The official class blog for English 102 section C02 at the University of South Carolina. Check back for links to student written album reviews, genre criticisms, cultural analyses, and more.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
R.R. 9/21
Early in his essay Ong says, "If the writer succeeds in writing, it is generally because he can fictionalize in his imagination an audience he has learned to know not from daily life but from earlier writers who were fictionalizing in their imagination audiences they had learned to know in still earlier writers, and so far back to the dawn of written narrative." This doesn't mean that author's invent their readership; rather, it means that authors invent how their readership interacts with and positions themselves to the author's texts based on previous writings. Ong goes on to claim that "an 'original writer'" does not merely reproduce earlier audiences but rather takes those earlier subject positions that readers are used to and reshapes them.
Watch the two videos and answer the questions below:
Who is the audience (explicit or implicit) for these videos and how does each artist create that audience?
How does Minaj both invoke and change the audience envisioned by Mix-a-Lot?
What is the effect (political, aesthetic, social, cultural) of that change?
I think that the original audience of both songs are men who like rap. I think that they created that audience because of the lyrics and the music videos. I mean both music videos have half naked girls twerking, which I figure is geared to guys. Nicki keeps the previous audience while also changing it a little bit. She keeps the men aspect because I mean she was literally wearing just underwear shaking everything in the video. But then she changes it by putting it in the women's perception too. She raps about having a man fix her salads, basically doing what she wants because guys do "like big butts and they cannot lie". I think the change of audience shows how far woman have come in the time between the songs. The first song talks about just what woman can do for men. But in "Anaconda" Nicki makes a change to what men can do for woman. This demonstrates that woman have more authority and power in the relationship, which is a cultural change for the American society.
Sir Mix-A-Lot’s audience leans more towards the male population, which is created when he refers to the “fellas.” Minaj’s uses the lyrics from Mix-A-Lot's song to include his audience, but uses her music video to broaden that audience to basically every single young person who listens to music. Her music video is iconic to today's cultural music scene, and it not only broadened her audience, but also broadened the audience of "Baby Got Back." In contrast to the original song, in each verse of Minaj's song she tells a story, which shows how music has changed since the original song was released.
Both songs are very similar musically, seeing as Minaj uses pieces from Sir Mix A Lot's song, but they have very different audiences. The first song has a very clear perspective: that of a male trying to get with a female. Much more relatable for men. Minaj spins it so that we see the perspective of the female. After the first song, a woman might be a little offended by the shallowness of Mix A Lot's obsession with booty, they might think "I wish my ass was good enough for Sir Mix A Lot", but after watching MInaj's video, that same woman will probably feel more like "yeah you wish you could get this ass". Minaj spins the perspective by adding her own lyrics, but also by coming off very powerful as she usually does.
Both of these pieces of work are directed towards the same audience: females. They both focus on glorifying the female body in an attempt to draw in more listeners with the visuals and the lyrics of the song and to accept themselves. Minaj adapted Sir Mix-a-Lot's original audience by making it much more revealing and glamorizing off the body even more than Mix-a-Lot was trying to do. In Sir Mix-a-Lot there were parts being shown off, but they were mostly props contrary to Minaj and her backups. The effect that Minaj's song had on us politically is we began talking about appropriateness and socially we began thinking about what would be too far to take something or whether it is okay to be revealing and be happy with the way one is.
Both Sir Mix-a-Lot and Minaj have a similar audience in mind for their songs. They are both kind of geared towards a younger hip hop audience. However, it seems like Nikki Minaj sort of evolved the audience that Sir Mix-a-Lot initially set forth. Sir Mix-a-lot seems to be more towards a masculine audience while Nikki Minaj just kind of twisted it to be more for a feminine audience. This change in audience expands more into hip hop culture.
Sir Mix-a-lot's intended audience was the male population. The song was about a girl's behind and how the stereotypically pretty woman didn't show what men wanted. Implicitly, he may have been trying to reach women and tell them that what men wanted. Nicki Minaj's song targeted women and men essentially with same goal. She just reshaped the message by saying that she know she has a big butt and she knows that it's appealing. This sends the message that women should strive for that and men should appreciate it. In my opinion, the song has a very similar effect. The only difference is that it is empowering for women, letting them know it's okay to be proud of their assets. Whereas the other song just identified that that's what men really wanted.
