Modern Implications of Slavery in Media
The black female slave experience may be historic in terms of history books, but it is still ever present. Modern media feasts and thrives off of the indoctrinated mindsets that have carried on since slave times. Current pop culture analysis, mainly which of Nicki Minaj, essays of bell hooks, and personal observations, will show the similarities between slave culture, and current culture on a social and sexual perspective of race and femininity.
The sexuality of African-American women has been exploited since slave times. Slave women were viewed as property, and were easily disposable. Through this process of black female sexual assault, it ruined their already nonexistent purity. Being a time of Christianity, a sign of purity was symbolized through full length sleeves and dresses, and overall sexual purity. The slave women received the double edged sword. When they were being raped by their slave owners, the female slaves were losing their purity. However since the sexual desires of the white men were now focused on the black women, it kept the white women abstinent and hence more pure. In order to further exploit slave purity, slave women were stripped and beat. These women tried so hard to reach a level of purity that the white women had, âModesty, sexual purity, innocence, and a submissive manner were the qualities associated with womanhood and femininity that enslaved black women endeavored to attain even though the conditions under which they lived continually undermined their efforts (hooks).â This systematic devaluation of African American female self-worth and purity, as well as this hypersexualization of race has stayed evident in our culture even today.
The American culture still has slavery in its blood.. In pop culture we allow our black female artists to prostitute themselves and remain at this hypersexualized level, but when a white female does it we are up in arms about what is deemed appropriate and not. A white female should not be publicly engaging in such provocative, hypersexualized behaviors because in the mindset of our racist, misogynistic culture, white girls are a symbol of sexual purity.
Miley Cyrus has returned with a media buzz surrounding her like no one else. The American culture is eating up the story of this hypersexualized white girl twerking on married men, and hanging around black âthugâ rappers. The attention isnât positive though. In Sinead OâConnorâs open letter to Miley Cyrus1, Sinead writes;
âI am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way âcoolâ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping.â
I am not condoning the sexualization of female pop stars in mainstream media, but a correlation does need to be brought up addressing the sexualization in accordance to races. Black women have been prostituted in media for years, through rap videos, white supremacist media, and the white desire.
           Nicki Minaj has been a controversial figure in feminism since she hit it big in the game. On one hand she is killing it in a field that currently is very male dominated. But when her raps include lines like âif I had a dick I would pull it out and piss on themâ and âbitches better get on they kneesâ it is evident that she is only killing it in the game because of the patriarchy that she is promoting. In Kanye Westâs song âMonster2â, Nicki Minaj is featured in a rap verse. In the music video Minaj plays two characters, one very dominant male based character armed with a whip and dressed in black leather, and another character dressed in a very white feminine dress and a pink wig. The scene starts with the feminine figure bound to a chair and a bag over her head. The masculine figure continues by sexual touching the feminine figure, while the screen pans to the feminine figure pulling at the ropes tying down her arms. To even further the assault on women, the music video opens with the disclaimer, âThe following content is in no way to be interpreted as misogynistic or negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and it shall be taken as such.â If something needs to be misogynistic in order to be art and in order to make something succeed in the business, is it actually worth doing? Is commodifying sex and femininity crucial to the art?
           Whether intentional or not, Minaj has also profited off of the commodification of her body by creating inanimate and disposable entities of her famous figure. Minaj has a deep affinity with Mattelâs Barbie. She has given herself the name of âHarajuku Barbieâ and has also modeled her perfume containers off of her own bust. Not only does this affinity come with the implications of a white female idealized culture, but also with the sense of inanimate plasticity. The plastic doll representation associates connotations of fame, material wealth, and sexual attention. Jasmine Mans, a very prominent black female spoken word artist comments on this in a spoken word poem, entitled, âNicki Minaj3â, âDo you know what this media is trying to do to you? They will porcelain Barbie the shit out of you.â Assuming this Barbie doll image, Minaj has created a realm of identity where her own identity is no longer treasured; the industry is making her become this porcelain doll in order to succeed, âDonât let this industry rape the Assata out of you.â Mans also says.
           When comparing before images of Nicki Minaj, and post images of Minaj, you can see evident changes. When she started, her skin was dark, her hair dark and kinky. Current images show a very different Nicki Minaj though. Her skin is lightened, and she uses wigs to give herself straight hair, which is often blonde4. Minaj is the most prominent black female emcee in the business, she âsingle handedly annihilated like every rap bitch in the building like.â So she is the image that black female girls have to look up to. An empowered black woman killing it in the current rap game, selling albums beyond belief, and making enough money to get her family out of the Bronx. But also a black female that is being heavily influenced by dominant society; she is turning her skin more white, ridding herself of her natural inherited hair, prostituting her body, and oppressing other black females.
           Nick Minaj is able to prostitute her body because as a white dominant society, it is us eating the Other. When we relate Minaj to being an Other based on the hypersexualized system slave women were thrown into, and the white culture that eats that, our draw to that image can be summed from a quote from bell hooks from her essay titled, âEating the Otherâ âWhen race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominant races, genders, sexual practices, affirm their power over-in intimate relations with the Other.â When looking at the current implications of the female slave experience, we can also directly see the correlation between Minajâs skin whitening and straight blonde hair. Black female slaves thought that their way out of their impure oppressed role, was through objectifying to rituals of the white women. These included abstinence and other Christian rituals such as long dresses and sleeves and other symbols of femininity. Black slave women tried to reach this level of whiteness to get out of their oppressed state. Minaj may be doing the same by trying to reach a more modern level of whiteness. The blonder and straighter her hair is, and the lighter her skin is, the less the is seen as the Other.Â
           The systematic oppression of slave women and the racial divide it has created is still in effect in mainstream media. The femininity of being black is undermined by the systems of beauty associated with being white. Black celebrities are being dehumanized, just as slaves were, and being turned into disposable byproducts of a white, sexist, male dominated society obsessed with the hypersexualization of the Other.
