about that nicki minaj "anaconda" video

[amatyultare]

Another post from 2014, regarding the argument that Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" music video was a ~super dark feminist powerplay~. The original post was a Facebook screenshot:






My response was:

Hmm. I finally watched the music video (and then went and looked up the lyrics) and I don’t agree with this analysis. DISCLAIMER I AM IN NO WAY A FEMINIST SCHOLAR. Also, I actually do like this song (and Nicki Minaj in general). But let’s think about this.

• What a woman personally feels powerful doing is not necessarily something that is ‘feminist’ and 'empowering to women in general’. For example, I might feel powerful when I stride through the office in 4" heels, but that doesn’t make heels automatically feminist. And it’s important to note that my association of heels (which make my legs look good, but are harder to walk in and less comfortable than flats) with power can in fact be linked to profoundly non-feminist ideas that women’s power is inextricably dependent on their beauty and sex appeal.
• The point of Anaconda, particularly when you combine the song and the video, is that Nicki Minaj allows herself to be objectified for her own benefit. And she clearly feels powerful when doing so. Which is fine!
• This is not some new super-dark-feminist power-play concept. It’s not a new idea AT ALL. I mean…that’s what mistresses/courtesans have basically always done? Been beautiful and sexy and traded their sexuality and sexual objectification for material support?
• Is it feminist? Mmm. In a perfectly egalitarian world, I would say it’s a neutral choice (although we can have the debate about the destigmatization of sex work versus the downsides of a transactional model of sex and relationships, etc. etc.) But in a world where women are so often told that their ONLY power and ONLY value is their physical beauty and their sexuality, I am hesitant of any message that boils down to, “gosh, my beauty and sexuality gives me power!”.
• Also, let’s be real, for all the OP’s talk of Nicki 'overpowering’ these men, the position of 'he’ll buy me stuff so long as he find me suitably sexually appealing and available’ is not necessarily a powerful position for a woman to be in. Absent other factors, it is in fact a fairly precarious position. (Now, Nicki is also a talented performer, a smart businesswoman, and wealthy in her own right. But the song isn’t about that. It’s primarily about the power of her sexuality.)
• The way people frame the last scene is both disturbing and DEEPLY hilarious to me.
• Hilarious because: this is basically a strip club scenario, y'all. Nothing wrong with that! But we have this guy in street clothes who has not made any particular effort with his appearance and is literally doing no work. He is getting a lap dance from a gorgeous woman who is crawling around on the floor and rubbing her body against him and twerking and grinding on him, all while wearing a sexy outfit and four-inch spike heels. And yet this is supposedly about her desires and her power? No.
• In other words: the only possible sexual enjoyment she’s getting out of it is looking good/sexy FOR HIM and doing things that HE finds sexually appealing.
• Disturbing because: people are making such a big deal of 'he touches her, she pushes his hand away and walks off, and he’s “paralyzed” and “helpless”.’ How can I put this delicately… REFRAINING FROM CONTINUING TO TOUCH A WOMAN WHO HAS MADE IT CLEAR SHE DOES NOT WANT TO BE TOUCHED IS NOT A FUCKING NEXT-LEVEL SUPER-FEMINIST POWER PLAY THAT RENDERS A MAN HELPLESS. IT IS BASIC GODDAMN RESPECT FOR CONSENT HOLY SHIT. This idea that “a woman not having sex with/behaving in the exact sexual way towards a man that he would like” is “the woman showing her power over the man” (rather than, you know, having boundaries like every human does) is creepy on a number of levels.

I like the song. I find it interesting. I like that Nicki makes it clear she also pursues guys for sex (yay for greater cultural acceptance that women do like, enjoy, and seek out sexual satisfaction!) and I did find the banana-shredding moment to be a nice inversion of the tropes she’s playing with here. But I can’t get behind the idea that the song has some big new subversive super-feminist message, because it just doesn’t.