Rihanna 's Lack Of Female Empowerment Through Her Clothes And Actions

Her clothes accentuate her cleavage or have a sexual shock factor, such as wearing “sequined pasties…[that] coordinate with the rest of her attire”. The vulgar, sexual nature of her raps makes it impossible for her to not receive attention from the media. Another artist, Eve, dresses sexually to accentuate her body and appears in videos with music video models but raps about social issues like domestic violence. By comparing the nature of these artists and their music, Perry tries to show that young girls have very few role models in hip hop that promote positive feminists values and body images. But, she neglects to discuss other feminist artists she mentions in the essay such as Destiny’s Child and Mary J. Blige and how their lyrics and actions in the media allow young black girls to have positive role models that show a woman can be independent, strong, and beautiful in their own way. Perry’s focus on the more sexualized female artists in hip hop and how their shocking appearance and lyrics allow them to be as successful as their male counterparts took away from the development of her argument about conservative artists and their success. By leading the reader to believe that artists are either overly-sexual or conservative, Perry limits how the reader forms an opinion on why or why not young girls’ body image may be threatened by the media and the hip hop

In Joan Morgan’s “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos,” her feminist point of view addresses the problem of degradation and sexism in rap and hip-hop music. Through this passage, Morgan looks at the deeper meaning and connects rap and hip-hop music with the African American community. Between the beats, the lyrics of this specific genre of music show listeners various situations the African American community deals with, like crime, drugs, alcohol, relationships, and their day-to-day life in America. With Morgan’s feminist criticism, she states that the blame is not only on rap and hip-hop artists, but also other women because they should be speaking out against being called “bitches” and “hos”. Through the rhetorical strategies of description,

Beyoncé Knowles’s Lemonade video album brings the words of Beyoncé into a visual media and shows the viewer a deeper meaning behind the album. After this video came out many articles came forward analyzing Lemonade. One article, in particular, that was intriguing is Bell Hooks “Moving Beyond Pain.” Hooks starts her article saying that the Lemonade video was created as a money-making, business strategy, but as the text continues the reader can conclude that “Moving Beyond Pain” is actually about African American women, and women in general, standing up for themselves.

Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.

In her article “The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto: Negotiating Spaces for Women,” Imani Perry argues that the objectification of women in the music industry is normalized in our society. Her purpose is to persuade us that most feminists who fight against the objectification and exploitation of women are ultimately colonized by the sexual fantasies of men. As a law professor at Rutgers Law School, Perry structures her text in a very effective manner. Using a general-to-specific organization scheme, she begins by outlining the recurring image of sexualized women in music videos, then presenting various cases of prominent feminist figures in the music industry.

In today’s society we have created this sense of identity that we can either reveal and or hide behind that can include either a computer screen, our skin, or even who we want people to think we are. In John Berger’s essay Ways of Seeing, he breaks down the misogynistic view we have on woman by comparing what it is to be naked versus being simply nude. In Neal Gabler’s essay Our Celebrities, Ourselves, the idealized celebrity is brought down to human level and formed into a never ending narrative that categorizes them into the people they are seen as versus the people they actually are. Berger criticizes the disguise a woman must wear as being surveyed by men in the form of art yet Gabblers idea of a disguise is more like a role a celebrity

For this journal entry, I chose to compare Audre Lorde's Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference to the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. In Lorde's piece, she talks about how oppressed people are often taught to ignore the fact that they are oppressed. We are taught to handle the difference we face by either ignoring them, copying them or destroying them. Lorde says that society as a whole has failed to see differences as a "springboard for creative change." Her article focuses on the fact that refusing to see creative differences makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls women face. Some problems all women share and other problems all women do not share. For example, the experience of a white woman is different

For nearly twenty years, Beyoncé has lived her life in the public eye yet she has always kept her cool, been submissive, and rather quiet when it came to her personal endeavors however after releasing the film “Lemonade”, we are able to see her in a vulnerable light. In Jeremy Helliger’s article: “Dear Beyhive: Stop Whining. Beyoncé Still Hasn’t Earned Her Album Of The Year Grammy” he addresses the idea that although Beyoncé was able to encourage black women to be proud and free, she also she missed the mark by adding raunchy, over the top content to her vulnerability.

