Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion have no problem destroying the male gaze to empower women through the female gaze within the WAP music video. They both empower women by creating a whorehouse for women by women as Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion both play the role as the entertainer and the entertained therefore forcing the viewer into a trance. Feeding into the Jezebel trope, Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion play with the idea of stereotypes, by embellishing some aspects of the stereotype such as animalistic and negating others attributes of the stereotype such as slut shaming. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion deny respectability politics and create a discussion about ratchet respectability including anti-respectability as they are both icons in discussions about these socio-political subjects. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion empower women by unapologetically exploring their own sexuality and promoting sex positivity throughout various rooms of the whorehouse from the aspect of the viewer and the viewed. Confusion and trickery are employed through a trance which can be witnessed from a visual perspective throughout the whorehouse as Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion rap their lyrics.Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion both create power dynamics of dominance and submission within their dynamic together and with the viewer and the viewed based on the camera angle, time, and space created. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion create a trance as the viewer is sucked into a dystopian/utopian setting warping a sense of time and space. While the lyrics paint a picture of emasculating men, the visuals completely leave men out of the picture and focus only on the women through the female gaze. The aim of the analysis of this music video is to critically examine how WAP empowers women to explore their sexual identity in relation to other women by denying the male gaze. Furthermore, this paper will illustrate how this music video acts as a political tool for social justice advocacy and equality within Hip-Hop feminism and trap feminism and overall patriarchal Hip-Hop culture. For research purposes, the WAP music video makes for a unique case study to visually analyze through Hip-Hop feminist theory and the female gaze, from an intersectional perspective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-195995 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Garoutte, Nicola |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Tema Genus |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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