Talk:Jennifer Beals

Image

There has got to be a more recent image of Jennifer that we can use! Filmfluff (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

yeah we all change so much visibly in 3 years. top priority, stalkers, please get on to it. Greglocock (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistent Dates

In the lede, it says that Flashdance was a 1983 movie, but the article goes on to state that Beals deferred her education in 1987 to film Flashdance. Does anyone have the correct dates on these events? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.135.168 (talk) 20:50, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Jennifer Beals/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

==Rating== I took the chance on rating the Jennifer Beals Article. As of September 30, 2006, The article is very short and does not provide enough insight to Beals' career. It will need more information and also much work to bring it to A-Class level. On the importance: Beals has done a lot of work, but she is primarily known for Flashdance, a movie that is an icon of the 1980s in pop-culture. But, that's about as much of an influence as it gets. MID should cover this. -- TLW 06:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC) I wouldn't any longer say she's primarily known for Flashdance -- she's even more primarly known now for playing the part of Bette Porter in The L Word, which is currently in its fourth season on Showtime. Don't know what that does for the importance scale though, as that seems so highly subjective. Yksin 03:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 03:03, 24 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 19:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

African-American?

I have removed the African-American categories from the article. There was nothing in the article to indicate that she identifies or is identified as African-American. All we know is that her father is black. If we find a reliable source for this we can add them back in, of course. StAnselm (talk) 02:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

She generally identifies herself as biracial. Do we have a category for that? - BilCat (talk) 05:32, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

No we don't - I assume that's intentional, but I can't find any discussion about it. StAnselm (talk) 05:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Like I noted in a discussion that prompted this recent removal (one about Meghan Markle), we don't solely go by personal identification for "race"/ethnicity categories. It's also good to look and see how reliable sources choose to define that aspect of her. There are some sources that define her as black or allude to her being seen that way. For example, this 2010 "Biracial, and also black" CNN source (last updated in 2014) mentions Beals and notes how people who are "half" black and "half" white are commonly viewed as African American or black. This is especially the case if they "look black" or like they might be partially black. The author of the source stated, "Mostly I think we were black because it fit, because it felt right, and because racial identity as a social construction is rooted in more than the fact of one's paternity. And under the regime of the one-drop rule, I never knew there was an alternative." The source also notes how a newer generation "militantly refused to check just one box." This 2013 MadameNoire "15 Celebrities Most People Don't Know Are Black" source categorizes Beals as black. Same goes for Meghan Markle. This 2013 "10 Black Celebs Who Successfully Pass For White" Atlanta Black Star source also categorizes Beals as black. And in the case of Mariah Carey, we clearly didn't make the decision to categorize her as African American based solely on how she identifies. Sources generally treat her as an African American/black star. See Talk:Mariah Carey/Archive 13#RfC: Are "African American" categories supported by sources and policy?. In any case, Beals should at least be in Category:American people of African descent, like Meghan Markle is. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:53, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Also, she is still currently in the "African-American models" category. So someone might want to pull her from that for consistency. But, again, she should be in the "American people of African descent" category. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree about the "American people of African descent" category and have gone ahead and made the change. I did read the "Biracial, and also black" article, but I noted that it just has a picture of Beals and identifies her as biracial - no discussion and no identification of African-American. In fact, the whole point of the article was that many biracial people resist such categorization - as you point out, they "militantly refused to check just one box." So while I agree with you generally that "we don't solely go by personal identification for "race"/ethnicity categories", for biracial people we do have to take into account how they self-identify. StAnselm (talk) 04:37, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, how they self-identify should be something we ask ourselves. I'm just noting that it's not the primary factor in a number of cases on Wikipedia. For example, even before Barack Obama made it clear that he considers himself a black man, the vast majority of reliable sources were calling him "the first black President of the United States" and "the first African American President of the United States." Because of this, there is now a FAQ at the top of that article's talk page noting why Wikipedia defines him as black/African American instead of as biracial. And in the case of Halle Berry, she said she identifies as black instead of as biracial because she knew that society would see her as black. They would not look at her and think "white" or "biracial." Even if Berry identified as biracial, it's highly likely that the vast majority of reliable sources would identify her simply as black/African American. I think a bigger issue is if the subject has specifically rejected being labeled black, white, or just one half. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:37, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Update: As noted here, the "American people of African descent" category was removed per the following discussion that Marcocapelle pointed to: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 December 1#Category:American people of African descent. And yet categories such as Category:American people of Irish descent and Category:American people of German descent are still being used to categorize people. Wikipedia should be consistent on this categorization matter or not even bother. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2019 (UTC)