On March 18, 2013, Beyonce Knowles-Carter leaked a song called “Bow Down,” where she instructed all of her competitors to bow down before her. In her estimation, there was no competition, she was aware of it, and anybody practicing in her arena was aware of it too. More importantly, her legion of adoring fans knew it as well. The song leak served as a stark contrast to what Beyonce had recently become known for releasing. Instead of the ballads of romance, anthems of girl power, unity and triumph, or the militaristic pronunciation of confidence and ego, this track releases scathing criticism and pompous boast

Beyonce is an African American female artist making incorporating empowering messages for women around the world. She is creating work that speaks to an audience that might not receive authentic mainstream. Beyonce ultimate goal is to visually and sonically entice wisdom through her music. Recently in a shocking video release, Beyonce debuted a new song “Formation” as well as a politically charged music video. This song was an uproar in the music industry worldwide. Millions of people around the world negatively viewed this song as a controversy. The music video and song caused many people to debate and cause a worldwide conflict.

Madonna has stated her identification as a “queer” supporter, and has publically aligned herself with gay culture and politics. Many of her truest fans are a part of the lesbian, transgender, and gay community. Even amongst her more vocal support and greater understanding of the queer community, Madonna’s use of gay subculture is appropriation because of the place of power and privilege she comes from as a straight, white celebrity. Musical critic Carol Benson states that “Madonna’s individual economic and social power removes her from the conditions and struggles of subaltern groups so that her appropriation of the subcultures and stereotypes, no matter how well intentioned, can never be more than a form of subcultural tourism.” Due to her position of agency, Madonna masks the powerlessness of this subcultural group and benefits from the use of their exotic identity without having to deal with the lived reality of being queer. Additionally, Benson makes a compelling case about the effects of Madonna’s cultural appropriation. Even taking into account all the identities Madonna has worn, her celebrity is ultimately constructed as a

Although embracement or celebrations of this stereotypically black feature may empower these women who reverse or redirect the hegemonic gaze that had been centered on their backsides for so long, these Eurocentric derived presumptions and idealizations of female blackness, nevertheless, remain. However, attempts to redefine these social constructions, while accentuating this feature Beyoncé refers to as “bootylicious,” has transformed beauty industries and ideas of sexual desirability which “subverts social hierarchies and normalcy” (Hobson 88). These redefinitions of beauty, more specifically, black beauty, from the “grotesque, carnivalesque body,” (Hobson 88) seeks “a healthier body image than their white counterparts” who are exclusively depicted as slender and petite (Durham 36-37). Thus, black women begin to visualize their own bodies and other black women bodies in ways that lead to non-sexualized, non-deviant conclusions. Challenging these “controlling images,” as Patricia Hill Collins identifies in Hobson’s article, only “unmirrors” black femininity and its history, a term Hobson cited from black artist and theorist, Lorraine O’Grady, because in order to “name ourselves rather than be named we must first see ourselves” (89). She later adds

In some context, it’s perceived as appropriate and logical that a pop superstar that possesses the attention and to a powerful caliber takes heed to the current events of the nation to bring a light of understanding and awareness of the mistreatment of minorities in poverty struck communities that Beyoncé illustrates in her “Formation” song and music video. However, personally, being born into a poverty, low income “black” neighborhood, find it rather pretentious that someone in the position Bey is in, to take advantage of the tragedies that may or may not have had little to no effect on herself personally, but was detrimental to others struck by the mistreatment and vicious neglect of the united states’

Women’s rights and racism have been two of the most controversial issues in the world. With all of the corruption occurring in the world, this should not be a main worry. Beyonce Knowles Carter recently released her sixth studio visual-album; this album, “Lemonade”, is her most emotional work yet. With this album, Beyonce has cemented her status as an artist who must be taken seriously. She has the influence to spark controversy across the nation and establish new trends. Beyonce’s newest album fought strongly for African American women’s rights. Some viewers felt as if this visual album was offensive to people of other ethnic backgrounds or genders.

When we can’t control our confidence, our arrogance takes over, and we assume we are perfect. Zack walked back and forth in his room trying to sing, Work by Rihanna and Drake. Sweat dripping from his face to his hands to the floor, making sounds like a leaky pipe. Everyone will be there, he thought. Fear kept taking control of his brain, when it was supposed to be Joy, but he guessed she was vacuumed out of Headquarters and into his long-term memory. Well anyways, Matt, his competition, was so overconfident in himself winning the singing battle, that he never even practiced. Matt always annoyed everyone with his arrogance, so Zack decided that it was time to defeat this supercilious man. Okay, now what does this story teach us? People think