GSU: ENGL 3050

December 2014

No one can deny that music is pervasive within western culture. It gives people moments of freedom from work and stress and to just ‘Shake It Off.’ A huge part of the music industry of music is to make accompanying music videos to convey the meaning of the song or to make commentary about a social issue. Music videos give researchers a sample of culture from which they can study a community’s ideology that could affect the overarching culture. Some of these genre-communities from which they are studying include rap/hip-hop, pop, country/western, blues/R&B, and many more. All of these smaller genre-communities are based on what they, as a larger, more diverse culture, listen to or seek out on a normal basis. When people find a genre that perpetuates their personal values or their view of culture, they then subscribe to the ideology of the music community. These ideologies range from lifestyle choices, perception of the culture, and most notably sexual activity. Ideologies, which are reflective of both communities and overarching culture, change over time to reflect what is important to the masses, in particular adolescent masses, who are subscribing to these ideologies. With the combating ideologies of heteronormative femininity and the Feminist Movement, there is more of an emphasis on what is being shown of women in music communities. Women’s bodies have been objectified for many years in movies, television, advertisements, magazines, and especially in music videos. However, in 2014, more people are speaking up for feminist values for the equal representation of women and equal treatment of both men and women. Through this essay, I will be analyzing Meghan Trainor’s music video and song “All About that Bass” and Nicki Minaj’s music video and song “Anaconda.” Through a feminist analysis, there is evidence to prove the proclaimed ‘self-love’ song by Trainor is a front for more heteronormative treatment of women’s bodies whereas Minaj’s song gives, somewhat, more female empowerment. Though both videos do lend to more a sense of female love of self both fail to give a full message of female empowerment. Through critical analysis I will also examine how the rhetoric of false women empowerment can lead to a society that has a warped perception of female sexuality and thought process of a woman. This false empowerment leads to the video example of “Literally I Can’t” by the rappers Play-N-Skillz in which women are portrayed as objects for male sexual pleasure through Judith Butler’s concept of “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Without female empowerment men and women are subjected to ‘art piece[s]’ that show sexual and mental abuse toward women. This abuse affects our culture as a whole by reestablishing the patriarchal construct that men are superior to women and this abuse justifies rape culture.

Let’s begin with the changes of female beauty standards. The standard in a European white, heteronormative society would idealize white or pale women as forms of beauty and represent them through all forms of our culture. The ‘ideal’ of female beauty is to be naturally thin, small, and fragile looking; the ideal for women to strive for is to be an object for men to take care of and keep from breaking. It’s a porcelain doll mentality that women must look perfect.  Idealizing women’s beauty isn’t just in our culture as stated by psychology researcher, Maya Poran,

“It has been consistently found that women tend to focus on appearance more than men do, and women tend to view their bodies as objects, perceiving themselves on a part-by-part basis” (Poran 66).

No matter if women are striving to be curvy, thin, tall, or short there is always a social pressure to be more than what they are so they can also be seen as a desirable object. Many women who do not conform to these social ideals or pressures are ridiculed by other members of the culture until that woman falls back in line with the culture’s ideology of women. Poran continues to explain in her research on social comparison, that “[e]xperiences of the body are also highly influenced by the gender-orientation of the individual; the higher women are in feminine gender-role orientation, the lower their body esteem. High feminine gender-role orientation has also been found to be strongly related to the presence of eating disorders” (Poran 66). Her explanation is to show that, in American culture, men and women have been given their gendered roles from which they are expected to perform based on their cultural ideology. However, since there are more people voicing their concerns about gendering our culture’s children and forcing strict gendered stereotypes on to them, there has been a push by the public for ‘love-yourself’ from female music artists.

Trainor and Minaj, are popular 2014 artists and they are a sample of two popular genres: pop music and rap music. What’s more is that both of their songs have breached the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100 list. (“Billboard Hot 100 Chart”). This list of 100 songs documents and keeps track of the most popular songs of the day based on how many times that song has been played on the radio, bought off iTunes, or how many copies of a CD has been bought or streamed. Essentially, these top songs are making the most money in our culture, proving that these songs are important because they are being sought out and paid for by millions of people. Since there is such a push for these songs, there is a cultural significance to understand the rhetoric within these songs and their videos; and because these two artists are women representing culture, they are important to examine to show what behavior is expected of women in this society.