I feel like the intended audience of sir mix a lot is straight men as he sexualizes women in his lyrics. I don't think he was as focused on women when writing this. However, I think that Nicki Minaj expends the audience to women. Even though the songs are essentially the same topic, Minaj expands her audience to women as she sexualizes women in a different way and also talks about men. The song plays for both genders. She changes this audience by the changes in singers. There is Minaj as well as a mans for that switches. I think this change helps the song connect with different audiences even though the song is still on the same theme. This change seems to sexualize the song even more. It is a social change.
The audiences for these videos invite a similar group of butt-loving crowd, however Mix-a-Lot's aims towards self-loving women and the appreciation of their bodies with only subtle sexualization,Minaj's is more geared towards the adornment crowd who appreciate these over sexualized bodies, typically men. The sex and gender change, while Mix-a-Lot encourages women to embrace their bodies and booties while Minaj encourages men to embrace and adore women's bodies and booties. Although both are geared toward the rear, the audiences for each individual song vary within the music video. Minaj changes the audience by sexualizing the body even further, invoking images that were once imagined to reality. By doing so, the audience branches out further than just women embracing their natural curves and the adoration of men on the side, but the involvement of sexuality embracing all sides and taking it to a whole new level. The cultural change is very much evident by using the over sexualization of women's bodies in the media to challenge social norms and challenge viewers to seek out almost pornographic videos in order to listen to a song about almost pornographic loving and appreciation of women's bodies.
I think the audeince for "Baby got Back" is mainly more for men. Minaj changes the audience more for women. She changes it mainly with the lyrics and the video itself. Both videos had girls harldy dressed and dancing. The "Anaconda" video was just more modern and slighlty more explicit with the dancing. Minaj was in a way leading the dancing in certain parts of the video. Where as Sir Mix-A-Lot was observing the dancing. Minaj put this video out at a time where the country was and still is evolving to be more oopen and accepting. There is a different aesthetic between the two artists, but the main differences between the two videos was social and cultural.
1. The audience for Sir Mix-A-Lot is both men and women. He addresses the guys to tell them what kind of ladies they should be looking for, and how they should tell their ladies to embrace their curves, but also addresses women to tell them this is what guys want. 2. The sexual nature of Nicki's video targets a male audience as well, but I believe it more targets girls. Girls will want to look like Nicki and her dancers so that guys will like them, or girls will want curves like the artist. 3. The effect of the change shows the cultural importance placed on image and self worth in today's society. Girls will want to look like Nicki but also could feel empowered to embrace how they look.
1. The audience originally created by Sir Mix-a-Lot was primarily those of the younger generation, especially club-goers that would dance to this type of music. Minaj built on the idea of this audience when creating "Anaconda" by using snippets of "Baby Got Back." This song was also for the younger generation because she utilized aspects of popular culture like twerking. 2. She invoked the same audience as Sir Mix-a-Lot by having a similar sound to her song and also incorporating similar aspects in her music video, like the fruit. 3. The effect culturally shows that now people are more used to what may have been considered more graphic back when "Baby Got Back" was released. The women have less clothing on in this video and act more provocative.
Originally, Mix-a-lot has an audience of fellow males, as he talks about and describes women. Minaj takes that audience and flips it to talking to her fellow females. Because she is curvy, Minaj is admired by males. In a way, Minaj thinks of herself as one of the women described by Mix-a-lot and describes how she does have many curves. I think the effect of that change is cultural. Instead of males praising females, females can now praise themselves because of their confidence and knowing that they look good without a man telling them.
I think it is hard to describe the audiences that Sir Mix-a-Lot and Nicki are trying to reach with these songs and videos. It seems like they are both trying to reach people who enjoy rap and maybe have a sense of humor. Minaj takes the theme and parts of "Baby Got Back" and puts a new modern spin on it that still encapsulates the audience created by Sir Mix-A-Lot. She uses enough of the original song to create "Anaconda" that most people recognized the stand out lyrics like, "my anaconda don't..." and "oh my god, look at her butt." I think it was smart for her to put a new perspective on the original song and tell it from the perspective of a female. She also took some parts of the original video and used it in hers like the banana. You can kind of tell the time differences in what's acceptable now versus what was acceptable then. There is much less clothing in "Anaconda's" video as compared to the video for "Baby Got Back." Nicki Minaj just did a modern spin on Sir Mix-a-Lot's song that still managed to reach the same or similar audiences.
