I haven't posted anything for a long time now - life was just crazy. I am on exchange in Toronto right now and I have been really busy. In my first post after this long break, I would like to share an essay with you that I wrote for my "Effective Writing" class.
I'm sure most of you have heard of Nicki Minaj and her song "Anaconda", which caused some outrage because of its explicit video and content. In my essay, I compared "Anaconda" and "We Can't Stop" by Miley Cyrus. My conclusion provides a different interpretation of Minaj's actions, suggesting that her motivations for this song were maybe not only getting attention and making profit, but raising awareness of flaws that are deeply entrenched in our society.
“Oh my gosh, look at her butt!” – this line, which is part of the lyrics of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (1992) and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” (2014), sums up the recent public
outcry caused by the latter. Minaj was condemned for focusing on women’s assets and
objectifying them in her video in order to increase her popularity. However, Minaj’s ironic
depiction of women and race could also be interpreted as a critical response to the
perpetuation of misogynistic and racist binaries in contemporary pop culture, like in Miley
Cyrus’ song “We Can’t Stop”. The aim of this essay is to reveal how “We Can’t Stop”
conveys the binaries black/white and man/woman, while “Anaconda” exaggerates and
manipulates them. If Minaj’s primary intention actually was to expose and challenge the
systematic oppression of “the Other”, it is also important to ask whether she is effective in
doing so or whether she, too, perpetuates racial and sexual binaries.
In the article “Eating The Other” (1992) bell hooks explores how “the Other” is oppressed
in our “white supremacist capitalist patriarchal” (22) society. For hooks, the “Other” refers
to the non-dominant groups of non-white, politically disenfranchised, lower class or non-male people. In her article, hooks focuses primarily on racism, but she remarks that the
different units of the system interlock and influence each other. hooks concludes that racist
domination prevails in the system, because “the Other” is constructed as desirable, but not
equal.
Cyrus acts on this desire when she twerks in “We Can’t Stop”. Cambridge Dictionaries
Online defines twerking as “a style of dancing that involves bending low and moving the
bottom and hips.“ Cyrus brought the term to public attention when she made twerking her
trademark in 2013, aspiring to distance herself from her past as innocent Disney channel
star. Cyrus made it seem as if the dance style, which is based on the traditional African
Mapouka (Akindes 99), was her own invention and thereby appropriated a part of black
culture. This is her attempt to add “spice” to her performance, as described in bell hooks’
article, which claims that “encounters with Otherness are clearly marked as more exciting,
more intense” (hooks 26). On the other hand, Cyrus emphasizes her whiteness by
deliberately dressing all white and surrounding herself with black dancers. Even though
she pretends to empower her “homegirls … with the big butts”, she actually reduces them
to props and stresses her own power, for example by slapping their behinds. Thus, Cyrus
expresses her freedom by oppressing her black “friends” and ultimately enforces the
black/white binary.
Twerking is a central theme in Nicki Minaj’s song as well. Her video is focused on the
rhythmical movement of her and her co-dancers’ behinds. She praises the stereotypical
curvy body shape of black women, stating that men are much more attracted to large
behinds than to “skinny bitches”. In doing so, Minaj also promotes a beauty ideal that is
different from the prevailing, extremely slim, white norm. In this respect, “Anaconda” can
be understood as a response to Cyrus’ twerking efforts, making her appropriation of black
culture seem unsuccessful, since her “butt” is not “big” enough. However, Minaj’s
representation of black women is overly objectifying, begging the question whether she
aims to criticize this matter by exaggerating it.
Another prominent binary in our society is what hooks calls “patriarchy”, namely the
dominance of men. In “We Can’t Stop” Cyrus tries to stress that she is a powerful woman.
She claims “it’s we who own the night” and “we run things”. In her video men mainly
appear in the background. The verse “It’s our party, we can do what we want/…say what
we want/… “ is sung by a man, but he is never visible. At first, his voice emerges from a
radio, which is replaced by a computer-generated face when the verse is repeated.
However, the way Cyrus behaves in the video (e.g. sticking out her tongue and suggestively stretching out on the bed) and her choice of clothing are aimed at provoking desire in men, thus turning Cyrus into a sexual object.
Minaj, on the other hand, deliberately objectifies men and women throughout her video.
The only men who are part of her performance are Sir Mix-a-Lot, who sings the lines “[m]y
Anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun”, but does not appear in the video,
and Drake, who gets a lap dance from Minaj. However, when he tries to touch her, she
departs, pointing out that she is in charge. In doing so, Minaj presents herself as well as
Drake as sexual objects and subjects at the same time. While women are reduced to their
breasts and behinds, men are reduced to their penises. Minaj highlights this in her song
title, using “Anaconda” as metaphor for a penis, and in the scene where she starts eating a
banana, triggering the idea of a blowjob, only to chop up the banana in the next shot. Thus,
Minaj challenges the prevailing practice of depicting only women as objects, while men
are usually the subjects in medial discourse.
In conclusion, both songs contain the binaries black/white and man/woman, but they
handle them in different ways. It is interesting to note that Cyrus expresses them in a
subtler and maybe even unconscious way, while Minaj seems to deliberately take certain
stereotypes to an extreme, in order to ridicule them. “Anaconda” managed to provoke
outrage in a society where half-dressed women and the appropriation of black culture are
“normal” and internalized. In doing so, Minaj awakened our dulled senses and stimulated
discussions about these problems. This is a first step towards “mutual recognition” of the
impacts of racism and misogyny, which is the only standpoint from which we could
change the status quo (hooks 28). However, many people seem to watch the video on a
superficial basis, only enjoying the visual traits, and not thinking about the underlying
criticism of cultural appropriation and the objectification of women. In addition, children,
who are unsupervised when watching the video, might not notice the irony and internalize
the stereotypes they see. Therefore, “Anaconda” could play an equal role in perpetuating
racist and sexist binaries as “We Can’t Stop”.
Akindes, Simon. “Playing it ‘Loud and Straight.’ Reggae, Zouglou, Mapouka and Youth
Insubordination in Côte d’Ivoire.” Playing with Identities in Contemporary Music
in Africa. Eds. Palmberg, Mai and Kirkegaard, Annemette. Nordic Africa Institute,
2002. 99-100. books.google.ca. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
hooks, bell. “Eating the Other. Desire and Resistance.” Black Looks: Race and
Representation. South End Press, 1992. 21-39. Print.
