Kanye West has horrified feminists with the leak of a partial clip of his most recent music video, “Monster,” from the album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”
West’s video features images of naked and semi-nude dead women in various submissive positions: limp in bed, hanging from the ceiling by their necks, on the floor and flopped on a sofa while he and collaborators Jay Z, Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj manhandle them and/or rap nearby.
With such violent depictions of women, feminist groups and advocates are demanding that Universal Music Group and MTV stop release or decline to play the complete video.
In a petition penned by Adios Barbie, Collective Shout and the Coalition against Trafficking in Women, Australiathe groups contend that the video is “beyond disturbing.”
WATCH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=satZd-V_5uA
“The victims in this video are clearly women. Only women. And the men, Kanye West, Rick Ross and Jay-Z, are far from bothered by the female corpses. They seem to enjoy being surrounded by lifeless female bodies, apparent victims of a serial killing,” the petition reads. “The official release date of the full-length video has not yet been announced. Let’s make it clear to Universal Music Group, the controlling company of West’s record label, Roc-A-Fella Records, and MTV that the music industry’s portrayals of women’s pain, suffering, abuse, objectification and victimization as valid forms of entertainment are not acceptable. “
Amy Siskind, president and co-founder of The New Agenda, a women’s advocacy group, told The Daily Caller that the video should be condemned rather than granted a place in the public sphere.
“The Kayne West video is misogyny masquerading as art,” Siskind wrote to in an e-mail. “In fact, the violent depictions of women borders on gender-based hate crime. Which is why our country’s leaders, starting with President Obama, should condemn this video. Be assured that if a person of color had their neck in a noose as opposed to the naked bodies of women, we’d we having more than a beer summit at the White House!”
Australian feminist Melinda Tankard Reist thinks the video is the epitome of female objectification. She lamented that music and images such as West’s inform society’s young men.
“The clip is not only interested in fetishizing female bodies, it revels in fetishizing female pain, female passivity, female suffering and female silence. The ultimate female is the quiet, passive female – a mannequin – who accepts violence, abuse and suffering while remaining hot and sexy,”
With frustration continuing to boil up about West, President Obama might want to reconsider downloading his favorite artist’s songs onto his iPod.