Raunch aesthetics

Raunch aesthetics is a term in feminist theory which describes the ways in which women in hip hop express their sexuality through performance of lyrics, choreography, and staging.[1] These aesthetics are performed with the intention to embrace and take control over their bodies and own sexual identities through verbal and physical expression.

Background

In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist women started to become labeled as anti-sex, anti-porn, anti-heterosexual and prudish in general. They believed that there was a strong link between power structure and dominance within pornography. It wasn't until the 90's and 2000's that women started to really become pro-sex and embrace sexuality.[2]

Hip Hop emerged in the 1980s as an outlet for young black youth to replicate the experiences of urban life for many marginalized groups. It created a space for these groups to share and communicate their struggles living in highly populated areas with little resources available to them.[3] Hip hoppers created and innovated new ways to manipulate music, their voices, and their bodies to show off their talent and gain respect in the hip hop community. Hip hop is an overwhelmingly male dominated area leaving women of color on the periphery or completely shut out of the genre because they are not taken as serious contributors to hip hop even though women have always been prevalent in hip hop.[4]

Some female rappers chose to incorporate a sex sells framework into their work in order to market their sexuality and make money. Female rappers of the late 1990s began engaging in the increasingly hyper-sexualized genre of hip hop and using it to gain power and reverse the pimp roles weaved into many rap songs. Their raunch aesthetics was their source of power in the male dominated genre for many female artists such as Lil Kim.[4]

Some artists use raunch to critique the ways in which women's bodies' are profoundly commodified and debased in the hip hop genre to the point that there is little mobility for women artists to express their experiences, gain respect, or even describe themselves as sexual beings without being labeled a "video ho".[5]

Feminists that support and those that critique

Feminists have long critiqued art for its focus on the male gaze and how this notion penetrates multiple dimensions of art including who the art is made by, who the art is made for, and who and/or what it represents. There is a link between art and sexual politics including issues surrounding power and the influence the male gaze has on how women are viewed in life and art. The use of art reflects cultural standards within a society and some feminists claim that art, especially film, was intended for the male consumption of pornified and sexualized women due to patriarchal beliefs mirrored in larger society.[6]

The way in which a woman hip hop artist uses her words and her body to exude her sexual empowerment expressed through raunch may be critiqued by feminists who think this aesthetic can be harmful in nature through the mimicry of sexual objectification of women's bodies in their music videos. There is some controversy over whether women are actively choosing to express their sexuality through the use of raunch or whether society is influencing women to internalize patriarchal ideas about how a woman should want to act, dress, and behave in order to get attention. While most feminists would agree on the importance of female sexual empowerment, some do not agree on the paths taken toward sexual liberation.[7] This is mainly because it's hard to decipher between real sexual empowerment and a false sense of empowerment because the term has been commodified by the United States in order to get women to consume various goods.[8]

There is an important distinction made between a woman's subjective sense of sexual empowerment and society's influence over a woman's expression of sexuality.[7] The prior implies a personal sense of power and the latter implies a political sense of power pertaining to how women are perceived and treated in a culture. These ways in which women find sexual empowerment are both important to consider in order to gain a more holisitc view of female sexual entitlement because it includes the analyzation of empowerment through subjective feelings of desire and pleasure as well as society's use of empowerment to market sexuality to young girls and women.[7]

Some critics have voiced their opinions that these images and over sexualization in music videos have created a rape culture among the younger generations. They do not support women that "give into the system" to reap the benefits of making a lot of money for their body image. The images of women barely clothed and performing sexual symbolism such as sucking on a lollipop or other phallic symbols. It gives young men and women the perception that every women should act like this. There is little respect shown in these videos with men slapping girls' butts and swiping credit cards through them.

