Task 1
Textual Analysis
In the video ‘look back at me’ by Trina, her physique is in fact her ‘talent’. Her lyrics often reinforce the fetishisation upon her in many shots of the video; this interestingly conforms to Phillip Sturgess technical language theory, he argued that technical and language based approaches are taken into consideration and are thus molded by producers in order to make a seamless sync of verbal language and technical viewing. In the beginning of the video Trina’s first lyric is “I got an a** so big like the sun” as she says this a close up shot is used to showcase her behind, not only is she pleasuring the male gaze’s as Laura Mulvery argued she is describing her assets in a degradable way, which according to Trina make her successful. "The female body is rarely a site of empowerment except when it is being objectified to define female strength through heterosexist sexiness”. Nietchez’s perspective contradicts Sturgess argument because audiences are able to create their own perception of a text, Trina believes she is successful due to her physique, many audiences presumably females will be disgusted by her lyrics and videos, they think in view of Stuart Hall, he argues that “Meaning depends on individual interpretation’. The male gaze interpret Trina’s videos as ‘successful’ because their needs are being appeased and her body is constructed in a aesthetically appealing way, whereas female secondary audiences are entitled to their alternative perceptions as the concluding interpretation ‘depends on the individual’.
Another artist worth mentioning who one could argue conforms to the self-objectification theory is Khia; very similar to Trina as they are both black females who invite female gaze through sexual liberal lyrics and who please and control male gaze through their literal self objectification and narrative pleasures. In her print album cover (Nasti Muzik 2005) her legs are open, she is practically naked and the only thing covering her private area’s is a giant dildo which is suppose to represent a microphone facing downwards going through her body, the image itself is an explicit depiction of sex. On the broadcast platform she also operates very explicitly very similar to Trina, her single “My Neck My Back” (2002) Khia begins saying “All my ladies pop your p*ssies like this”, the chorus then follows “Lick it right, lick it good suck this p**sy just like you should”, Chatman argues that these narrative discourses are purposely constructed, to appease the ‘implied audience’, Chatman is suggesting that Khia uses such language because audiences of the hip hop genre expect to hear this as they have become accustom to it, this means her ‘success’ has been predetermined and because she willingly has to conform to these conventions to appease the existing audiences familiar with these present values. The video “My Neck My Back” is very similar to Trina’s video “Look Back at Me” because the producers have fetishized the female body, In Khia’s video a low angle shot is used to exaggerate the size of a female’s bottom while she shakes it for the audience. If we were to follow Chatmans view of thinking female rappers will never challenge these conventions because the audiences they must appease are ‘implied’.
In the Video ‘Ladies first’ by Queen Latifah, she conforms to Chomsky and Hermans manipulation theory as she has manipulated the population of the mise en scene in order to make her the only strong women in the scene. A particular scene of relevance is where she is dressed in all black controlling the ‘military movement’ of women, the close up shots were used to emphasize where the movements would take place next, miniature statues of women were placed all over the table which had a map of the world. The fist statues, which possibly represented male dominance and misogyny were being pushed of the table my Queen Latifah, the female statues were places all over the world to signify the possibly dominance women will have over society. Through Queen Latifah’s lyrics her audiences can decode what makes her ‘successful’, its now evident that social, political and economical factors have had a part in the sexualization of female rap.
Task 2
Additional book reading
Zyla, D. (2010)
He argues that many women cheat and take the easy way out, it’s relevant as it could suggest that female hip hop artist also take the easy way out.
Paige, A. (2009)
Style on a shoestring: develop your cents of style and look like a million without spending a fortune. (page 45)
McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Centre.
McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Centre.
He argues that females extract favors from males, this is relevant as it could suggest that female artist extract favors such as profit from male and female gaze’s.
Graddol, D. (1994)
Media texts, authors and readers: a reader (page 28)
Multilingual Matters in association with The Open University.
Multilingual Matters in association with The Open University.
