The music video for Nicki Minaj’s hit song “Moment 4 Life” is at once both completely tame and highly problematic. The lyrics are, for the most part, very pro-woman, as Minaj sings about her successes as a hip hop artist which is a very male-dominated sphere: she sings “Don’t worry about me and who I fire/I get what I desire; it’s my empire…/In this very moment I’m king/ In this very moment I slayed Goliath with a sling.” The song itself presents Nicki as an empowered woman who has overcome significant obstacles and prejudices to become the star she is today.
The music video, however, completely negates these successes by portraying Minaj as a typical Disney princess, complete with a fairy godmother. She sings the lines “I wish I could have this moment for life,” while wearing a wedding dress and getting married to the co-star of her video, Drake, whose rapping is also featured in the song. Indeed, having the wedding as the focal point of the video seems to argue that the reason she is “king” is because she managed to tie down such a popular and wealthy rapper like Drake, not due to her own merits as a singer and artist. This type of portrayal simply reinforces the idea that, while women can now be accomplished in the same fields and occupations as men, their ultimate goal should still be marriage.
I completely agree with your post. I feel as though all of these powerful, successful women who are so widely publicized all over the world, are falling into these subordinate roles. Women like Jenna Jameson, who advocates that pornography is a woman's way of expressing her own power through sexuality, but at the same time becomes subordinate in so many viewers eyes when she is being dominated by a sexual male figure in a film or a magazine layout. Why aren't these "powerful" women showing the world who's boss and becoming more dominate figures in our society?
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