However, as purchasing trends have changed in recent decades, media and advertising companies no longer want to exclude the desires of women from their marketing campaigns. This was especially effective with historically predominantly male owned or desired products, such as cars.
However, is this unadulterated expression of sex really as liberating as it’s being made out to be? In this paper I will show, using the example of WAP by Cardi B, the new and old ways in which Women’s bodies, and more specifically Black women’s bodies are framed in the music video industry and in broader Western media, and show how WAP is a highly-problematic culmination of sexist and racist stereotypes.Īs Gill (2008, p.39) states, women have been used as sex objects in advertising since perhaps as long as advertising has existed. The entirely unreserved lyrics and provocative music video is, without doubt, incredibly sexual, and leaves nothing to the imagination. Many hailed it as a landmark moment in feminism and women’s liberation- finally a woman of colour able to freely express her sexuality. Within a week of release, it had already reached first place on Billboard’s Hot 100 ( Billboard, 2020). In the piece written as a Gender Observation Assignment for the course Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World, I focussed on Wet-ass Pussy- a song that became popular in the summer of 2020.
Photo above: Still from ‘WAP’ Music video. *1 out of 2 awardees of the Yuan Changying Prize, sponsored by genderED
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