These images and portrayals have led to the increase in violence towards women because they are so common and have desensitized our societies perception towards violence. Hip Hop uses these images because it is what sells and what the public consumes. Studies have shown that men who watched these videos are more accepting of violence against women and see women as sex objects.[9]

It is believed that this whole distinction of accepted and non-accepted raunchiness chalks up to the idea "classism". Classism is differential treatment based on actual or perceived social status. Classism is the systematic oppression of subordinated class groups to advantage and strengthen others. It’s the systematic assignment of characteristics of worth and ability based on society's perception.[10]

Raunch aesthetics and respectability

Raunch culture is a process of repackaging old gender stereotypes and adding a "choice" which helps resist the critique by others.[5] At the same time, because of the extreme sexual nature of raunch aesthetics, many in American culture see these practices as grotesque, explicit and vulgar.[11]

In a hyper-sexualized society, sex is turned into a commodity. But in terms of practicing raunch it isn't the sex that is problematic, but the 'publicness' to the act.[12] Over the years, hundreds of sexualized media depictions have flooded public areas of cities all over the world. At one point in time, the sexualized functions in urban society were contained and kept hidden from public space.[12] These sexualized functions have now moved into plain view of society.

The presence of raunch aesthetics has seeped into normal, non-sexualized places such as family restaurants. An example of this is the hyper-sexualized restaurant called "Hooters."[12] The waitresses in the restaurant are dressed very sexual and each women is required to have big breasts and ‘show them off' while they work.[12]

Family restaurants aren't the only venues that are hyper-sexualized. The simple non-sexual act of getting your car cleaned can now be a sexual experience where people can see hyper-sexualized women, who are dressed half naked, clean your car, and while you wait, you can even get a lap dance.[12] These types of venues support sexual oppression and embrace negative stereotypes of women.[12] Because of the public display of explicit behavior, the practice becomes dirty, inappropriate, and ultimately looked down upon. This has an effect on women and is the driving force towards the oppression, objectification and inequality of them. The stigmatization of raunch aesthetics has been linked to them and devalues their experiences and practices.[11]

When women take part in activities that may be considered "slutty" or non-lady like, they are being condemned by society by not complying with the gender norms. However, recently through the use of Hip-Hop and media, women have been combating these norms thus making raunchy aesthetic more controversial in today's society.

It is clear that some women within the Hip Hop realm are glorified for their raunchy performances whereas others are not. This is referred to in society as slut shaming. Slut shaming is the experience of being labeled as sexually out of control girl or woman who is being punished socially for carrying out this identity.[13] Due to this, there have been female artist who mentioned their opinions about other female artist who engage in this behavior.

Amber Rose spoke out on this issue. She mentioned that the animosity that both herself and Kim Kardashian West receive on a daily basis for revealing themselves to the public media is not fair. Whereas Beyoncé twerks and wears just as revealing clothes as both Kim and Amber but yet the terms "hoe" or "porn star" are not tossed around when referring to Beyoncé. Amber responded to all of this, saying that at the end of the day, each one of them are women and that they should all embrace each other, and that no other person is greater than the rest.

Artists that practice raunch culture

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus is an American actress and singer-songwriter. In recent years she has gained much attention to her sudden change in sexual liberation. In 2013, she performed with musical artist Robin Thicke for a VMA performance. She danced on stage practically naked and started a new craze called twerking. This is a dance that is performed by shaking your ass.

Many were outraged by Miley's performance, saying it was over the top and that grabbing her crotch and sticking out her tongue was too sexual to be on television.[14] Cyndi Lauper commented on the performance,

"And there she is a young twenty-something trying to prove, you know, she can hang with the big boys and girls, you know, basically simulating a 'Girl Gone Wild' video onstage and I just felt like it was so beneath her and really. It was really raunchy. It wasn't even art. It was raunch."[14]

Beyoncé

Beyoncé Knowles is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is an artist that performs raunch aesthetics through her explicit lyrics and her seductive dancing. In her song "Partition" from her self-titled album BEYONCÉ, which came out December 2013, she sings:

"Driver roll up the partition please

I don't need you seeing 'yonce on her knees

Took 45 minutes to get all dressed up

We ain't even gonna make it to this club

Now my mascara running, red lipstick smudged

Oh he so horny, he want to fuck

He bucked all my buttons, he ripped my blouse

He Monica Lewinski all on my gown"[15]