Trainor’s song “All About that Bass,” was the summer song of 2014 releasing in June. It was promoted as the ‘feel-good-song’ of the summer that told women that they were perfect just the way they are already and they do not have to look the same way as a model on the cover of a magazine. Trainor, with a poppy, doo-wap tones, sings that she isn’t buying into magazines’ ideas that photo shopped women are perfect and that she is “[b]ringing booty back.” It’s true that women place themselves up to a standard that they cannot reasonably live up to. These overly perfected body images can be seem on magazines, TV, and music videos; these images affect women early on as stated by Beth Bella in her collaborative work, “The Impact of Thin Models in Music Videos on Adolescent Girls’ Body Dissatisfaction.” Bella states that,

“A key finding of the present study is that adolescent girls exposed to thin models in music videos show a significantly larger increase in body dissatisfaction from pre- to post-exposure in comparison to girls who had listened to the songs without visual input and girls in the baseline, word recall, intervention…” (Bella 143).

Trainor has a right to voice her anger at magazines and the ‘powers-that-be’ that make women and men feel inadequate about their size or for the way they look. Researcher Bella, with her group of adolescent girls, found that it didn’t matter the baseline self-esteem that these girls showed in the beginning. Every girl’s body-image was affected by seeing thin models being the object of affection when it comes to music videos (Bella 144). It’s great seeing a full-figured woman standing up for herself for this issue. The problem arises when Trainor brings up that she: “can shake it, shake it/Like I’m supposed to do/’Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase.” This verbiage implies that a woman with great self worth must flaunt herself in order to be happy, and that her self-worth is owned by the men who ‘chase’ her. It’s made more evident that men are still in control with the phrase, “Boys like a little more booty to hold at night.” These words assume that everyone is out to be wanted by someone else; though that is not untrue in most cases, it is better for a young woman or man to love her/himself first without needing to seek out the approval of another. The lyrics’ rhetoric is talking out the side of the mouth with itself because it is just trading one gaze for women to judge themselves by for another; in this case society to a man. This false empowerment servers this point made in Cara Wallis’ research for her essay: “Performing Gender: A Content Analysis of Gender Display in Music Videos.”

“These findings, unfortunately, are not surprising because music videos are a form of entertainment as well as a means of advertisement, and numerous studies have found stereotyped gender behavior in both. At the same time, as more female performers have claimed equality with men and have sought to break down gender stereotypes in the music industry, the degree of stereotyped gender display in music videos raises concern as to the impact women have actually had in shifting this very gendered terrain.” (Wallis 169)

Minaj’s song “Anaconda,” took a moment to understand if it is listened to without context of the video or details behind some of the lyrics. Released in August of 2014, this song became a popular cultural icon through its shocking music video and MTV’s Video Music Award performance. The problem with “Anaconda,” a routine theme with Minaj’s work, is that there is explicit imagery of many sexualized women along with lyrics that talk about a woman getting into relationships with drug dealers in order to get money. This video throughout depicts women in various sexually explicit positions throughout both performances onstage and in video. One ‘boy’ she sings about is Troy who was a ‘dope dealer’ in Detroit and Michael was a ‘Cocaine’ who liked motorcycles. Troy she wasn’t really serious about hence her calling him a ‘boy toy,’ urban meaning male whom you fool around sexually with. Each time Minaj talks about either of these men she states that she is “on some dumb shit,” urban meaning she was foolish or made a dumb decision while intoxicated.  Back to Troy and Michael do note that Minaj is singing about these men in past.   Neither of the men will ever mess with Minaj because she is able to ‘jab’ like Floyd ‘Mayweather’ whom she mentioned in the song, and she is even given the nickname ‘Nyquil’ by Michael saying that she can knock someone out. Problem with this rhetoric here is, though it is awesome to see a woman stand up for herself in a physical confrontation, there are better ways of dealing with issues than to resort to domestic violence. Minaj showed what her poor decisions got her: two guys she had to beat up. The problem here is that, even though it is awesome to show a strong woman who doesn’t take any crap from a man, it’s not necessary easy to gather that it is her meaning that a woman should take control of her own sexuality and realize when she has made a bad decision on who to sleep with. On the surface it appears that this is just a rap video about sex and drug use, but what it really equates to is that a woman has to realize that she must take her power back to own her sexuality and her choices.

