Just what is going on with Nicki Minaj and that seriously NSFW 'Anaconda'?

It’s one of those rare occasions when you can look heavenwards and thank the gods that our contribution to the Inexplicable Hip Hop Celebrity list is Yo Yo Honey Singh. He’s explicit, there’s barely anything musical about the tunes and to add insult to injury, his Lungi Dance is a huge hit even among our brethren south of the Vindhyas, cultural stereotyping and auto-tune be damned. But, for all his flaws, Singh is not Nicki Minaj, and for that, today, let us say thanks. To all those who cluck disapprovingly at what Bollywood subjects its heroines to and to those who urge us to look at the feminist leaps that Western culture has taken, please watch Minaj’s new video, “Anaconda”. If you’re at work, save the link and watch it at home. NSFW was coined for videos like this one.

Minaj is well known for her overtly sexual persona, but even by her standards, “Anaconda” is explicit. Among other things, she’s seen twerking, wearing a bustier made of gold chains in an Amazonian jungle set, slapping a dancer’s bottom, showing off her butt cleavage, and smearing whipped cream over her breasts while wearing a French maid outfit. At one point, she’s in a gym wearing a hot pink bikini whose bottom is so miniscule that it’s like an optical illusion. At another point, Minaj gyrates on chair as though she really really needed to go to the bathroom but the director didn’t let her. [caption id=“attachment_1675251” align=“aligncenter” width=“380”]  Courtesy: Facebook[/caption] Finally, she crawls on her hands and knees to Drake, who despite his comments on Instagram looks about as aroused as a deflated balloon, and gives him a lap dance, possibly in an attempt to break the internet. The video’s already had almost 20 million hits so Minaj hasn’t done badly on that last account. Much of “Anaconda” is about taking pride in one’s body, primarily because it can turn an anaconda on. (Some of us prefer humans, but hey, who am I to judge?) So Minaj sings, He can tell I ain’t missing no meals … And he telling me it’s real, that he love my sex appeal Say he don’t like em boney, he want something he can grab Music to a big girl’s ears perhaps, until you take into account that Minaj’s figure. She’s like something out of a cartoon or graphic novel: pronounced curves on an otherwise petite frame made up of big eyes, big hair, delicate wrists and ankles, slender arms and an impossibly tiny waist. This is the woman who spends nearly five minutes telling us she’s proud of her un-skinny body. Minaj may be intending to encourage women to take pride in their figures regardless of whether they conform to current beauty conventions, but she is a walking model for body dysmorphia. In the last part of “Anaconda”, while lap dancing for Drake and wallowing in a pool wearing a swimsuit made of hot pink strips of Lycra, Minaj says the following (give or take a few “gyeah"s and some manic laughter) : Yeah, this one is for my bitches with a fat a** in the f***ing club I said, where my fat a** big b**ches in the club? F*** the skinny b**ches, f*** the skinny b**ches in the club I wanna see all the big fat a** b**ches in the motherf***ing club F*** you if you skinny bitches what? While I’m all for body positive messages in popular entertainment, I must register a protest because as someone who can genuinely claim the fat tag for herself, I’d like to point out that Minaj is not what a fat person looks like. Voluptuous, yes. Fat, no. In fact, if the size of her waist in the gym section of “Ananconda” is anything to go by, then she’s actually got more in common with “skinny b**ches” than regular sized women, let alone those who would be considered “big”. The basic premise of “Anaconda” is seriously troubling: men lust after big bottoms, Minaj has a big bottom, which means men find Minaj desirable; ergo, Minaj is awesome. The song samples Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, which has lyrics like this: I like big butts and I can not lie You other brothers can’t deny That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist And a round thing in your face You get sprung… This is the sentiment that Minaj is drawing upon to bolster a healthy body image. I can’t tell whether it’s reassuring or alarming that Minaj admits freely in “Anaconda”, “I’m on some dumb sh*t.” If you need Sir Mix-a-Lot, Drake and his ‘anaconda’ to make you feel better about your figure, Ms Minaj, you most certainly are on some very dumb sh*t. In the past there’s been a devil-may-care zaniness to Minaj’s work that has in “Anaconda” acquired a distinct edge of desperation. The video is filled with little plugs for the brands she promotes, like Myx by Moscato and Beats Pill. It tries to push as many erotic buttons as possible by showing Minaj star in one male pornographic fantasy after another. And let’s not forget, what we’re seeing is the edited version.Watching Minaj thrust her crotch into the lens and generally throw subtlety to the winds, you can’t help wonder what she’s trying to achieve by all this. Is this Minaj responding to the pressure of going viral that the age of social media places upon everyone in show business? In the desperately obvious sexuality that she displays in her videos, does there lurk something more miserable and insecure? Let’s hope the clicks and likes are doing for her all she was hoping they would and that when she looks in the mirror, she isn’t seeing a “fat” girl whose self-esteem is pivoted upon being desirable. For those who are interested in seeing real women’s bodies, here’s a link that really does encourage you to have a positive body image and not be ashamed at having a regular, imperfect figure.