In Theresa White’s, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott and Nicki Minaj: Fashionistin’ Black Female Sexuality in Hip-Hop Culture – Girl Power Or Overpowered?, looks at the consequences of being a female in the hip-hop industry through an objectification lens. In particular she focuses on Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliot. They are both prominent figures in hip-hop but use their bodies and sexuality in different ways to advocate for female empowerment. In particular, Missy Elliot uses her sexuality in order to dominate; she exudes power through her music and personality that attempts to overthrow the patriarchy and promote female empowerment (White, 2013). Missy has a conscious understanding of the objectification of black women in hip-hop and I believe she chooses this unique way of marketing herself in order to have it all. She is a powerful rapper and successful business woman but also is considered a feminist pillar in the music industry.

In class, Simone Bridgewater introduced the 7 principles of music video analysis by Andrew Goodwin which outlines stereotypical music video attributes in order to better interpret what they mean contextually to society. Using the 7 principles, I analyzed a Missy Elliot video ‘Work it’, which is one of my favourite songs, it hits all the principles he proposes except for one which is female objectification. Considering she was a huge part of hip-hop taking over the music scene in the early 00’s, Missy never objectified women in her videos especially herself. In addition, she makes fun of the stereotypical hip-hop video tropes like strippers and money and includes great mostly female choreography. It is interesting that more recent hip-hop music videos are over-saturated with sexualizing all females who appear in the video and it seems Missy was a trailblazer during the height of her popularity. What’s particularly interesting in her videos are the close-ups on her face while she raps in ‘Work it’, in the goodwin principles this falls under voyeurism, but unlike objectification, it is not exploitive instead it is respectful to her artistry and displays her craft beautifully.

Ultimately it is hard to predict if the hip-hop industry will change the objectification pattern in their music videos, it is nice however to see that Missy Elliot is continuing to make music and videos in the feminist style that she is best known for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjIvu7e6Wq8

White, T. R. (2013). Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott and Nicki Minaj Fashionistin’Black Female Sexuality in Hip-Hop Culture—Girl Power or Overpowered?. Journal of Black Studies, 44(6), 607-626.

Stuart Hall poses the question “what sort of moment is this in which to pose the question of black popular culture?” in his article What is this “black” in black popular culture (Hall, 1993). He outlines the three key moments in history which lead to the formation of ‘black’ culture, which includes most notably the decolonization of the Third World and the “emergence of decolonized sensibilities” (Hall, 1993). In this it seems by disengaging with the oppressive ancestors, the “dominant culture” can appropriate the minorities’ culture  and freely engage with it to any capacity including referring to it as ‘black’ culture.

Appropriation of other cultures is far too frequently done by the “dominant culture”, by “dominant culture” I am referring to the ‘white’ culture that has been excessively used in meme culture to identify the caucasian race. There are numerous examples especially in modern cinema where racist dialogue is used in cultural exaggeration for comedic purposes; in Get Hard (2015) Will Ferrell plays a wealthy investment banker who is arrested for fraud and is sent to San Quentin prison, in order to survive he hires Kevin Hart to teach him how to “toughen up”. There are obviously multiple things wrong with this plot and most obvious is the racist perception of Ferrell’s character who assumes Hart has been to prison because of his race. The fact that this movie is a recent release is very disturbing and shows there is still a segregative force between the “dominant culture” and minorities. This movie is not used as a thinking piece to show there is racist perception dominating popular culture, in my opinion this movie is a worthless expenditure of resources and cultivates a segregative view by perpetuating the dominant culture’s opinion that a racist stereotype is representative of a whole culture.

By showcasing the racist ideologies appropriated by the “dominant culture”, it creates a dialogue that could lead to a reduction in the free engagement of appropriation by the “dominant culture”. The parodying of a culture, by the culture itself, to draw attention to overt power structures in a way that tries to dismantle the underlying assumptions of the culture may achieve some progress in creating cultural equality.

Ultimately my opinion is insignificant compared to the opinion of the culture that is affected by the segregative influence of modern cinema and the creation of ‘black’ popular culture, it is their voice that should be heard. Look at the blog Black Girl Dangerous for analysis of the multiply-marginalized experience by intersecting systems of oppression.

http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/

Hall, S. (1993). What is this” black” in black popular culture?. Social Justice, 104-114.

Reed’s chapter “The three phases of ellen: from queer to gay to postgay” in Thomas Peele’s Queer popular culture: literature, media, film and television describes the three stages in Ellen Degeneres’s career that refers to each identity: queer, gay and post-gay. In this Reed’s argument could be stereotypically reflective of the age of Degeneres at each stage. For example the queer identity infers a need to identify as an Other who doesn’t assimilate with the gay identity or the straight identity; this is analogous with the youth identity that tries to separate themselves from the child identity and the adult identity. Degeneres’s queer stage was during her early years in stand up when she was a young actor and new to the comedy scene (Peele, 2007). In her early body of work, Ellen’s sexuality was regarded differently than her peers in the industry (Peele, 2007).  Ellen was neither normalized as heterosexual or homosexual through the parts she played instead she was represented by queerness because she did not identify as part of any group (Peele, 2007).