Since Minaj is in the rap scene, she knows more than anyone that rap music is very explicit about drug use and aggressive heterosexual relationships. Where Bella had written on how thin models affect adolescent girls with body dissatisfaction, Shani Peterson wrote on the topic: “Images of Sexual Stereotypes in Rap Videos and the Health of African American Female Adolescents.” Blatant use of alcohol and ‘glamorized depictions’ of drug use is often paired with sexual situations that normalize these practices (Peterson 1162). This has had horrible implications on adolescents who are exposed to this kind of behavior; such as acting out in any way that could lead to drug use, jail time, or dropping out of school. My take on Minaj’s rap is that she is a woman who has lived in this culture for so long that she knows how to speak the language, so to speak, to young, black adolescents about getting out of a dumb situation no matter how glamorized the lifestyle or clothes are while in that lifestyle. It is my hope that more women and young girls will start paying attention to the songs that are huge in culture because some of the more ‘empowering’ songs are not what we always think they are. By that point, if people pay attention to the lyrics and video context of their favorite songs, maybe then  that will help change Peterson’s earlier findings of girls acting out stereotypical images that they see on the screen, but do pay attention to the words that they are singing along to in an effort to empower themselves (Peterson 1163).

The Trainor video itself is very colorful with everyone wearing bright pastels and pinks and blues. The rooms is a solid color of pink with no windows to look outside. Everyone is smiling and having fun letting go and finally acting like themselves because they want to ‘shake it’ without anyone patronizing them. In the video there are two little girls who are playing house and Trainor takes the part of the Barbie Doll, even though she claims she’ll never be one, who is having dinner with her ‘Ken.’ It is interesting that for this video that they choose to keep up with the classic ‘housewife’ theme. It’s as though they couldn’t shove the idea of heteronormativity into viewer’s heads enough that they also had to play house. This idea of men being the ones in power through this video is shown through both the ‘Ken’ doll and the dancing man. ‘Ken,’ or what I have likened him to, is only there to look at Trainor while she dances and does what she is ‘supposed to do.’ From what I have gathered through this video, all Trainor ‘has’ to do is make the ‘Ken’ smile. Even if she forcing him to do it.  The ‘Ken’ is given more power by the dancing man in the background; this is because, based on the assumption this man is gay or of the queer community, everyone in this video is out to seek ‘Ken’s’ approval. Everyone in this video wants the approval and love of a man, and in ‘Ken’s’ case, a white man. If that isn’t a blatant image of white, patriarchal, heteronormative ideology, then I don’t know what is.

The location with Minaj’s song is in the rain-forest and the women are shown to be animalistic Amazonians. They are shown as sexualized beings that are wanted by men. The women are in a hot area so their skin is glistening with sweat (more like misted water, but the effect is the same), they are in next to no clothing, they are gyrating their bottoms, they are working out, they are sexually appealing women. The only time a man is shown on screen with Minaj is when she is giving a lap dance to the singer Drake. In this place, it is normally seen as men in the power position because they don’t have to do anything but sit and watch, however the opposite is the truer statement. It is the one performing the ‘sexual’ act that has the power, which is Minaj. She is doing what she wants and is getting a thrill out of having this sexual power over men; the second Drake does something she doesn’t like she smacks his hand and walks away. Oddly enough, the only time Minaj is with a man is the only time that she is in a room that isn’t connected to the outside world; there are no windows and it’s made to look like a club. At all other points in the song she is outside or in a room with windows. These windows, normally being a western symbol for a way to the outside world, represent the freedom that the person within these situations has for themselves. Trainor is stuck in her box, because she is only interested in a boy finding her sexually appealing. Whereas Minaj has realized that she is worth being out there in the ‘world of men’ so to speak, however she does make poor decisions that she has to backtrack from.