The audience for Sir Mix-a-Lot are younger men, while the audience for Nicki Minaj is geared towards women as well as people who are familiar with the Sir Mix-a-Lot song "Baby Got Back". Nick Minaj changes the audience from males to females by singing it from a women's stand point, while also appealing to men because of the sexuality of the music video and lyrics. I think the cultural change is that now women are more comfortable singing about the inappropriate topics instead of break-ups. Women artists are not ostracized when they put out explicit work.
Nicki Minaj takes Sir Mix-a-Lot's meaning of Baby Got Back- which is that he only is interested in girls with big butts and everyone else should be too- and she replies by saying that she has a huge butt and how all men love her for it. In this way, Anaconda is a sort of response to Baby Got Back. The audience for Baby Got Back is people who enjoy hip-hop/rap music and explicit lyrics about girls with big butts. Nicki changes this audience to people who still enjoy hip-hop/rap music, but she widens the audience to women who like to dance and flaunt their butts. This effect of this change takes the song from men objectifying women to women taking pride in their physical assets.
I think the Nicki Minaj's song "Anaconda" she changes the audience to a more mature one by making the song and the music video a lot more sexual than Sir Mix-a-Lot's original song. Sir Mix-a-Lot uses more subtle and hidden references but Nicki Minaj puts everything out there in her music video and her song so it appeals to a more mature and older audience. The cultural change Minaj creates by doing this is that when people hear the part of "Baby Got Back" they now associate it to Minaj's "Anaconda" rather than to the original song.
1. The audiences for "Baby Got Back" and "Anaconda" are the younger generations of teenagers and twenty-somethings. Guys and girls alike are targeted. Mix-a-Lot creates his audience through lyrics and repeated references to butts (as well as genitalia-shaped fruits) in his video. Minaj creates her audience by working with popular culture and what is currently seen as "sexy." 2. Minaj invokes the audience created by Mix-a-Lot by using the same anaconda references and using the same type of punchy beat. She expects her audience to make a connection that her song is inspired by Mix-a-Lot. However, she changes her audience by being a female singer and by including other motives in her video. 3. The effect of that change is that the song is both new and brings back the classic to culture, too.
The audiences for "Baby Got Back" and "Anaconda" are the same in that women with larger butts and men who appreciate them are targeted. However, Minaj seems to reshape that audience and especially focus on women with large butts, focusing more on praising them for their attributes and how these attributes are "better" instead of looking only through the perspective of men and how they benefit as Sir Mix-a-Lot does. Minaj does this by having more women present in the video and focusing on them showing off their attributes, instead of giving the impression that the entire video is focused on men checking out these butts like Sir Mix-a-Lot. The cultural effect is that, in a way, Minaj creates a more feminist message than Sir Mix-a-Lot and encourages body appreciation for a select group.
1. Sir Mix-A-Lot presents his song to a younger generation with the intent of presenting a comical gesture about big butts on women. At the time, this video was probably not as accepted because of the censorship and toleration for these kinds of things. Minaj has used the same concept but has taken it a step further to push the boundaries of today's limits.
2. Minaj changes Mix-A-Lot's premise by placing even more power in the women themselves for having a "fat ass."
3. Socially, this has desensitized society in regards to what is appropriate or acceptable in the music community.
The audiences for these videos are similar and build off each other. They both “speak” female audiences about showing off their bodies, but in seemingly different ways. Mix-a-Lot aims towards women who he encourages to “shake it,” but because the video portrays men appreciating the curves of these women, it seems as though the video targets men more than women. While Nicki speaks toward women, her message is more one of feminism and empowerment. In her video, there are few, if any men, and she speaks purely to the women who should be proud of their bodies. The effect of this change is that Sir Mix-a-Lot seems more that he is objectifying women even though there is a similar audience. It is relating to the social movement of feminism, because if Nicki’s video also had men watching these women, there would be much more of an uproar then there would have 10 years ago.
