blg post about anaconda video. the boringest thing that a woman can be is sexy. i don’t say this as a gay man, and I don’t say it as a prude, though I’ve been accused of being both. I say it as a person who for most of his life has been shown women in entertainment being sex objects. this is what the world has been conditioned to expect of women in a video. it’s like seeing jack nicholson grin in a pair of sunglasses. whether it’s on her own terms or the terms of some male exec, the fact is that minaj in her video is giving the market what it demands. the market for female music artists demands they be sexy if they want to sell records. it doesn’t demand that they hold their own behind a mic with the likes of kanye west and jay z. but that’s what minaj can do. no it’s not all she can do but it’s what maybe only she can do. rather than remind a public in maybe constant need of reminding about it, she’s instead, she’s rubbing her whole ass on drake of all people while rapping half-assedly along with a novelty hiphop footnote from my high school days. for whom is this any kind of victory?
(also quote this problematic part of the bitch article: “There are questions and criticisms that the video was shot, directed, and produced by men to satisfy the male gaze, to further perpetuate the commodification of another black female body. But this condemnation ignores and silences Minaj’s voice and ability to make decisions about her own representations as an artist and a business person.”) http://bitchmagazine.org/post/nicki-minajs-unapologetic-sexuality-anaconda-video-feminism (also wrestle with this bit from grantland: ” Cutting up a metaphorical dick onscreen makes it even more clear that the “Anaconda” video is about Nicki asserting her power, not as a sexual object but a sexual subject.”) http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/nicki-minaj-reclaims-the-twerk-in-the-anaconda-music-video/