One problem that both Nicki Minaj and Meghan Trainor have with their rhetoric in aim of female and self-empowerment is that they both tear down the ‘Skinny Bitches.’ This urban term is used to talk about a woman who is skinny without trying and, because she doesn’t have to suffer painful workouts or she can eat whatever she wants, it’s okay to hate her. This is the biggest problem with this ‘self love’ movement, because it is moving judgment of one body shape, or ‘body shaming,’ to another without addressing that people shouldn’t be body shaming at all. Though both songs sing loud and proud about their female empowerment, they still are shaming other types of women for not conforming to their new ideal of beauty. Be that in a ‘playful way,’ that is not very playful at all, like Trainor where she says, ‘Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that/No, I’m just playing. I know you think you’re fat.’ To Minaj saying, “Fuck those skinny bitches,/Fuck those skinny bitches in the club/I wanna see all the big fat ass bitches in the motherfucking club, fuck you if you skinny/bitches. What?” Minaj isn’t apologetic about her distaste of the ‘thin ideal,’ but at least she doesn’t insinuate that all women think they’re fat like Trainor. This is a neglect of different types of women; different types of women who don’t want a boy to hold them at night, who are thin, who don’t work out, or who don’t play house. Ignoring these women and ridiculing them is a rude dismissal of what these women say they really stand for in being a feminist or projecting feminist ideals.

The purpose of protecting those ideals, being that feminist ideals are meant to lead to equality,  is to perpetuate a culture of, ideally, equality and understanding over separation and forced sexualization of men and women. In the video of “Literally I Can’t” the artists Play-N-Skillz, these are two brothers who rap together (see the citation page below for more detail), about the cliche of women of sororities telling men that they can’t do what is asked of them because of their obligation to the sisterhood. Any ideas that may be gathered from this video about the identification of sexual problems in our culture have been washed off the producers hands, so to speak, by their introduction to the video:

“The following is a satirical video based on Sororities/Fraternities and the cliche ‘Literally I Can’t.’ This content is in no way to be interpreted negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and it shall be taken as such.” (Salinas)

This statement can be taken as a form of ‘exit strategy’ if the producers were to be sued for taking on the image of a fraternity while our society has been dealing with many outcries over sexual assaults on campuses across the United States. Due to the sensitive nature of the news viewing audience toward rape culture the producers have woven this statement in to create their ‘art piece.’ By the way of making this statement they are in essence saying that they don’t want to sound bigoted or heartless, but here’s our music video of men yelling at women for not complying with their sexual wishes for the women to pole-dance or to make-out with other women.

The video goes on to show that the men of the frat party are sick of the women’s acclamations of being ‘good girls’ and yells at them to ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Eventually, one by one, each of the women break down and begin to party. Proving the point of the men telling the women that they need to shut up and party like they, the men, want them to in order to fully enjoy themselves. It does appear that they women are happy to be partying with the men, but this is only after the men intimidated the women by rushing at them in groups and yelling at them even after the women tell them repeatedly that they ‘can’t.’ By the women eventually breaking down to ‘have fun’ they have proven the point that just because a woman says ‘no’ she may want to say ‘yes,’ which is a huge component of rape culture where ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no.’

This video undermines feminist equality on several fronts on parts of both the fraternity and the sorority. The sorority sisters perpetuate the idea that women are held to a standard that they are to remain ‘good’ or ‘pure’ in order to be good women; they wear white and pink outfits to show their ‘girly’ and ‘pure’ nature. Repeatedly telling the men and women around them that they ‘can’t’ begs the question: Why can’t they? Is it their obligation to the sorority, to societal standards on women, or to themselves that they ‘can’t’ do what they appear to enjoy doing once they allow themselves to do what they ‘can’t.’ If they enjoy it why can’t they and by whose authority that they can’t do what they wish with their bodies. These terms of ‘I can’t’ are reinforced by the other women saying ‘EW’ that what is being asked of them is disgusting and that the women should refrain from taking part in base activities; this tells viewers that we will be judged by our peers. It would be more empowering for them to say that they will not or won’t do what is being asked of them by the fraternity brothers. The statement of ‘I won’t’ over ‘I can’t’ gives the speaker their own authority to control what happens to their body. That being said the men also intensify the situation by yelling and getting into the personal space of the sorority sisters.

