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.