Nicki Minaj Research Paper

My topic for this paper is about Nicki Minaj and how she, as a popular icon, is considered “lowbrow” due to the fact that she represents an active and subversive threat to certain “power blocs.” She represents a threat because she exhibits and acknowledges explicit female sexuality, is a successful female artist in a male-dominated enterprise, and is a black artist. Minaj utilizes her body in way that is considered “inappropriate” and “out-of-control” by the establishment and as an attempt to minimize the threat she poses, Nicki Minaj is discredited and marginalized as “low-brow” culture. Nicki projects sexual aggressive imagery that defies the established notions of a complacent, female, black body. In this essay, I’ll analyze and critique
To put it simply, Minaj purposely violates the established female codes of civility. Her outfits are often implicit or explicitly sexual, and are purposely revealing. Often in media and in culture, females are limited by how we’re able to express our body and our “ladylikeness” or how “proper” we are. The origin for this limitation of conduct originated sometime during the late eighteenth century; so in order for women to be proper, they had to avoid what was (and is) considered the “male gaze” (Kasson). The male gaze purposely brought attention to a woman, and more importantly, her body, which was inseparable from her as a sexual creature. Bringing attention to a female’s body was intrinsically an attack at her sexuality, so women hid their bodies, and therefore, their sexuality. Media then promoted this ideal. In “advice for the young bride”, it’s obvious to deduce that sexuality was a home object, it was only meant to be shown and expressed within the confines of a male gaze. Essentially, the female body was (and is) only allowed to be seen as sexual under the male gaze. Females are not allowed to enjoy, morph, or transition that male