Present time Ellen is very different from when Ellen first came out (on the scene and out to the public), Ellen is now in the post-gay stage and although it is similar to the queer stage in that it is based on de-establishing identity and not assimilating with a popular social circle, it is depoliticized compared to the queer identity. In the queer identity there is a symbolic authority to fight against but in a post-gay identity there is disinterest in politically affirmation and no interest in acknowledgement of fighting for recognition of a sexual preference.

I decided to watch the ellen show to understand the post-gay ellen that has been subtlety introduced to america over the 12 years it’s been on the air. I noticed that Ellen showcases herself as more of a funny sexually ambiguous friend to the seemingly mostly seterotypically homophobic audience. Perhaps this is why she assimilates post-gay culture in order to have it all: she understand her true identity which she keeps to herself and can still associate with each audience member due to her post-gay/post-sexuality status.

Peele, T. (2007). Queer popular culture: literature, media, film, and television. Palgrave Macmillan.

In Tofoletti’s, Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body, the Barbie doll is analyzed for her plastic and sexist oppressed form in feminist culture and Tofoletti portrays the importance of Barbie in an interesting light. Tofoletti suggests that Barbie should not be taken as a object of ideal womanhood that should be berated and rejected by feminist theorists, it should be used as “a tool to think through the transformation of bodies and identity in a trans state after the orgy of liberation” (Tofoletti, 2007). In this she poses the idea that Barbie is an intermediate form; she is a “transformer” that is in flux between illusion and reality (Tofoletti, 2007). Meaning one can never take what Barbie is as a real person with real body proportions and real work ethic (she cannot be both pilot and doctor at the same time there isn’t enough time in a day!) instead she should be taken as an illusion of what is thought of as a woman. Barbie is not the ideal nor is she an ideal, she is a product of imagination that is constituted of imaginary characteristics that are unattainable for any person.

Although Mattel has tried to combat the wave of feminists that are criticizing Barbie, by giving Barbie a set of “smart” career paths like doctor, lawyer, teacher etc. this is not fixing the problem. To relate this to thinking diversity, Mattel represents the Mask by using symbolic activism to heighten the appeal of Barbie to the feminist market. Thereby they are placating the people who have problems with Barbie’s sexist ideals but are ultimately doing nothing to fix the problem or “change the system”.

Instead of focusing on the unrealistic body proportions of Barbie, I agree with Tofoletti’s view that Barbie should be taken as a transformative agent to delve deeper into the idea of a state of flux that the Barbie is in, between human and posthuman. Although Mattel’s efforts are considerate, I don’t think associating Barbie with intellectuality will do anything for the public’s perception of the doll considering her body is what most people take into account first. And from this, the darker side of the Barbie controversy is revealed: is Barbie then just a prototype for the modern woman, will a woman’s body or beauty always take precedence over her intellectuality?

Tofoletti, K. (2007). Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris

Looking at Kee’s “From Cannibal to Zombie and Back Again”, there is a heavy significance placed on the word “Other” which refers to the colonial slang the white body has appropriated onto the black body (Kee, 2011). Other is a term that puts this group of people at a distance from the white body, placing a negative label on the black body and demonstrating the noticeable difference between races. The white body showcased its abhorrent power during the slave trade and Victor Hugo Halperin reimagined this time through the first zombie referenced horror film White Zombie (1934). This film is set in Haiti and references the zombie voodoo folklore that fascinated 1930’s America because “it cast an entire group of people as beings without humanity” and who could work tirelessly for the rest of white America (Kee, 2011). This dehumanization of the Other allows for the viewer to separate the black from the white body but when the female white body is zombified, she also represents the Other even though she is representative of the white body. This new layer of zombification/otherness shows the thinly veiled misogyny in the film and showcases the fear of miscegenation that was rampant at that time that women carried the same primitive aspect of the Other and would therefore form interracial relationships.

Figure 1. White Zombie (1934) film poster

Focusing on the film’s portrayal of woman, the stereotypical woman recoiling in fear in the presence of a zombie is seen on the movie’s poster. In this, woman are established as the powerless subject in the film and have more in common with the Other than a white man. Bela Lugosi is the star of the film and plays the slave master; from the poster he is portrayed as a god-like floating head whose eyes are transfixed on the nude female body. With taglines like “She was not dead…nor alive, yet she walked, breathed, and performed his every wish”, the misogynistic tone is not hidden at all and portrays the female as a “simultaneous corpse, slave and sex-object” (Daileader, 2005). Daileader (2005) also writes about Lugosi’s rampant misogyny in real life which reminds me of one of my favourite Bauhaus songs “Bela Lugosi’s dead”, I’m not sure if the band’s intent was to celebrate the end of his life but in this context it ironically fits with the desire to overthrow of the zombie master and end the segregation of the Other.

Daileader, C.R. (2005). Racism, misogyny and the othello myth. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

Kee, Chera. (2011). “They are not men they are dead bodies!”: From Cannibal to Zombie and back again”. In D. Christie, and S.J. Lauro (Ed.), Better of Dead The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human. (pp. 9-24). New York, NY: Fordham University Press