The intended audience that Mix-A-Lot created that Minaj built off of was women. They create this audience by portraying the glamour of women's bodies. Minaj changes the audience by speaking more towards women instead of men like Mix-A-Lot did when he portrayed men as appreciating women's bodies. Minaj instead guides women to feel comfortable with themselves and their own bodies. The cultural effect of this change was that Minaj shows that women of all body types should be appreciated, not just an ideal "form and figure."
I think that the original audience of both songs are men who like rap. I think that they created that audience because of the lyrics and the music videos. I mean both music videos have half naked girls twerking, which I figure is geared to guys. Nicki keeps the previous audience while also changing it a little bit. She keeps the men aspect because I mean she was literally wearing just underwear shaking everything in the video. But then she changes it by putting it in the women's perception too. She raps about having a man fix her salads, basically doing what she wants because guys do "like big butts and they cannot lie". I think the change of audience shows how far woman have come in the time between the songs. The first song talks about just what woman can do for men. But in "Anaconda" Nicki makes a change to what men can do for woman. This demonstrates that woman have more authority and power in the relationship, which is a cultural change for the American society.
ReplyDeleteSir Mix-A-Lot’s audience leans more towards the male population, which is created when he refers to the “fellas.” Minaj’s uses the lyrics from Mix-A-Lot's song to include his audience, but uses her music video to broaden that audience to basically every single young person who listens to music. Her music video is iconic to today's cultural music scene, and it not only broadened her audience, but also broadened the audience of "Baby Got Back." In contrast to the original song, in each verse of Minaj's song she tells a story, which shows how music has changed since the original song was released.
ReplyDeleteBoth songs are very similar musically, seeing as Minaj uses pieces from Sir Mix A Lot's song, but they have very different audiences. The first song has a very clear perspective: that of a male trying to get with a female. Much more relatable for men. Minaj spins it so that we see the perspective of the female. After the first song, a woman might be a little offended by the shallowness of Mix A Lot's obsession with booty, they might think "I wish my ass was good enough for Sir Mix A Lot", but after watching MInaj's video, that same woman will probably feel more like "yeah you wish you could get this ass". Minaj spins the perspective by adding her own lyrics, but also by coming off very powerful as she usually does.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these pieces of work are directed towards the same audience: females. They both focus on glorifying the female body in an attempt to draw in more listeners with the visuals and the lyrics of the song and to accept themselves. Minaj adapted Sir Mix-a-Lot's original audience by making it much more revealing and glamorizing off the body even more than Mix-a-Lot was trying to do. In Sir Mix-a-Lot there were parts being shown off, but they were mostly props contrary to Minaj and her backups. The effect that Minaj's song had on us politically is we began talking about appropriateness and socially we began thinking about what would be too far to take something or whether it is okay to be revealing and be happy with the way one is.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteBoth Sir Mix-a-Lot and Minaj have a similar audience in mind for their songs. They are both kind of geared towards a younger hip hop audience. However, it seems like Nikki Minaj sort of evolved the audience that Sir Mix-a-Lot initially set forth. Sir Mix-a-lot seems to be more towards a masculine audience while Nikki Minaj just kind of twisted it to be more for a feminine audience. This change in audience expands more into hip hop culture.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSir Mix-a-lot's intended audience was the male population. The song was about a girl's behind and how the stereotypically pretty woman didn't show what men wanted. Implicitly, he may have been trying to reach women and tell them that what men wanted. Nicki Minaj's song targeted women and men essentially with same goal. She just reshaped the message by saying that she know she has a big butt and she knows that it's appealing. This sends the message that women should strive for that and men should appreciate it.
In my opinion, the song has a very similar effect. The only difference is that it is empowering for women, letting them know it's okay to be proud of their assets. Whereas the other song just identified that that's what men really wanted.
I feel like the intended audience of sir mix a lot is straight men as he sexualizes women in his lyrics. I don't think he was as focused on women when writing this. However, I think that Nicki Minaj expends the audience to women. Even though the songs are essentially the same topic, Minaj expands her audience to women as she sexualizes women in a different way and also talks about men. The song plays for both genders. She changes this audience by the changes in singers. There is Minaj as well as a mans for that switches. I think this change helps the song connect with different audiences even though the song is still on the same theme. This change seems to sexualize the song even more. It is a social change.
