The Spice Girls are reforming — well at least three out of the original five “Girl Power” pop dynamos. Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, and Geri Halliwell have just announced they will return as GEM (the announcement coincided with the twentieth anniversary of their first single “Wannabe”).
But some people out there aren’t happy by the news — and we’re not talking about the absence of Victoria Beckham, now a successful fashionista, and Melanie Chisholm who is reputed to be toiling on a solo album.
During their original time at the top, the Spice Girls were often referred to by their nicknames (Posh Spice, Sporty Spice, Ginger Spice, Baby Spice, and Scary Spice) and the present unrest refers to the latter’s moniker.
Some SJWs now feel it is racist that Melanie Brown — aka Mel B who has recently been a judge on America’s Got Talent — is called Scary Spice on the grounds that she is black.
Isn’t it a bit racist that they called the only black girl ‘Scary Spice’?
— Rob Yeo (@robjyeo) July 1, 2016
Imagine thinking Britain isn’t racist. Sadly, we are. The one black member of the Spice Girls was called Scary for fucks sake.
— Tom Gordon (@GoonerGordo) June 26, 2016
in retrospect, nicknaming the only black member of the spice girls ‘scary’ was a bit racist wasn’t it
— richard pj lambert (@auspices) June 22, 2016
The nicknames were actually coined by Top of the Pops magazine in 1996 before being enthusiastically adopted by the group, the media and the world at large.
Peter Loraine, then Top of the Pops Editor, recently recalled: “We laughed the most when we came up with Scary… Mel B was so loud and had tried to take over our whole photo shoot.”
Discord over the nickname Scary Spice, which has always existed in certain quarters, has recently escalated on social media in the run-up to the group’s semi-reformation.
Whoa.
Hold up.I know I’m a little late with this question, but is it racist that Scary Spice was black?
— Richard Ilie (@RichardIlie) July 6, 2016
Even though SJWs don’t think it’s a laughing matter, Mel B herself doesn’t seem to have a problem with the term.
She recently said: “I’m still Scary Spice. It was because I was very opinionated and people perceive that as being a bit scary. But these days women who have opinions speak up – they know what they want.”
She’s not feeling remotely awkward about the nickname, then. But perhaps Mel B and the other Spice Girls should address that Spice World movie.
