The famous hip hop star Nicki Minaj seems to have caused one of the most recent controversies by releasing her new single Anaconda. The cover art displays the rapper’s bare bum. The video features Nicki and her back up dancers idolizing their bodies by twerking and preforming sexual actions for the whole world to see. Nicki Minaj has successfully changed her reputation into a sex image by: having way too much exposed skin, dancing inappropriately, spraying whipped cream on her chest, eating
bananas sexually, and giving Drake a lap dance.
Besides her actions in the video the lyrics are hard to digest as well. It seems that in this society, it is acceptable to have women or men sexualizing themselves in their provocative ways or forms. Lately artists appear to be competing for attention by wearing less clothing and to simply act sexy.
Another popular trend in controversial music videos is to have the other back up dancers basically grope the artist. The whole video was just so wrong in many ways. From twerking, to her sexual actions Nicki manages to shock the world once again. Another issue with the song are the bizarre lyrics. The striking lines, “Real country ass nigga, let me play with his rifle. Pussy put his ass to sleep, now he calling me NyQuil” is practically screaming sex.
Meg, I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that sexual promiscuity is too often intermixed with music videos produced by major artists... that actually have talent. Although artists have free will to create whatever they please, it would be nice if they considered the effects of producing explicit content, considering that many artists have a younger audience as well.
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ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that women in media are often using their sexuality to create shock and controversy and therefore bring more attention to their work, I think this video has an underlying message. In her video, Minaj makes fun of the "sexy french maid" cliché as well as the images of women spraying themselves with whipped cream and "seductively" eating fruit. If you watch this part of the video, you can see her playing along at first, but later she contorts her face in disgust then chops and discards a banana. This is no doubt a metaphor for something less family friendly. I believe she is making fun of this, as well as the idea that women are used as sexual objects for the pleasure of men. Similarly, in the scenes with Drake I believe she is taking ownership over her own sexuality and empowering herself. You can see her sort of teasing Drake, dancing on him and making him a sexual object. Not only this, but when he tries to touch her, she smacks his hand away. This is showing that she is in control, and that he can't do anything she doesn't want him to. This is placing a woman in a position of sexual power and dominance over a man, something we rarely see in mainstream media these days. So while I agree with some of your argument, I think that this video is largely breaking stereotypes and empowering women.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bonnie, and though I also think that the media is hugely oversexualized in general, it is really nice to see a woman feeling empowered over her sexuality, as opposed to being used as the sexual object. While I think it is not okay for billboards and commercials and tv to portray women as objects, or as just a body, I do think it is empowering, and important to see a woman who is dressing in a very "sexy" manner, but for her own sake and not a man's. I think that Minaj is doing a very decent job of showing that men don't have all the power, and though I personally don't favor her music (my own music taste), I do believe in what she's doing, and what she stands for.
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