ReplyDeleteThe audiences for these videos invite a similar group of butt-loving crowd, however Mix-a-Lot's aims towards self-loving women and the appreciation of their bodies with only subtle sexualization,Minaj's is more geared towards the adornment crowd who appreciate these over sexualized bodies, typically men. The sex and gender change, while Mix-a-Lot encourages women to embrace their bodies and booties while Minaj encourages men to embrace and adore women's bodies and booties. Although both are geared toward the rear, the audiences for each individual song vary within the music video. Minaj changes the audience by sexualizing the body even further, invoking images that were once imagined to reality. By doing so, the audience branches out further than just women embracing their natural curves and the adoration of men on the side, but the involvement of sexuality embracing all sides and taking it to a whole new level. The cultural change is very much evident by using the over sexualization of women's bodies in the media to challenge social norms and challenge viewers to seek out almost pornographic videos in order to listen to a song about almost pornographic loving and appreciation of women's bodies.
ReplyDeleteI think the audeince for "Baby got Back" is mainly more for men. Minaj changes the audience more for women. She changes it mainly with the lyrics and the video itself. Both videos had girls harldy dressed and dancing. The "Anaconda" video was just more modern and slighlty more explicit with the dancing. Minaj was in a way leading the dancing in certain parts of the video. Where as Sir Mix-A-Lot was observing the dancing. Minaj put this video out at a time where the country was and still is evolving to be more oopen and accepting. There is a different aesthetic between the two artists, but the main differences between the two videos was social and cultural.
ReplyDelete1. The audience for Sir Mix-A-Lot is both men and women. He addresses the guys to tell them what kind of ladies they should be looking for, and how they should tell their ladies to embrace their curves, but also addresses women to tell them this is what guys want.
ReplyDelete2. The sexual nature of Nicki's video targets a male audience as well, but I believe it more targets girls. Girls will want to look like Nicki and her dancers so that guys will like them, or girls will want curves like the artist.
3. The effect of the change shows the cultural importance placed on image and self worth in today's society. Girls will want to look like Nicki but also could feel empowered to embrace how they look.
1. The audience originally created by Sir Mix-a-Lot was primarily those of the younger generation, especially club-goers that would dance to this type of music. Minaj built on the idea of this audience when creating "Anaconda" by using snippets of "Baby Got Back." This song was also for the younger generation because she utilized aspects of popular culture like twerking.
ReplyDelete2. She invoked the same audience as Sir Mix-a-Lot by having a similar sound to her song and also incorporating similar aspects in her music video, like the fruit.
3. The effect culturally shows that now people are more used to what may have been considered more graphic back when "Baby Got Back" was released. The women have less clothing on in this video and act more provocative.
Originally, Mix-a-lot has an audience of fellow males, as he talks about and describes women. Minaj takes that audience and flips it to talking to her fellow females. Because she is curvy, Minaj is admired by males. In a way, Minaj thinks of herself as one of the women described by Mix-a-lot and describes how she does have many curves. I think the effect of that change is cultural. Instead of males praising females, females can now praise themselves because of their confidence and knowing that they look good without a man telling them.
ReplyDeleteI think it is hard to describe the audiences that Sir Mix-a-Lot and Nicki are trying to reach with these songs and videos. It seems like they are both trying to reach people who enjoy rap and maybe have a sense of humor. Minaj takes the theme and parts of "Baby Got Back" and puts a new modern spin on it that still encapsulates the audience created by Sir Mix-A-Lot. She uses enough of the original song to create "Anaconda" that most people recognized the stand out lyrics like, "my anaconda don't..." and "oh my god, look at her butt." I think it was smart for her to put a new perspective on the original song and tell it from the perspective of a female. She also took some parts of the original video and used it in hers like the banana. You can kind of tell the time differences in what's acceptable now versus what was acceptable then. There is much less clothing in "Anaconda's" video as compared to the video for "Baby Got Back." Nicki Minaj just did a modern spin on Sir Mix-a-Lot's song that still managed to reach the same or similar audiences.