Her song is suggestive of the sexual act of fellatio while being driven in a limousine to a club party. Visually, in the music video, she performs raunchiness by dancing seductively in diamond studded leotards and heels. According to Hollywood.com, audience members were shocked at her over performance of raunchiness when she and her husband, Jay-Z, performed their song "Drunk In Love" at the 2014 Grammys Award show.[16] Her explicit lyrics are implicative of a sexual liberation that is often censored out by media. Dr. Marty Klein proposes that media is sensitive to eroticism because of the privatization of sex.[17]

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj an American music artist that has caught public attention for the last decade or so.[18] She gained recent attention over her extreme sexual music video, Anaconda. The song starts out saying, "My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun." The song references Sir-Mix-A-Lot's hit single, Baby Got Back, which also refers to women's butts, giving the message that if you don't have a "fat" one, you are not wanted. Throughout Nicki's music video, she is seen dressed in what some would consider extremely provocative, with asses shaking all over the screen for the five minute video. Though many see her video as giving liberation to women and sex, championing women's self-esteem, body confidence and sexual agency - but the video has a deeper meaning than that.[19] It shows the continuation of white patriarchy and the objectification of black female bodies.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Hernandez, Jillian (2014-01-02). "Carnal teachings: raunch aesthetics as queer feminist pedagogies in Yo! Majesty's hip hop practice". Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. 24 (1): 88–106. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2014.904130. ISSN 0740-770X.
  2. ↑ Zeilser, Andi (2008-10-16). ""Do-Me" Feminism and the Rise of Raunch". AlterNet. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  3. ↑ Rose, Tricia (1994). Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Music/Culture). Wesleyan. pp. 21–61. ISBN 0819562750.
  4. 1 2 Durham, Aisha; Pough, Gwendolyn; Raimist, Rachel; Richardson, Elaine (2007). Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology. Mira Loma: Parker Publsihing. p. 125. ISBN 9781600430107.
  5. 1 2 Powell, Anastasia. "Sex, power, and the real problem with 'raunch'". Scavenger. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  6. ↑ Devereaux, Mary (1990). "Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers and the Gendered Spectator: The New Aesthetics". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. JSTOR 431571.
  7. 1 2 3 Lamb, Sharon; Peterson, Zoë D. (2011-05-11). "Adolescent Girls' Sexual Empowerment: Two Feminists Explore the Concept". Sex Roles. 66 (11-12): 703–712. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-9995-3. ISSN 0360-0025.
  8. ↑ Gill, Rosalind (2012-01-05). "Media, Empowerment and the 'Sexualization of Culture' Debates". Sex Roles. 66 (11-12): 736–745. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0107-1. ISSN 0360-0025.
  9. ↑ Stevens Aubrey, Jennifer. "Check That Body! The Effects of Sexually Objectifying Music Videos on College Men's Sexual Beliefs" (PDF). Arizona.edu. Arizona State. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  10. ↑ "What Is Classism". Class Action. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
  11. 1 2 "Raunch Aesthetics as Visceral Address: (MORE) Notes from a Voluptuary | Pastelegram". pastelegram.org. Retrieved 2016-04-11.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Hypersexual Translations- The strip club becomes public" (PDF). Symposium 2012 Interior: A state of becoming. Curtin University. September 2012. Retrieved April 2016. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  13. ↑ "The Truth About Slut-Shaming". The Huffington Post. 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
  14. 1 2 "Miley Cyrus' booty-shaking VMA performance gets quite the reaction". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2016-05-10.
  15. ↑ "Google Play Lyrics".
  16. ↑ "Hollywood.com".
  17. ↑ "Dr. Marty Klein".
  18. ↑ "EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page". eds.a.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-05-10.
  19. 1 2 "Oh My Gosh, Look at Her Butt: An Intersectional Feminist Critique of Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda"". www.academia.edu. Retrieved 2016-05-10.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.