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Sorry I couldn't be there in person! My legs gave out on me. So I'm doing this and our
professor is awesome so... she let me do my presentation like this. ANYWAY so I'm talking
specifically about Nicki Minaj. And how she disrupts the male gaze. And interrupts how
we objectify women and their sexuality in HipHop. So she's actually empowering them
through the use of entrepreneurialism and sexuality. In case it needs to be incredibly
obvious I'm gonna be... the elements of HipHop I'm going to be talking about are- specifically
with Nicki Minaj... uhm... her lyricism, mcing, her fashion, how she presents herself, the
wigs all that business, entrepreneurialism, she has her own perfume, she is a role model,
all of that business and her knowledge.She uses herself to lure in and then disrupt the
male gaze. It's her thing. It's beautiful. Look at these photos of her. She's gorgeous,
right? She's very traditionally attractive for... uhm... traditionally as in, like, traditional
for HipHop, like, she's gorgeous! Coz obviously society likes White people. Uhm. She's dressed
up as Wonder Woman and that's from her first album. She's already establishing herself
as a strong woman. And she is deciding what you look at. Which I love! So, there's a photo
I have here of her in lingerie. So she is traditional-- she is like doing the traditional
"objectify me" stare, right? But look at the quote near her butt! "I can find sex appeal
in every girl, all girls have something about them, like some sort of mystery, some sort
of animalistic thing that makes them sexy." Mind you! She's bisexual. So that in itself
she's empowering *** kids, she's telling them to stay in school, she's promoting gender
equality, I mean, she's a female rapper in a male-dominated genre. Ehm, in the song 'Monster"
she was the only woman with a rhyme in it. And she DESTROYED- she straight up DESTROYED
Rick Ross, Jay, Ye... all- she, she freakin'- she took over. It was beautiful. So something
a little bit more obvious is that in videos, uhm, look at the way she dresses now. Or at
least at the beginning of her career when she was getting a little bit more mainstream.
So the colorful wigs, the personas, the face that she'd put so she'd lure you in with "look
I'm cute! I'm Barbie!" you know? BOOM! WEIRD FACE. Exaggerating face! Growling at you basically,
like, sneering at you. It's a beautiful thing. So while she is dressing herself up in a way
that doesn't necessarily fit traditionally attractive or *** ideas of what women need
to look like, 1) she's still attractive and 2) she's not allowing you to consume her in
the way that we traditionally do when we see women in HipHop videos. She becomes very,
you know, THEATRIC and she growls at you and all that stuff. Now, the song 'Lookin' ***'
which is a newer one which I LOVE. She reduces men to a pair of eyes. So she's talking about
being a woman in the game. And does-- a lot of the time when you see women in HipHop videos
they are... they become, just body parts. The frame never shows too much. Just body
parts. So in her video, she's deciding what her sexuality is gonna be. She's deciding
how she's gonna look. And look! Oh my God! Hey, yeah, natural hair! She can actually
look normative and traditional and gorgeous and... she's gorgeous. And the last picture
is even more perfect because look how overtly *** this is supposed to be. This is a woman
topless with pasties. And then look at her face, she's like, "OH YOU GOT A SEMI? YOU
GOT A SEMI?" BOOM! Broke it. You're not allowed to look at her in a way that she doesn't approve
of. She's doesn't give you the permission. It's a beautiful relationship. Uhm, and I
think this specifically does wonders in regards to Rose's argument, there's a section "The
Explicit Isn't Always Exploitative". "Once the issue of sexism" she--Rose says, "Once
the issue of sexism is married to filth and degradation, women's ability to deploy empowering
but sexually explicit language in their own way as a form of resistance is itself in danger".
So Nicki Minaj explicitly talks about sex, is a *** being, but IN HER OWN WAY. And
only on HER terms. So sexists language becomes empowering etc etc But yeah. Hope you enjoyed.
That's 5 minutes. BYYYYYYE.