This weeks reading consisted of butt implants, make up, and the color pink.  I think a lot of the opinions around these topics can be so hurtful.  We, as a society, love to criticize people based on their decisions as if it effects us in a negative way in any way.  Yes, by all means decisions can effect us and the society we live in.  However, I see from time to time hate on the internet that Nicki Minaj has a fake booty. A fake booty. This is the redundant commentary that people spew online to think that they’re dragging Nicki down, when, in all actuality, she could probably care less, she’s making her own money, building an empire, and what people care about is whether or not her butt is real.  We get so involved in the superficial of these cultural artifacts and find any way to spin it in a negative way that we don’t focus on what’s actually important, what we NEED to be focusing on, bettering ourselves as a society.  Highlight and contour have been labeled as a way to give women confidence in how they look.  Women feel OBLIGATED to wear make-up because if they don’t, or their cheekbones don’t look abnormal they get made fun of.  What kind of society do we live in that women feel they NEED makeup before stepping out of the house? We see so much artificial things shoved in our face such as magazines, models, billboards, clothing ads, or even commercials that have been edited to make someone or something look flawless.  This ‘flawless’ look is completely unattainable, but girls don’t know this. Girls think supermodels ACTUALLY look the way they do.  This HEAVILY effects a woman’s self-confidence in a negative way.  You don’t see an ‘ugly’ girl with extra weight on her modeling forCalvin Klein in New York Fashion week.  If designers were smart, they would use REGULAR looking models to campaign their newest looks, because regular people buy these regular clothes. And how disappointing would it be to buy clothes based on how it looks on the model and it doesn’t look anything like what you though? Very fucking disappointing.  Pink being a girls color is so tiring. Who made that a fucking law? I want to know.  In the midst of a breakthrough of gender roles and stereotypes regarding genders, swing men wearing pink and embracing it as JUST A COLOR (because hello, that’s all it actually is) it cracks a smile on my face.  I also LOVE that Nicki Minaj uses pink to dignify her career because she’s not a woman, but is a woman at the same time. She breaks all stereotypes of being a female.  I love it.

My topic that I’m going to write about is the importance of Nicki Minaj in pop culture, not just her talent as a rapper, but her feminist, unapologetic role in pop culture.  A lot of people see Nicki as a mainstream female rap artist with a big butt, but she has a lot more to offer than just ‘vulgar’ lyrics and sexy music videos.  She has always spoke what is on her mind, and I feel that females sometimes are afraid to speak about their sexual desires and needs for the fear that men might call them a ‘slut’, ‘bitch’, ‘whore’, etc.  However, Nicki is an activist for women to speak their mind, whether it comes to politics, sexual needs or desires, respect as a woman, body image, etc.  She is very unapologetic in the fact that she’s not afraid to say what she wants, and damn sure demands the respects she deserves not only as ‘Rap’s Reigning Queen’ but as woman.  In an MTV special where they followed Nicki, she was highly upset at the fact that when she goes on set and puts her foot down and demands the respect and professionalism that a man would, she is referred to as a ‘bitch’, but when a man, in particular, Lil Wayne, her label cohort and mentor, he is labeled as a ‘boss’ or ‘bossed up’.  In the meaning behind ‘bitch’ there’s a lot of negative connotation, but there’s a lot of positive connotation behind the terms ‘boss’ or ‘bossed up’.  She also goes into explaining that if she was offered pickle juice to drink and settled for pickle juice, she would be drinking pickle juice instead of something more desirable to drink.  In one interview for Hot 97, she spoke to her fans and told the women in the audience “Stop feeling like you shouldn’t speak your mind because somebody’s going to call you a bitch.”  I think that this confidence and reassurance she gives her fans because she is a huge, hip-hop mogul, that whenever she drops music or an interview or a verse she breaks the internet.  There is a study that shows a 172% increase in streams and sales when Nicki Minaj is featured on the song.  She is an A-list celebrity and to have someone who is on that scale of popularity to relate to it makes it easier to act this way.  Especially when she is a female who works in an industry that is MALE dominated and does it better than half of men that partake in the same field of work she does.  She’s empowering.  She’s an icon. She’s a Queen.  She’s a feminist.