On the Objectification of the Female in Popular Culture

Rapper 50 Cent, pictured at left. Loving the crucifix draped around his neck. How's your friend Jesus feel about your "lollipop," 50?

How many young American women would you guess truly identify with the “bitches and hoes” standard set by popular rap music videos? Outwardly, an overwhelming majority of them would reject such expectations as being rooted in chauvinistic stereotypes - and they’d be correct in doing so, - but how many subconsciously take the lessons learned in MTV’s classroom to heart? From our daughters’ childhood playthings to the clothes they don in adolescence, the sexualization and idealization of the feminine form as an object of lust has a profound and noticeable effect on our country’s psychological outlook, both female and male alike. Exposure to gyrating body parts attached to various scantily-clad women from a young and impressionable age, as is so commonplace in the heyday of internet videos and cable television, can predestine a child to subconscious subjugation of women in a sexual context, predisposing them to a lifetime of unintentional assumptions and accidental expectations. Having grown up on a steady diet of glistening quadriceps and exposed cleavage, how can one expect a teenage boy not to anticipate such treasures lurking beneath the garments of a future romantic partner? These exceptionally high and unrealistic standards, combined with the relegation of the female to a level of irrelevance consigned to a male’s sexual plaything, create a precarious atmosphere for every generation of American culture aficionados. Myths such as these are commonly propagated through rap and hip-hop music videos, which usually seem to feature women either as brazen nymphomaniacs or as demure and unassuming sexual objects, subjugated by the rap performers almost to the point of sex slavery; with each stereotype boasting idealized sexual appendages and a libido that could kill a horse.

In the video for “Candy Shop,” a 2004 track by rapper 50 Cent, our protagonist comes across a mansion filled with dozens of multicultural women dressed in nothing but lingerie. Over the course of the song, 50 Cent offers to “take [the women] to the [titular] candy shop,” where he instructs them to “lick [his] lollipop.” The women in the video, apparently pleased by his explicit permission to perform fellatio upon him, caress his tattooed muscles and douse themselves in chocolate syrup in keeping with the candy theme. The express message of the video and song’s lyrics is that 50 Cent, adopting and self-christening himself in the role of the dominating male figure, has at his disposal an army of women, the equivalents of sex toys in this distorted fictional world, itching to do his bidding and fulfill whatever childish sexual fantasies he might maintain. The video makes the performer’s take on gender roles abundantly clear: men are to drive sports cars and wear expensive clothes, while women are to prance around in their undergarments, smirking seductively while they answer to man’s every beck and call. Is it any wonder that the track was written by two men, 50 Cent and Scott Storch?

What does this teach the innocents who might be unfortunate enough to happen upon such drivel? Boys are indoctrinated from an early age to think of women in a sexual context almost exclusively, effectively curbing their ability to form lasting and meaningful relationships, platonic and romantic alike, with the opposite gender. Men in our sex-saturated society are groomed to consider themselves dominant sensual superiors, erotic conquistadors of flesh who belong on the receiving end of limitless sexual favors, fruits of feminine lust and nymphomania. Even religion, the supposed last bastion of virtue in a world quickly devolving into the cesspool of immorality, reinforces this dichotomy in their theological systems. Most sects of Christianity reserve the highest positions of authority for men, and contain doctrines dictating that woman is the “property” of her husband, and that she is beholden to him for all of his bedroom needs.

Easily among the most disturbing byproducts of this consistently chauvinistic culture is the female's not only tolerance, but unilateral acceptance of sexist lyrics and trends as commonplace, painfully evidenced by their frequent singing along to such classics as Ludacris’ timeless "Shake Your Money Maker." Does this seemingly self-deprecating practice represent an acquiescence on the part of the American woman, an apparent admittance that women can only be financially successful as prostitute or trophy wife? Or, rather, does their compliance indicate a form of defiance against these cultural standard-bearers, much in the same way racial slurs have been gradually integrated into the very minority cultures they once disparaged? Is this method of adoption robbing the lyrics of their thorns, as could be the intention?

In accepting these terrible ideas as culturally significant, these particular women are only perpetuating the trend of degradation sparked by the rap music itself. By purchasing, downloading, and otherwise consuming this auditory trash; and by dancing to it with chauvinistic males at clubs and other social events, the women are only assigning these “artists” perceived relevance and prolonging the cultural meme whose fetishism reduces women to a half-exposed pair of breasts or thighs. Only when everyone with the power to sway musical trends, including critics, listeners of both genders, advertisers on the music video networks, and radio station disk jockeys reject this despicable vogue and silence these chauvinist pigs forever. M.