These theorists are of relevance to my study because they describe the linguistic technical devices taken into consideration when a text is being constructed.
Lucas, L. (2007)
Unpacking globalization: markets, gender, and work (page 86).
Unpacking globalization: markets, gender, and work (page 86).
Lexington Books.
The writer describes that economic factors have –played a part in the misrepresentation of women, laws confining them to grieve would have had an effect on text being created in that time, female producers possibly would have wanted to represent themselves juxtaposing the external influences of society.
The writer describes that economic factors have –played a part in the misrepresentation of women, laws confining them to grieve would have had an effect on text being created in that time, female producers possibly would have wanted to represent themselves juxtaposing the external influences of society.
T, Denean. (2007)
Denean discusses the movement of the new glamorized post feminist. He describes how this is evident in historic hip hop of 20 years ago and how female artist are using sex as a weapon.
D, Gwendolyn. (2007)
Parker pub.
The writer suggests that these sexually liberal female artist are aware of the antics and use their behavior to extract profits.
Task 3
Historical text analysis and research
Based upon the dramatic changes in history, one could argue that a female rapper has to promote different ideologies to represent their success. In the 1980’s rappers such as Queen Latifah seeked to be empowered liberally through their lyrics, in the video ‘Ladies First’ in 1989 she raps about the hidden power women possess ‘some think that we cant flow, stereotypes that go to go, I’m gon’ flip the scene with a little touch (of what) ladies first”. Although the video was filmed using certain angles to gracefully manipulate the power given to Queen Latifah, the language however is what she uses to represent her success; David Graddol suggested there are two models implemented in to text to convey linguistic meaning the ‘Schemtaic model’ argues that Producers encode messages and directly transmit them to audiences. This is also a form of the hypodermic model It’s the idea that Queen Latifah the producer is carrying messages which she believes will represent her as successful and because she has decided to construct this linguistic representation for her audiences they can ‘recover’ the ‘meaning’. By Queen Latifah saying she is going to ‘flip the screen’, she could mean she is going to change the common representation of women in society. Writer Maria DiCenzo describes women as a ‘struggling minority’; she argues that history has contributed the misrepresentation of women, which may be the reason, why Queen Latifah wishes to ‘flip the script’. The twentieth century suffrage of women devalued the worth of the common women through a variety of misogynistic laws confining them to a life of grieve, one of particular importance which also covers economic values present today is that women were required to work for minimum wage until the supreme court declared this as unconstitutionally in 1923. ‘Women would never achieve economic independence as long as laws treated them like children in need of protection’; the feminist movement took women to a pinnacle of independence and today they are still fighting for equal rights as Julie Hayward a victorious feminist who set the land mark for the equal pay right still fights for the barrier to be broken. We now have a clear idea of what Queen Latifah meant when she was trying to ‘flip the script’, because of the obstacles society has created for women it is difficult for them to be successful which is possibly why Trina juxtaposes the movement of feminism through her sexually liberal representation.
In the Video ‘Ladies first’ by Queen Latifah, she conforms to Chomsky and Hermans manipulation theory as she has manipulated the population of the mise en scene in order to make her the only strong women in the scene. A particular scene of relevance is where she is dressed in all black controlling the ‘military movement’ of women, the close up shots were used to emphasize where the movements would take place next, miniature statues of women were placed all over the table which had a map of the world. The fist statues, which possibly represented male dominance and misogyny were being pushed of the table my Queen Latifah, the female statues were places all over the world to signify the possibly dominance women will have over society. Through Queen Latifah’s lyrics her audiences can decode what makes her ‘successful’, its now evident that social, political and economical factors have had a part in the sexualization of female rap.
Task 4
Additional web research
What's so special about the British rap pack?
"Above anything, it's dangerous for them," he says. "I've never lived in that environment myself, so I don't know the ins and outs, but as a manager, I think it's definitely important for them to find somewhere a bit out of that. And it's good for them to reap the rewards of their hard work. Rap's aspirational. It's always been about bettering yourself."
