Karrine Steffans - Confessions of a Video Vixen (Amistad, 2005)

by
1 February 2006

Coming down from an exuberant high after finishing NICOLE RITCHIE’s The Truth About Diamonds, I found myself in search of another fun and trashy read. [You are quickly becoming our ‘trash’ expert! -ed.] Enter Confessions of a Video Vixen, by KARRINE STEFFANS. Serving as one of the least enlightening books of the new millennium, Steffans literally kisses (to put it lightly) and tells her way through her life, one wrought with violence and trouble and presents the text as a “cautionary tale.” The ultimate question after finishing the book: Has she truly “made it,” as she enthusiastically addresses her son in the introduction, or is she just rehashing and exploiting the horrors she has endured in order to gain exposure? The main fault of this book is that it continually flits between two realms, one being a warning story for young women today, and the other being a steamy tell-all. Steffans is incapable of settling on which point she wants to make.

For those of you who have never heard of Karrine Steffans (and I’m guessing that’s the majority of BT readers), she was known in some circles as one of pioneer rapper KOOL G RAP’s wives, in some as a popular late-90’s hip-hop video girl, and in others as “Superhead.” I’ll let you think about that last one.

The book is very pulpy and doesn’t have much more substance then vaguely speeding through her abusive childhood, her troubled marriage, her career, and the aftermath. Along the way, she is helped by and hooked-up with many famous men in the music and entertainment industries, and someone better get a mop because Steffans’ name-dropping is out of control. She discusses JA RULE’s sexual prowess for “multiple positions,” how awkward it is to shag DR. DRE, and JAY-Z’s talent for getting his video girls to initiate fellatio. Wow.

It’s funny at first, but the endless stream of ‘juicy’ details gets excessive. It leaves the reader wondering if it’s true, and how she got the permission of her plethora of big-named lovers in order to publish the information. I mean, a lot of these details are humiliating. Moreover, these excerpts leave the reader questioning to what degree any of this matters, and whether it’s worth it to read the next chapter. Now, I’m no nun. People can do what they want, when they want, and tell whoever they want all about it. But there is something distinctively passe and simultaneously preposterous about Steffans’ sexcapades memoir which makes it near-abominable.

That’s because for a memoir, Confessions leaves much to be desired. Believe it or not, it actually does get pretty boring reading about Steffans’ sexual exploits. By the time she was onto Shaquille O’Neil, I was yawning my way through the damn thing. I guess with a title like Confessions of a Video Vixen, I didn’t go into this expecting Eleanor Roosevelt-caliber stuff. But I found that although she wants to make a lesson of sorts of her life, its difficult to locate the fundamental lesson the reader is supposed to learn. And while I am a proponent of ‘to each their own,’ from a critic’s perspective she sort of deserves some flak. Instead of appearing to be ‘over’ her slutty phase of sleeping her way around Hollywood, Steffans has a tendency to glorify it in her writing, even to this day. She romanticizes many trysts she has with these men, and even the reader can detach themselves and smirk while she seems incapable of seeing her behavior for what it is. Essentially, she sleeps around, acts trashy, and has most of her sex partners pay her bills.

The book is a risque read, yet it’s somewhat embarrassing because Steffans comes across in many portions of the text like a fool. She fails to display any signs of emancipation or independent womanhood until the end of the book, which, I guess, would chronologically leave her at 8 months ago. And even then, she only achieves stability through the financial charities of multiple men, offerings which are instigated by sexual favors given by Steffans. Role model alert! Frankly, instead of the typical sex-for-female-independence narrative, Steffans gives us the sex-for-attention-starved-emotionally-scarred woman, and tries to label it as the former. It’s sad, and it doesn’t work.

This sort of content makes the reader wonder—does Steffans really regret what she has done? Or are the endless name-droppings and Steffans’ self-endorsements of her exploits in the bedroom a sign of remorse or boast? Certainly, at points she makes it clear that she has made mistakes (like an early marriage, and initial abandonment of her son), and at times she brings up situations of intense personal pain (such as her own childhood rape experience) about which she is clearly not smiling. Still, if her intentions are as she claims, and she wants her readers to know that “there are other directions to take. There are always better choices,” then why did she choose to include such a surplus of sultry details for this book? The inconsistencies make Confessions seem like a fiction written by a horny 17-year old schoolkid fantasizing about her favorite rappers.

My opinion? If you want a poorly written, easy read that at times is pretty much a soft-core porn novella, then go ahead and read it. I enjoyed Confessions once I had adjusted to laughing through even the sincere parts. However, if you are expecting something special from this book apart from the gross details about FRED DURST’s nether-regions, think again.

Filed under hip hop biography