ReplyDeleteThe audience for Sir Mix-a-Lot are younger men, while the audience for Nicki Minaj is geared towards women as well as people who are familiar with the Sir Mix-a-Lot song "Baby Got Back". Nick Minaj changes the audience from males to females by singing it from a women's stand point, while also appealing to men because of the sexuality of the music video and lyrics. I think the cultural change is that now women are more comfortable singing about the inappropriate topics instead of break-ups. Women artists are not ostracized when they put out explicit work.
ReplyDeleteNicki Minaj takes Sir Mix-a-Lot's meaning of Baby Got Back- which is that he only is interested in girls with big butts and everyone else should be too- and she replies by saying that she has a huge butt and how all men love her for it. In this way, Anaconda is a sort of response to Baby Got Back. The audience for Baby Got Back is people who enjoy hip-hop/rap music and explicit lyrics about girls with big butts. Nicki changes this audience to people who still enjoy hip-hop/rap music, but she widens the audience to women who like to dance and flaunt their butts. This effect of this change takes the song from men objectifying women to women taking pride in their physical assets.
ReplyDeleteI think the Nicki Minaj's song "Anaconda" she changes the audience to a more mature one by making the song and the music video a lot more sexual than Sir Mix-a-Lot's original song. Sir Mix-a-Lot uses more subtle and hidden references but Nicki Minaj puts everything out there in her music video and her song so it appeals to a more mature and older audience. The cultural change Minaj creates by doing this is that when people hear the part of "Baby Got Back" they now associate it to Minaj's "Anaconda" rather than to the original song.
ReplyDelete1. The audiences for "Baby Got Back" and "Anaconda" are the younger generations of teenagers and twenty-somethings. Guys and girls alike are targeted. Mix-a-Lot creates his audience through lyrics and repeated references to butts (as well as genitalia-shaped fruits) in his video. Minaj creates her audience by working with popular culture and what is currently seen as "sexy."
ReplyDelete2. Minaj invokes the audience created by Mix-a-Lot by using the same anaconda references and using the same type of punchy beat. She expects her audience to make a connection that her song is inspired by Mix-a-Lot. However, she changes her audience by being a female singer and by including other motives in her video.
3. The effect of that change is that the song is both new and brings back the classic to culture, too.
The audiences for "Baby Got Back" and "Anaconda" are the same in that women with larger butts and men who appreciate them are targeted. However, Minaj seems to reshape that audience and especially focus on women with large butts, focusing more on praising them for their attributes and how these attributes are "better" instead of looking only through the perspective of men and how they benefit as Sir Mix-a-Lot does. Minaj does this by having more women present in the video and focusing on them showing off their attributes, instead of giving the impression that the entire video is focused on men checking out these butts like Sir Mix-a-Lot. The cultural effect is that, in a way, Minaj creates a more feminist message than Sir Mix-a-Lot and encourages body appreciation for a select group.
ReplyDelete1. Sir Mix-A-Lot presents his song to a younger generation with the intent of presenting a comical gesture about big butts on women. At the time, this video was probably not as accepted because of the censorship and toleration for these kinds of things. Minaj has used the same concept but has taken it a step further to push the boundaries of today's limits.
ReplyDelete2. Minaj changes Mix-A-Lot's premise by placing even more power in the women themselves for having a "fat ass."
3. Socially, this has desensitized society in regards to what is appropriate or acceptable in the music community.
The audiences for these videos are similar and build off each other. They both “speak” female audiences about showing off their bodies, but in seemingly different ways. Mix-a-Lot aims towards women who he encourages to “shake it,” but because the video portrays men appreciating the curves of these women, it seems as though the video targets men more than women. While Nicki speaks toward women, her message is more one of feminism and empowerment. In her video, there are few, if any men, and she speaks purely to the women who should be proud of their bodies. The effect of this change is that Sir Mix-a-Lot seems more that he is objectifying women even though there is a similar audience. It is relating to the social movement of feminism, because if Nicki’s video also had men watching these women, there would be much more of an uproar then there would have 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe intended audience that Mix-A-Lot created that Minaj built off of was women. They create this audience by portraying the glamour of women's bodies. Minaj changes the audience by speaking more towards women instead of men like Mix-A-Lot did when he portrayed men as appreciating women's bodies. Minaj instead guides women to feel comfortable with themselves and their own bodies. The cultural effect of this change was that Minaj shows that women of all body types should be appreciated, not just an ideal "form and figure."
ReplyDelete