Monsterous

So...I used to RIDE for Kanye.. I can not ride for this video and frankly for his lyrical performance on the album. But, that's another post.lol.

Aesthetically there were some awesome things about this video, but I can not accept women dead and hanging in the first 30 seconds. Some male rap artist often show their blatant disregard, contempt, and subjegation of women in videos and songs, but this video has taken it to a whole other level. I know some will argue it is in the name of art, etc., which in some cases I can get down with. The different interpretations of a monsters in the video, shown by the portrayal of vampires, zombies, even the allusion of violence in the form of Rick Ross going into the room with a chainsaw; those images are a lot for something not on cable, but for better or worse they are now a very ingrained part of our pop culture and entertainment.

Yet, I don't think I will ever be ready to see a woman, any woman, but especially a black woman hanging as an artistic statement or to see a bed with two dead women being played with like dolls. It's been interesting and somewhat disturbing to see the reactions to the video, mostly by males who seemingly didn't even think to critique the video from any sort of lens, besides an aesthetic one. Besides Clutch(http://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/kanye-drops-trailer-for-‘monster’-what-do-you-think/)

I haven't seen any woman bloggers comment yet. Also, Nikki Minaj's part was actually not bad, but I know the argument could be made that she condoned it because she was in it. I can't say that because I don't know her and the way things are shot, maybe she didn't know about the particularly disturbing parts. In any case, I think women must speak up in many ways, not just with our words, but in our actions and associations.

In the name of "art" which is up for interpretation; I feel like some people have excluded the blatant,violent misogny on display here and in other mediums. It needs to be critiqued and spotlighted because if not; as we already contend with in our lives, it doesn't just stay in our "art" it bleeds into how we treat and interact with each other.

We have enough real life monsters to contend with as evidenced by the recent news of the "Grim Sleeper" http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/lonnie_d_franklin_jr/index.html?scp=1&sq=serial%20killer&st=cse and

Thoughts?

The Originals

The original, tatted up, sisters for life, we are the start of BGC, Love you BE!! We just rocked it with art and education at Sarah Lawrence last weekend! Click the title to see all the dope performers.

Black Girls and everyone what do we think??

I will reserve my judgement until the video premieres,but..
How do u feel about this? The portrayal of women looks extremely problematic

BGC: Music

MC..that happens to be a woman

RAPSODY - IMAGINATION from Pricefilms on Vimeo.