Let’s face it — the art of the music video has been dying for a good while now.
I don’t know about you, but the last music video I can actually remember since Britney Spears played with fire on Mars is “Friday” by Rebecca Black.
This week may be the start of the resurgence of our favorite lost art form. We’re not talking about Michael Jackson “Thriller” stuff, but Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj did finally get people talking about music videos again. Naturally they didn’t get so much attention because Taylor Swift employed Alfonso Cuarón to direct her masterpiece and Nicki Minaj created a sentimental, tear-jerking rendition of Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings.” No, like everything in 2014, they got attention for twerking.
At least this time it wasn’t fake Miley twerking, but real twerking. #Progress, but the controversy is plain stupid and misguided.
Swift’s video for “Shake It Off” shows her goofily dancing in various styles from ballet to some sort of new-wave vogue thing with her hands. Naturally, to be hip with the kids, she also included twerking. Taylor Swift & The Twerkettes (the name I just gave them) featured a racially diverse group of women, but because there’s a shot of her crawling under all the Twerkettes in a line and the Twerkette in the front is black, it’s being hailed as racist.
The issue with calling Swift a racist is that, well, it’s stupid. The black dancer may have been put in the front simply because she was the best twerker, or maybe it was to highlight the history of twerking itself. Although Taylor Swift & The Twerkettes (is it catching on or is it just me?) look more like they’re from South Jersey, twerking was born in the black culture of New Orleans. If black people twerking in Taylor Swift’s video is racist, then so is Katy Perry dressing up as a nebbishy schlump with a fro and yarmulke and pretending to be a Bar-Mitzvah emcee in “Birthday” (Bar-Mitzvah emcees don’t even look like that).
Nicki Minaj, however, is being criticized for being too sexual in “Anaconda.” Honestly, though, what did you expect?
From the meme-ified single cover to the unapologetically sexual lyrics, I’m surprised the video was as tame as it was. Based on the lyrics, I was expecting the video to be released on PornHub rather than Vevo, but until the awkward Drake lap dance at the end, there’s not a single man in the video. The women in the video don’t wear a lot of clothes (as per usual) and they’re constantly twerking. Even my personal idol Al Roker found the video inappropriate.
It’s about time everyone gets over themselves. American censorship makes no sense. I guarantee any kid watching this video is cracking up and thinks it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. Kids know what butts are and have even seen them before — I know, shocking. Nothing Minaj does in the video is any more explicit than what can be seen at a beach or water park.
These videos should open a new conversation about what racism and censorship mean in 2014. Crying “racism” every time someone who isn’t white is cast in any part in anything is not healthy, and arbitrarily designating things as “inappropriate” conflates our morals.
As a white male, I concede that I don’t have a ton of authority on either of these matters except that I’m a human being. Racism leads to tragedies like in Ferguson and violent guerrilla wars are broadcast on daytime TV, but nipples still carry a black bar. It’s time we reconsider how we react to our media. All of this from twerking.
