Feminist

Following the recent premier of the 2014 VMAs, I read an article in the New York Times called “Pop’s Newborns Dominate Video Music Awards Ceremony” written by Jon Caramanica, which focused on the women at the VMAs. Caramanica opens the article stating that parents and children seem like foreigners to each other at the MTV Video Music Awards. This year premiered the 31^st VMAs from the Forum in Inglewood, California. The domination of “newborns” at the VMAs reflects the decentralization and quick evolution of pop this year as well as the diminished importance of MTV. However, MTV can still get superstars like Beyoncé to perform a 16-minute set. Beyoncé’s performance featured a snippet of a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about women, and at one point Beyoncé stood before the word “feminist” emblazoned behind her. The night included performances by Ariana Grande, Jessie J., Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, and Rita Ora. In contrast to her tongue wagging performance last year, Miley Cyrus dressed relatively conservatively and used her video of the year award to bring attention to a young homeless man rather than her “hypererotic” video. Caramanica admits that the evening held less than thrilling performances by the men and the women truly shined that night. Beyoncé also addressed rumors of estrangement from Jay Z in song. Jay Z, who she is not estranged from, presented her with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. The awards show closed with a shot of Beyoncé, Jay Z, and their daughter.

When I first heard about the VMAs I was incredibly excited. I heard that Beyoncé was singing in front of “feminist” and was excited to see it myself. Her performance left me speechless. I think her performance was so powerful and is a huge move for how women are being presented in the world of pop music. Rather than appearing at the VMAs and performing another song, she chose to perform Flawless and take the risk of defining herself as feminist, a label that has some less than positive connotations. She could lose fans over declaring herself a feminist but she did it anyway and took a stand for women’s equality. After seeing her performance I looked up the full speech that is featured in her song and it is also very powerful. You can view the whole thing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc. After a few more listens, I realized that the lyrics to the song were actually as daring as her performance. Beyonce is exactly what the media needs to change how women are perceived. Feminism needs more powerful women like Beyonce to explain what the movement is about and to clear the negative misconceptions associated with it.

Here's the link to the original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/arts/music/separating-the-grown-ups-from-the-newborns-at-the-mtv-video-music-awards.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A17%22%7D