Member Since: 11/7/2011
Posts: 10,399
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Nicki Minaj the Feminine Icon
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Coming off the hit release of the “Anaconda” music video, Minaj is more prevalent and important than ever, especially to the Black Feminist Movement. Though some critics questioned the album cover and music video — both of which prominently feature Minaj’s large buttocks — those critics are wrong. “Anaconda” is a celebration of female sexuality and, frankly, is a reclamation of the black woman’s butt.
Minaj is a sexual symbol, yes, but she is such on her own terms. She refuses to be confined by the heterosexual male gaze, instead subverting traditionally oppressive iconography for a more liberating ideology.
For instance, in the “Anaconda” video, Minaj performs a lap dance on fellow rapper and Young Money member Drake. However, she does so on her own terms: not to get the man, not against her will, but because she knows her body and the power it holds.
Moreover, Minaj takes the image of the black woman’s behind — an image that has been degraded and debased since the “Hottentot Venus” days of Saartjie Baartman in the late 18th century — and flips it on its head. The black woman’s butt is no longer an alien oddity to be scorned and jeered at but a point of pride that diminishes the power of the oppressor.
“As a scholar, I am disheartened to see the repeated condemnation of black female sexuality,” said Jennifer Donahue, a visiting assistant professor in the Africana Studies Program. “The racist, ****-shaming responses to the release of ‘Anaconda’ and this unexplained rejection speak to the function of sexual politics in our society and the knee-jerk reactions that often accompany expressions of sexuality, particularly by black women. Reactions to Ms. Minaj’s latest release point toward the larger sociocultural need to control or censor female expressions of sexuality.”
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This article is so amazing 
http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/artic...-feminine-icon
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it's ok you went off