Dhy Minaj Research Paper

Nicky Minaj has seen success and beyond the mainstream exploding into international pop stardom since signing a record label with Lil Wayne, Young Money entertainment in 2009. Nicky Minaj has appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, forty-four times and she’s received seven BET awards and she’s also received four American awards. To date she’s sold five million albums worldwide. As stated in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper online Nicky Minaj’s music is appealing at young boys and girls. With the genre of hip-hop, pop, rap and R&B Nicky have made a connection with different fans appealing and matching their genre. Also we can see she has succeeded in her career as she has more than 18 million followers on twitter and instagram, she’s been portrayed
a the ‘Black Barbie’ which with her success she now owns her own record label.
For this representation I will be analysing how are women being sexualized in the media including how black woman and white woman are judged differently in the music industry.
Also, how is misogyny used in hip hop videos today. Looking through social networks to magazines to find more about the star image of Nicky Minaj I’ve found that she’s being symbolised and advertised as a cheap object. This has been created through the scandalized make up, the lack of clothing and using objects such as lollipops to create the image of being a sexual object and her trying to please it. When we study representation we look at what representations are constructed and how the audience receive and consume them. In this case we get the first impression of someone through the representation the media is giving to us and we interpret it in the way we see
it.
Popular hip hop songs are now frequently enjoyed by the frequent and normalised use of misogynistic images. It seems that today when the objectification of women has become more relevant in a devoured by the consumerism and where women have gone on to become a commodity dedicated to the enjoyment generally of man. Glamorized violence, as part of hegemonic hyper masculinity is evident throughout the hip hop videos, portrayed both as male dominance and female submission in almost every type of genre in the music industry.
A theory from Mulvey which analysed the male gaze, argued that ‘’ the media construct women as sex objects to be looked at by male gaze’’. The most common theme of misogyny is the objectification of women. Women are portrayed as cheap sexual objects, dancing provocatively, almost naked dressing in revealing clothing, demonstrating sexual innuendos with their body movements, etc. This is usually done to please the male gaze and to make money as female bodies are an attraction to the viewer , almost like porn videos. A prime example is Nicky Minaj’s videos. One of them being ‘Anaconda’, we can see that is a bad-sex positive statement about a woman’s ability to own her on own body and sexuality and the narrative of human sexuality in which woman’s body are only worthy of appreciation only when they please men. We can see this through miss en scene and editing. The video opens with Nicky Minaj and a gaggle of back up dances in a jungle setting, all rubbing themselves against the ground and each other while the camera zooms in the butts and breast. This shows that videos are now turning into a less serious act of pornography, but to please men’s view and satisfy them. However it could also symbolise the historically ‘wild’ and ‘animalistic’ sexuality stereotypes slapped on black women to justify exploiting our sexuality chattel slavery. The camera shots are also zoomed into the breast and butts cropping the head off to focus on the body rather than on the video. Also in one of the scenes she’s in the kitchen sucking on a banana which symbolises a sex object, after she gives it a dirty look and cuts it up. This could represent the independence of a woman and how she’s not doing it to please men but herself. However we know that the director is a male. This suggests that it’s made to satisfy him and any other male watchers.
According to the Auteur Theory O’sullivan argued that ‘’pop stars are created commodity- they’re merely marketing strategy’’.
Linking this to Nicky Minaj we can see that she always wears pink costumes such as thongs and bikinis in most of her videos such as in Anaconda where she wears a pink thong and a pink bra. This represents the star image as ‘Black Barbie, with the perfect body and the perfect life. In one scene she’ working out in the gym with a crew of other females also following her steps while she works out for the shape of her body. This makes an impact on the rest of the young girls watching, as they’re under enormous pressure to fit with a continuous beauty competition to judge and criticise their own bodies from the outside as men see them and deny how their bodies feel with it . This is giving the audience the message that young women should look after themselves to be able to find and please a
man.
Another feminist view from an anti-pornography feminism is that ‘’the narrative is usually formed around men's pleasure as the only goal of sexual activity, and that the women are shown in a subordinate role’’ . An excellent example of this physical disintegration and sexual objectification and pornography becoming increasingly mainstream in all forms of media can be found in ‘Pound the Alarm’. This video has had more than 70,000,000 views on YouTube alone in the past 6 months after the release . Sexual objectification of women is clear through the camera shots, the women are wearing bikini and the camera is zooming in to the personal parts such as buttocks and their dismembered breasts while freezing the camera. This shows how the video is made to please the male gaze as they were also dancing provocatively around men which support this point. Another camera shot is from down to top to show the body movements and bodies in more details. This sends a message that female subordination through sexual objectification is normal and accepted today in society as glamorous.
Additionally Nicky Minaj is a black artist which also has a big impact on the rest of the black females and their star image as she’s the representation of the rest of the black community. We usually learn about Black female artists not through personal relationships, but through the images shown by the