Anaconda and The Feminist View
On August 4th, 2014 the song “Anaconda” by the well-known rapper Nicki Minaj was released, and made over a million dollars the first week .When a lot of people first saw the video cover they immediately thought that she was trying to steal another famous rapper’s image. People might also think about the letter a father wrote to her about her image. What people have not thought about is how her song “Anaconda”, and even the video connects to feminism. There is a new era of feminism that is different from which our mothers and grandmothers time. Feminism looks similar, but the image has been modified over the years. Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda has been all over the news, and recently on November the 6th an article in V Magazine was released about how Nicki felt on the backlash it received. The first thing that shocked many people was that she told them that she considers herself as a “skinny girl”. Nicki Minaj is rebirthing feminism into a new light because she is proving that body image, the hip hop culture, and the empowerment of women to rethink how we understand how women are portrayed in the media.
When Nick Minaj was interviewed by V Magazine on November 6, 2014 she did talk about her new and upcoming debut album “Pinkprint”, but what created a lot of the controversy in the news lately is what she said during the interview. When Ms. Minaj was asked if there was a double standard to the song; she said, “If a man did the same thing with sexy women all around, no one would care. You’re talking about people who don’t know anything about hip-hop culture.” This statement has some truth to it, because a lot of people do not know about hip hop. A lot of people do not know how it could even tie into a topic like feminism. When many people think about hip hop as a particular genre they think about the butt shaking, “hood” rappers, or very explicit lyrics that are being used. These things are true in some value, but the origins of hip hop did not start off that way. Hip Hop was originally an expression of the feelings or the hardships that people were going through. In some cases, rappers do still talk about those things; sometimes they do not. Although, the video was portrayed in a highly sexual and explicit form, Nicki could really have been trying to show how their is a gender in how music is portrayed. Male rappers always have women with immodest clothes on, and shaking their behinds. When Nicki does it she gets backlashed, even when the women in the video of the male rappers get looked down upon. No one ever says that a guy is wrong for wanting women like that. All people ever seem to say is that that’s just how men are. Hip Hop is changing and some people many choose to look at it in a negative way, but we can also choose to look at it in a different light. A lot of people looked at the video negatively, but on a deeper level Nicki was making a statement. Nicki’s statement was that women should be able to do the same thing that men do and not get looked down upon. Not only was that her statement but she also commented on body image in other recent news articles.
In the song Anaconda Nicki Minaj also makes reference to body image in a positive and negative way. Although, she does seem to make a negative reference and sexual reference she does seem to make a point about how women look at themselves today. A lot of people do not realize how the image of beauty is changing and becoming more modernized. In one source Nicki Minaj actually says that she sees herself as a “skinny girl”. Sometimes we all tend to get caught up on looks and how things are supposed to look; that we immediately shut out someone’s opinion. People might look at Nicki and disagree that she is not skinny but there is nowhere written that beauty is skinny or thin. This is something that in America we are all stuck on. Nicki Minaj is challenging the way we think about society because she clearly says, “Everything that we see that is beauty is labeled as very skinny,”. Which actually has some truth to it; many women that have curves are not able to look at themselves as beautiful. For so long we have been taught to think that skinny or thin is beauty. It is extremely rare to see a curvy model in a magazine. Nicki Minaj even tells her interviewer for V Magazine, “They don’t say anything when they are watching the Victoria Secret’s models in boobs and things all day.” Which is a true statement because no one looks down upon models showing their bodies. Women need to be able to be accepted for their bodies because the idea of beauty is changing whether we like it or not.
Women have always been portrayed as sex symbols throughout the media.They have always been judged based on how they present themselves. Whereas men have be able to get away with a lot of sexually explicit things because of how gender is viewed in society. Men have been excused because people say that that’s just men being men. Nicki states in V Magazine that, “If a man did the same video with sexy women in it, no one would care.” Not all of the time when women are being explicit they are just trying to portray a sexy image. Now and days women that are stars are doing more sexually explicit things to show an example of feminism. They are showing that they are no longer bound to the gender roles of society. There is a new way that women want to be portrayed in the media; they want the same freedom as men. Nicki was not just trying to make a hit she was trying to make a statement about how women do not need to be looked down upon because of acting like men. Women are now changing the way they are looked because they are constantly speaking out against what society said the gender roles are.
Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda was more than just the hit single of the summer, but an act of feminism. Women can do the same things as men and the more we keep enforcing that the more the gender roles will disappear. Nicki Minaj also changed what we identify as beauty because not only did she encourage curvy women, she also gave her opinion on what she think is beauty. The more we widen what our ideas of beauty are, the more women of different shapes and sizes will be accepted.
