I come from Russia, where we never really had neither political correctness or black people.  We did have slavery up until 1861, but Russia exploits and demeans its own people, so they were all native Russians, therefore white. That is why I am always extremely cautious when it comes to racism and political correctness: I honestly just don’t know what I can say and what I can’t. I am obviously opposed to racism and any kind of abuse of human rights, but I’m still always really afraid to offend someone, so it is quite difficult for me to reflect on the reading about racism. Not to mention, I am really not familiar with black culture… So I guess I’ll just give it a try.

To be honest, this chapter confused me. Don’t artist choose what they want their music video to be like themselves? And don’t they have a choice to decline an offer to be featured in another artist’s video? I mean, nobody forced Lil’ Kim to appear in “Can’t Hold Us Down”, and I am sure she could’ve changed her outfit if she felt like it was oversexualising black womanhood? Not to mention, the whole song was about how women should be able to express themselves sexually without being claimed “whores”, wouldn’t it kill the whole point if they were all dressed like nuns? And all these pages on buttocks and genitalia? I honestly didn’t know that it was like that in Victorian times, and it’s absolutely horrible, but it’s not 19th century anymore, people have a choice to dress however they like. In terms of music videos, there are two points: artist have a huge say in how it will be; and show business tends to sexualise women of all races. I don’t want to be offensive, but isn’t it a choice? It says in the chapter:

“Their roles as the guardians of sexual morals and cultural refinement, sustained by the presumes asexuality of their bodies and their embodiment of virtue, positioned them not only as the civilised but also as the civilisers, that is to say, the principal agents through which the process of “civilising primitive people” was enacted”

D. Railton, P. Watson (2011).

Today, most white women, especially the ones in show business, have definitely let go of their “virtue”. It is no longer something inconceivable and forbidden to wear extremely revealing clothes, appear on TV naked and even make videos of sexual nature. Try to remember at least 1 female celebrities who still follows Victorian fashion, or even just tries to hide her body? It’s just not here anymore at this age. I would even say, that  sexual emancipation came to us from black people, which is a great thing. Of course, I am not saying that racism is not a problem nowadays, we are still to battle it out of our lives, However, personally, I j think that some people just like to get offended. There is this type of people who will always find something to complain about, something to get offended by. I am sure that if Soft Corporate was famous and out music video was viewed by millions of people, we would get a lot of different accusations just because that’s what people do.

All in all, although I tried, I couldn’t find any racism in “Can’t Hold Us Down”, “Baby Boy” or “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”. Again, I am not familiar with the topic at all, and that is just my initial though. I really hope I didn’t offend anyone.

Works cited:

D. Railton, P. Watson (2011). “Music Video And Politics Of Representation”, Edinburgh University Press.