Nicki Minaj reopens door for women in hip-hop
“There had always been at least one female rap act to contrast hip-hop's defining male edge, from Queen Latifah to Lil' Kim to Missy Elliott to Lauryn Hill. But in the past few years, female rappers were mere blips on the scene, and the occasional hit only underscored how weak the field had become”.
Hip-Hop's Betrayal of Black Women
“It is to make an understanding of the misogynistic objectification of black women in hip-hop so elusive that we can't grasp it long enough to wring the neck of its power over us”.
Hip-hop portrayal of women protested
"We're telling people [black women] are bitches and hos and sluts and not worthy of respect," she said. "And that's exactly how society is treating us."
The return of soft-porn marketing?
“Hip-hop - with sleeves to accompany the talk of "hos and bitches" - was the last genre to more or less succumb to the censorship of the political correctness era, but the heyday of what could be called sexist album covers was the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in heavy rock”.
Nicki Minaj: 'I am doing everything the boys can – plus more…'
She does concede, though, that female MCs have been, "a little lost for a few years. We just had to get back our footing, get back our confidence. Female rappers tend to have a lower self-esteem and they don't believe in themselves as much as they should."
Misogyny in Hip-Hop: "Take it Personal"
“Have we in hip-hop been negligent in our attitudes towards females? Have we condoned misogyny by not speaking out when it takes place? Do we create an environment which encourages such otherwise positive people to commit negative acts against women simply for being women?”
Misogyny and women of color
For women of color, misogyny and (mis)representation is two-fold, playing on stereotypes of both gender and race. Scholar Jelani Cobb blames sexist music videos for taking “a view of women of color that’s not radically different from the views of 19th-century white slaveholders.”
Task 6
Introduction first and second paragraphs
“Hip-hop and pornography are going into business together” [1] is this not evident throughout modern hip-hop? Females are degraded through sexual expressive dances, and vulgar explicit lyrics. It’s argued that as audiences we have become desensitized to the sexism, misogyny, and sexual objectification of hip-hop and that this has blinded us to how demeaning and harmful it really is [2]. Hip-hop artists such as Trina conform to stereotypical narrative found thought hip-hop videos, female hip-hop artist have certain values and ideologies that differ from a male hip hop artist, this is because females must entertain their audiences. Laura Mulvery argued that women are objectified to appeal to the male gaze; her argument plays a powerful part within contemporary female hip hop because males vouyrestic needs must be appeased in order for female rappers to be ‘successful’. “A successful female artist must not only be talented, but also able to titillate the gaze of an assumed male viewers” [3] this quote taken from the guardian reinforces the structuralized narrative found throughout female hip-hop because a form of a female rappers success is her physique (her talents).
In the video ‘look back at me’ by Trina, her physique is in fact her ‘talent’. Her lyrics often reinforce the fetishisation upon her in many shots of the video; this interestingly conforms to Phillip Sturgess technical language theory, he argued that technical and language based approaches are taken into consideration and are thus molded by producers in order to make a seamless sync of verbal language and technical viewing [4]. In the beginning of the video Trina’s first lyric is “I got an a** so big like the sun” as she says this a close up shot is used to showcase her behind, not only is she pleasuring the male gaze’s as Laura Mulvery argued she is describing her assets in a degradable way, which according to Trina make her successful. "The female body is rarely a site of empowerment except when it is being objectified to define female strength through heterosexist sexiness” [5]. Nietchez’s perspective contradicts Sturgess argument because audiences are able to create their own perception of a text, Trina believes she is successful due to her physique, many audiences presumably females will be disgusted by her lyrics and videos, they think in view of Stuart Hall, he argues that “Meaning depends on individual interpretation’ [6]. The male gaze interpret Trina’s videos as ‘successful’ because their needs are being appeased and her body is constructed in a aesthetically appealing way, whereas female secondary audiences are entitled to their alternative perceptions as the concluding interpretation ‘depends on the individual’ [6].
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