sadydoyle:

I’m so glad these people are in charge of teaching America’s children. What we really need are more teachers who are willing to call their female students “whores,” wouldn’t you agree?

Anyway. This essay is making the rounds, and I think it’s pretty good! I also disagree with it, to a certain extent. And let it be known, OBVS, that I can’t tell someone how to talk about their own experience, and that I am, OBVS, a white lady, and that I am only just starting to get hip-hop to any degree, because I live with someone who writes about it and listens to it and I still occasionally have to ask him, “who is this?” And he’ll be like, “this is a gentleman called Biggie Smalls, dear.” But, let’s dive into this essay, though, more specifically the point expressed here:

Audre Lorde, critically acclaimed black feminist lesbian novelist, poet and essayist, explored a return to the erotic as a source of female empowerment in a 1984 essay. “The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women,” she noted. “It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.”

On this occasion of the release of her debut album, I encourage Minaj, and the multitude of female rappers who will come up in her wake, to embrace their inner erotic energy over plasticized sex appeal. Minaj’s distinct brand of plastic personified may reflect the what’s hot on the streets right now, but I’m with Jay (and Audre) on this one- the future of hip-hop will privilege a narrative of true emotional power over carefully constructed swagger, and female MC’s have the opportunity to lead this movement if they drop the “trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation” and just come from the heart.

The thing is, I think that’s missing kind of an essential part of Minaj’s feminism as expressed through her work. An example of someone who “comes from the heart” and isn’t “plastic,” in this essay, is Lauryn Hill. And Lauryn Hill is undeniably great — I had that album and listened to it a million times, just like everyone else — but Minaj’s feminism, as expressed through her work, is like the OPPOSITE of Hill’s. Nicki Minaj becoming more like Lauryn Hill would wreck the point of Nicki Minaj. And, for that matter, Nicki Minaj will also never be Lil’ Kim.

Because: Let’s look at Hill, for a second. She’s undeniably expressing one form of female power, and sexuality, which is absolute sincerity. The “coming from the heart” aspect referenced above. And Kim, to whom people will for real not stop comparing Minaj, and to whom I also listened because how can you not, is coming at female power and sexuality from an entirely different angle; she is, in the parlance of Pat Benatar, using sex as a weapon. And pointing out that it can be a weapon deployed by ladies, as well as dudes. She’ll fuck you harder than anyone has ever fucked you before, and better, but don’t think that means you mean shit to her. Etc.

Minaj isn’t using sexuality as an expression of self or soul — which is what the essay seems to object to, in part — and she isn’t using it as a weapon. She’s using it as a toy. The “plasticized,” Barbie thing is, obviously, fake. It’s also obviously influenced by patriarchal standards. Which is why she’s always fucking with you around it, pointing out how fake it is, posing as a blow-up doll on her album cover in a pretty princess pink outfit with legs that are five miles long. She’s playing Barbie, the same way she’ll play fierce girl, the same way she’ll play British girl, the same way she’ll play anything and everything else she plays, but she’s always toying with you around it, pointing out even as she plays it that it can’t be fundamentally attributed to or mistaken for who she is.

And this is an essentially feminist, third-wave, postmodern (I KNOW, I USED THAT WORD, SORRY) point. Maybe I’m just overly sympathetic to this — I’m a Gemini (Aquarius moon, Sagittarius rising!) and due to my hippie days I persist on thinking that this is significant — but I think it’s a fucking fantastic feminist point. Minaj keeps talking about how women are compartmentalized, made to play roles, made to contain multitudes, and sometimes it seems like no-one is listening, even though that’s her entire project. She’s playing roles that are patriarchal, roles that are subversive, but she’s always pointing to the fact of their being roles, hanging big signs on them so that you’ll notice, to point out that, for women, power can come, not through authenticity, not through weaponization of the self, but by being aware that these are roles. These are outfits. You can’t say that Minaj is any of the voices she uses, or any of the characters she plays; she exists, if she exists, as the woman who controls what voices and selves to deploy, and when. Gaga does it, but not as well; I keep insisting that Megan Fox is always doing it, but no-one will believe me. She’s pointing, in a very Donna Haraway sort of manner, to identity and womanhood as something fragmented and artificially constructed and inauthentic and within one’s control. It’s genius. You ask her to be everything, and she pretends to be everything, but in a way that makes it clear how jagged and contradictory and fake the “everything” you’re projecting onto her is.

I don’t want Nicki to be more real. I don’t ever want her to be less “slutty.” I want her to keep pointing out that “slut” is fake, and “real” is illusory, but somewhere, behind all the projections, there’s a woman smart enough to analyze and manipulate and control all of the masks and costumes. Because it’s what most women are doing all the time, whether the guys calling them “whores” and “sluts” are aware of it or not.

I linked to the grio essay earlier as well because I thought it was interesting and smart, but I have to say, I really agree with Sady here - with similar caveats about being a white lady who has only really started listening to hip hop in the last couple of years. I am posting because I think it’s interesting that the two “sides” of pop cultural feminism (I may be ignoring aspects specific to African-American experience that reflect on hip hop specifically here but I am writing this as a fan of both Lauryn Hill and Nicki Minaj) - are strongly felt sincerity and unapologetic artificiality.

I like that Sady doesn’t think we need to destroy one to have the other, even though they are at first glance mutually exclusive. I don’t think they are though. They are, one through deconstruction and one through direct appeal, kind of expressing a longing for a world where all the artifice is at least recognized for what it is.