aggressive lady. Is that the case?”
Jones: “I think being aggressive in a positive way is very good and it protects me as well. It puts everyone on their guard to be nice to me.”
Grace Jones spent her entire career “grabbing and taking” the right to operate outside of normative notions of race and gender and that influence is embedded into the confidence of every pop diva who followed. She growled so that Nikki Minaj and Lady Gaga could scream today. In her 2015 autobiography, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Jones said she declines most offers to collaborate with younger artists due to their lack of originality.
“Trends come along now and people say, ‘Follow that trend.’ Even if it was a trend you might have set in motion 30 years ago, and you don't really want to do it all over again," Jones wrote. ‘Be like Rihanna. Be like Lady Gaga. Be like Sia.’ I cannot be like them, except to the extent that they are already being like me."
Jones, however, did make an exception in 2022 when she appeared on Beyonce’s Renaissance album on the track, “Move.” The album was an homage to the "fallen angels" of club culture (and specifically honors Bey’s late gay uncle Jonny). Renaissance understood the assignment by paying tribute to the lost heroes of ‘80’s and ‘90’s queer culture and to Jones as an originator of New York’s club scene. The first line of “Move” sums up the lesson that Grace Jones has taught a generation of women and queer artists.
Move out the way! I’m with my girls and we all need space
When the queens come through, part like the Red Sea
To celebrate Grace Jones is to celebrate everything that wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t done it first. She claimed space that wasn’t designed for her by mainstream culture and liberated others. Black, queer, gender fluid - “grab and take” up space too.
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It’s so easy when know the rules. It’s so easy, all you have to do is…
Name the famous film that Grace Jones turned down:
A) Bladerunner
B) Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
C) Robocop
D) Dune
(Scroll to the bottom for the answer.)
And you’re a material girl.
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Quiz Answer: A - Blade Runner. Jones turned down the role of Zhora and later regretted it.
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Terrific bio, Jami! I never really followed Grace's career, except from "afar," never having had any of her records. In "the biz" as I was, with her career paralleling, I kept up, though! I had no idea (fellow Houstonian) Bey collabbed with her! Good on her! I gotta think Grace was a style influence (if not musical...which would be certainly likely) on Queen Bey...we love seeing this century's artists reaching back into previous centuries (!!) for inspiration, respect, and collabs! Next for Bey.....a Bond movie!
Well! Who knew how many songs out there were actually about anal sex?? You're doing the Lord's work.