‘Hottentot Barbie’ as a Multicultural Star

Schoppmeier, Sören

doi:10.54465/aspeers.08-05

‘Hottentot Barbie’ as a Multicultural Star

The Commodification of Race in Nicki Minaj’s Music Videos

dc.bibliographicCitation.firstPage	49
dc.bibliographicCitation.lastPage	70
dc.bibliographicCitation.volume	8
dc.contributor.author	Schoppmeier, Sören
dc.contributor.editor	Bozkurt, Deniz
dc.contributor.editor	Conte, Ronaldo
dc.contributor.editor	Herrmann, Sebastian M.
dc.contributor.editor	Kittler, Katharina-Luise
dc.contributor.editor	Mittag, Lisa
dc.contributor.editor	Raviraj-Steinhagen, Rinilda
dc.contributor.editor	Rieß, Amelie
dc.contributor.editor	Rozhkova, Margarita
dc.contributor.editor	van den Berg, Elena
dc.contributor.editor	Wilke, Miriam
dc.contributor.editor	Wöll, Steffen Adrian
dc.date.accessioned	2020-08-24T13:07:05Z
dc.date.available	2020-08-24T13:07:05Z
dc.date.issued	2015
dc.description.abstract	This paper is concerned with the ways in which race is commodified in Nicki Minaj’s music videos. It is argued that by selling both whiteness and blackness in various forms, Minaj establishes and sustains her persona as a multicultural star and is thus able to satisfy the demands of a wide, racially mixed audience. Most of Minaj’s videos are analyzed to support this point. The paper discusses Minaj’s music regarding genres and lyrical content, as well as the images in her clips, including her looks and moves. It is demonstrated how Minaj succeeds in and switches between both white-coded pop and black-coded rap music, how she embodies the white beauty standard as well as the exotic, sexual black woman, and how she successfully juggles markers of whiteness and blackness in a way that allows her to use both simultaneously and to easily switch from one to the other without losing credibility. Thus, Minaj becomes a multicultural star who occupies a space beyond common constraints of the conventional black/white binary.
dc.description.url	http://www.aspeers.com/2015/schoppmeier
dc.identifier.doi	10.54465/aspeers.08-05
dc.identifier.uri	http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?fidaac-11858/510
dc.language.iso	eng
dc.relation.issn	1865-8768
dc.relation.journal	aspeers
dc.relation.journalalt	emerging voices in american studies
dc.rights	L::CC BY 3.0
dc.subject.ddc	ddc:791
dc.subject.field	americanstudies
dc.subject.field	mediastudies
dc.subject.field	genderstudies
dc.subject.field	culturalstudies
dc.subject.field	popularculture
dc.title	‘Hottentot Barbie’ as a Multicultural Star
dc.title.alternative	The Commodification of Race in Nicki Minaj’s Music Videos
dc.type	article
dc.type.version	publishedVersion
dspace.entity.type	Publication