I’m not going to lie: I like big butts. But as much as I like them, I can’t help but be horrified at the high standard we hold them to today.
Jennifer Lopez just released her video for the “Booty” remix featuring Iggy Azalea on Sept. 18. The video is filled with shots of Lopez and Azalea grinding and butt bumping in swimsuits over the chorus of “Big big booty/What you got a big booty.”
While it’s great that Lopez is still proud to show her body off 13 years after “Jenny from the Block,” this video takes objectification to a new level. Since the song is called “Booty,” it’s understandable that there is going to be focus put on the singer’s bodies; what is bothersome is that it’s as if those booties are their own entities that don’t even belong to human beings.
Azalea only has one verse in the song, yet she is shown silently standing throughout the whole video and is mostly used for Lopez to grind on. Even Lopez herself is rarely shown to be singing the lyrics, but instead is filmed wordlessly thrusting and rolling around covered in oil. Most of the shots in the video don’t even show the singer’s faces.
If Lopez and Azalea want to objectify themselves and claim it female as empowerment that’s their own business. However, the public is watching and the singers need to realize that as celebrities they have an influence on society and the image of women.
The video alone is not the problem; the lyrics of “Booty” are extremely objectifying to women as well. After stereotypically telling “all the sexy girls at the party” to “go and grab a man, bring him to the dancefloor,” Lopez sings “it’s his birthday, give him what he ask for.” These lyrics are telling women that it’s their job to entertain men and do whatever they want.
When Lopez sings “The way she moves, I know you want her…You wanna meet her, you wanna touch her. Hold on tight for the ride ‘cause you know you’re gonna love her,” it tells men that women are simply playthings to be enjoyed. Does she even want to you to touch her? It doesn’t matter: she’s got a big booty.
Lopez isn’t the only one with an ass-obsession. Nicki Minaj has been using her ass to be the center of attention since she got her start in 2007. Her most recent music video for “Anaconda” takes Sir Mix a Lot’s love for big butts to an entirely new level.
As she twerks on an almost helpless looking Drake, Minaj screams, “Yeah, he love this fat ass…This one is for my bitches with a fat ass in the fucking club. I said, ‘Where my fat ass big bitches in the club?’…Fuck the skinny bitches in the club. I wanna see all the big fat ass bitches in the motherfucking club, fuck you if you skinny bitches.” While the song can be perceived as a call to action for women to own their sexuality, it may also give off the impression that women are just butts with legs.
Minaj seems to say that if your ass isn’t as unrealistically large as hers, you’re nothing. As it turns out, Minaj herself may not even live up to her own standards. While Minaj denied plastic surgery rumors about her face in an interview with Extra, she has never confirmed or denied the rumors about her alleged butt-implants. Furthermore, TMZ released a photo from Minaj’s 2014 VMA performance, which insinuates that Minaj had some sort of unnatural emphasis put on her ass.
Even the beloved Meghan Trainor song “All about that Bass” seems to emphasise the need for curves to be a “real-woman.” While Trainor tries to shatter the thin-ideal beauty standard that society seems to hold, she still puts an emphasis on big butts. Singing lyrics such as “Boys like a little more booty to hold at night” and especially, “You know I won’t be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll” still shames girls who don’t feel like they live up to today’s voluptuous booty standards.
While the American society has other ridiculous body expectations such as the thin-ideal and the everlasting obsession with big breasts, putting an emphasis on unrealistically big butts doesn’t make our situation any better. Soon young girls will be doing squats and asking their parents for plastic surgery in hopes to look like the crazy skewed picture of beauty that our nation has built.
Selene San Felice can be reached at selene.sanfelice@theminaretonline.com