These actions of the fraternity appear to be the same as really agressive ‘cat calling.’ With this reflection on real life occurrences in women’s lives let us take a look at the performers of this video, the men. The performers Play-N-Skillz perform the ‘nice guy’ behaviors of asking these ‘stuck up,’ but otherwise attractive, women to drink and party with them. When the women refuse with their course of ‘I can’t’ and ‘EW’ the performer Lil Jon steps yells at them, ‘Oh my God! Shut the fuck up!’ This performance can be summed up from the performer Redfoo’s lyrics: “I said jump on the poll/I didn’t mean your opinion…I’m tryna see what you got/Not tryna hear what you think.” These men, or by their characters ‘fraternity brothers,’ go out of their way to talk about their own sexual pleasure by ordering the women to: ‘Bounce on the pogo/Jump on the jack hammer,’ ‘I’ll tweet about it…And you could be winnin,’ ‘You’re booty in my hand is my new motto,’ and ‘Put your lips on my bottle.’ These are just a handful of lines used in this song that show that the sexual performance by these women will lead to the men’s sexual pleasure, and by actively making the women behave in accordance to what they want the men are happy. It does appear that the women are happy too, but that connection to becoming submissive to men that are forcing themselves onto them is a dangerous bolstering of rape culture and leads to justifying that women get raped and that is normal.

In conclusion, through the lack of upholding of feminist ideology in favor of perpetuating heteronormative ideology that already is in place in our society, I propose that singers and artists like Meghan Trainor and Nicki Minaj should aim to be more inclusive with women no matter their body shape. By getting more women included to their circle of influence, there will be more women to act out what they are being shown through their music videos. This is in hopes that women audience members will learn to accept themselves, accept one another, and to take care of themselves. Through the feminist movement, women should learn that everyone should be equal and strong in their own right no matter what society has dictated them to be based on their genitalia. Both women do have great points about embracing what you are born with and standing up for yourself to get out of a bad situation. However, with the lack of acknowledgement that self-love does not depend on another person and the ‘skinny’ women are all ‘bitches’ neither are great representatives of the feminist movement, yet. If they continue down this path of false female empowerment we can expect to see more gender discrimination that we have today and an intensifying of rape culture’s effect on adolescent age viewers.

Work Cited:

Bella, Beth T., Rebecca Lawton, and Helga Dittmar. “The Impact of Thin Models in Music Videos on Adolescent Girls’ Body Dissatisfaction.” Body Image 4. (2007): 137–145. Science Direct. Elsevier. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

“Billboard Hot 100 Chart.” Billboard.com. Billboard. Web. 07 Dec. 2014. <http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100>.

Minaj, Nicki. “Anaconda.” YouTube. YouTube, 19 Aug. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDZX4ooRsWs>.

Peterson, Shani H., Gina M. Wingood, Ralph J. DiClemente, Kathy Harrington, and Susan Davies. “Images of Sexual Stereotypes in Rap Videos and the Health of African American Female Adolescents.” Journal of Women’s Health 16.8 (2007): 1157-164. Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

Poran, Maya A. “Denying Diversity: Perceptions Of Beauty And Social Comparison Processes Among Latina, Black, And White Women.” Sex Roles 47.1-2 (2002): 65-81. PsycINFO. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.

Salinas, Juan ‘Play,’ Oscar ‘Skillz’ Salinas, Stefan ‘Redfoo’ Kendal Gordy, Jonathan ‘Lil Jon’ Smith, and Enertia Mcfly. “Literally I Can’t.” YouTube. YouTube, 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 5 Dec. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC52toizz8U>

Trainor, Meghan. “All About That Bass.” YouTube. YouTube, 11 June 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PCkvCPvDXk>.

Wallis, Cara. “Performing Gender: A Content Analysis of Gender Display in Music Videos.”Sex Roles 64.3-4 (2011): 160-72. Springer Links. Springer. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.