Something I have noticed a lot lately is every time something happens between people of two different races, we, as a society, always come to the conclusion that it is simply because there are different races involved. Now, a lot of times this is very accurate or valid. I will not say that it is 100 percent not true in terms of police brutality that race is a huge factor in some of the tragic and outrageous events that have occurred, but aside from that, a lot of situations just do not have anything to do with racism.
This past week, the nominations for the Video of the Year were announced by MTV for their yearly award show, the Video Music Awards. This years nominations for Video of the Year were “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar, “7/11” by Beyoncé Knowles, “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, “Uptown Funk!” by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson and finally, “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift.
After the nominations were announced, female rapper, Nicki Minaj went on a twitter escapade about the fact that her video “Anaconda,” did not receive a nomination. For those of you who have seen the music video for Minaj’s catchy hit, you are not missing out on much unless you want to see Nicki Minaj and other women twerking in workout clothes and thongs. Surely, all of them look incredible and rock their curvaceous figures, but come on, is that really creative Nicki? Yes, the video was shot beautifully and everyone looks flawless, but is that what makes for a good video? I would have to say no.
Now, usually this type of drama does not bother me or catch my attention but there is something very important that happened here, and I cannot keep my mouth shut about it. Minaj tweeted “If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.” Now, for those of you who have not seen Taylor Swift’s video for her #1 chart topping song, “Bad Blood,” you need to watch it because it is awesome. The video has a series of action scenes, a futuristic setting and a plethora of big name celebrity females. The star studded cast consisted of Selena Gomez, super model Cara Delavigne, Hayley Williams of Paramore, Ellie Goulding, Jessica Alba, Cindy Crawford, and many more.
After Nicki tweeted that, Taylor Swift responded.
“I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..” said country gone pop singer, Taylor Swift. Nicki then denied making any jabs at Taylor and THIS is when race got brought into it.
If the tables were turned and Taylor Swift had said “if you put women in your video who have thick thighs and big butts you will get vid nominations,” everyone and their dog would have called her a racist bigot. Why is it that everyone is allowed to point fingers at white people but when it is flipped around, white people are considered racist jerks?
Marie Claire stated “As soon as Nicki Minaj – whose black body deviates from Caucasian beauty standards – dares to own her own culture and dance in a similarly provocative fashion, it’s glossed over and relegated to sideline categories of ‘female’ and ‘hip hop’.”
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that people actually think Nicki was not nominated because of race and her body. Last I checked, society expects women to look curvy and sexy like Nicki Minaj and, truthfully, it sets an extremely unrealistic expectation for women everywhere. I am all for women expressing themselves sexually, but there was nothing tasteful about the Anaconda video.
The Anaconda video has been compared to Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video, which was, actually titled video of the year in the past. The difference between Miley not only being nominated but winning, and Nicki Minaj, is that Miley’s naked body was a form of emotional expression, where as the anaconda video is basically all about how unless you have a large butt, perfect airbrushed thick thighs, and Barbie doll boobs, you’re not sexy nor are you worthy of a man’s sexual desire. I'm confused as to how this drama has anything to do with race. As far as I am concerned, African American musicians today dominate the entire popular music scene and most of the music on my Spotify account.
Other online journalism websites are now saying that those who disagree with Nicki are wrongfully portraying her as a “mad black woman” and Taylor Swift is not a victim. How is it that Nicki Minaj is allowed to blow up twitter with her talk about not being nominated and we aren’t allowed to call her angry? She is angry and she was not trying to hide it. Now, does that mean we are just trying to stereotype her as an “angry black woman"? No. She is woman who is angry, and no one ever mentioned her race. To act like she was not attacking Taylor Swift’s video is complete denial.
Lastly, the final reason it’s absolutely absurd for Nicki Minaj to call this an issue of race, is the fact that half of the nominees are not white and are African American. Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars are all not Caucasian and they were all nominated because they produced something creative and artistic and worthy of a video nomination. To say Nicki was not nominated because of her race is a cop-out and completely not true. Beyonce’s 7/11 video was nominated and the entire time there are women dressed scantily but the difference is, it didn’t exclude any body type or race.
I have always loved Nicki. I used to download her mixtapes when I was in high school and I paid for tickets to see her perform live. Being a white fan, I feel extremely excluded when she pulls the race card. This goes for any time an African American musician calls out “white people”. We buy your albums, we listen to your music all the time, we pay to see you perform, and we are some of your biggest fans, when is the white card going to stop being pulled in situations like this? As a white person who primarily listens to hip-hop, I am turned away often from this industry simply because I am white. It is unfair and hypocritical. To assume, every time something happens it is because of your skin color you are not truly seeing what is happening and when you start name calling others for their skin color, you are hurting and offending some of your biggest supporters. Unfortunately, I said it before, there are certainly times where we witness horrendous acts of racism, but this is not one of those times.
I’m sorry, Nicki, but your video just was not the best one that came out this year. That is the only reason why you did not get a nomination. Simple as that.
