Tags
adios barbie, blue velvet, date rape, david lynch, dennis hopper, drugs, exploitation, girls, hate, kanye, kanye west, men, mtv, petition, trafficking, wild at heart, women, youtube
Scene: Rick Ross chilling out, smoking a cigar amid the corpses of three women hanging by their necks from chains.
Scene: Kanye West in bed with two women. One appears to be dead, or drugged beyond recognition. Second is drugged beyond the point of consent, Kanye kisses her, sings to camera and arranges the limbs of both women to his amusement and satisfaction. Later in the video as he sings, “I’ve crossed the line” the girl appears to be dead.
Scene: Jay-Z raps as a dead woman lays practically spread eagle on a chaise behind him.
Scene: Kanye West holding the severed head of a young women, her eyes open.
Scene: Nicki Minaj, through the magic of CGI, alternates brutally interrogating herself and giving herself a lap dance. 
B-Roll: lots of dead women, a few androgynous men. Lots of blood, gore, hyper-sexualization of brutality and death.
Voila! This is what you get with the video for Monster by Kanye West. Many have lauded West as a creative genius, as the next coming of rap and cultural transcendence. Many of us have his tunes on our iPods. Since he has another single getting ready to hit the airwaves this song may not make the impact that he’s hoping for.
Maybe West really saw this as a 21st Century brutal counterpart to Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller. Whatever fueled this “creative” endeavor, the result is nothing short of a glorification of brutality and total degradation of human beings. Some will say “omigod” it is so hateful towards women. That assessment might be correct but – and this is a big caveat – what does this also say about MEN? That men like Kanye enjoy a little sexy-time with a corpse? Because the woman would then – obviously – do whatever you wanted. Except of course, be a participant.
There is a difference between mutual surrender between two consenting adults and lack of consent, due to drugs or death. What West has achieved is nothing short of cinematic rape for no purpose, no illumination of consciousness. Instead he is sanctioning the use of Rohypnol (Flunitrazepam) or whatever drug & alcohol combo elicits the dazed, near-dead or all dead submissive female. The perception of West will now be colored by this video. Instead of him being a creative genius, many will (and should) wonder what such a vision says about the man himself.
The blood, gore and repulsive behavior of all the others in the video begs so many questions. Among them: is that really the only gig you could get to pay your bills this month???
Unfortunately, Jay-Z appears all too comfortable in the video. I sure hope Beyonce and her mother get a glance at this video. Anyone who participated in the creation of MONSTER… it would be a deal breaker. At some point, redact yourself. Check yourself. Edgy is fine, wonderful, encouraged. Thought-provoking is good for expanding our cultural conversation. This video isn’t any of those things.
The implicit moral decay as expressed by Kanye West, Jay-Z and Rick Ross in MONSTER is monstrous indeed. This video, for me, bypassed the last painful-to-watch scene that provoked pop-culture dialogue for me. Arguably, Blue Velvet‘s brutal scene between Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini evoked cries of too far. However, Director David Lynch had the last word because it was a real cinematic gem. As was his Wild at Heart with Nic Cage and Laura Dern, a movie that bore one of the first NC-17 ratings. There are wonderful, brilliant creative men and women who are capable of exploring mankind’s darkest impulses without resorting to the lowest common denominator.
West’s exploitation of women and men, body image and the heroin chic rock-and-roll cliché disappoints. In a world with rampant human trafficking, sex slavery, mass rapes in Congo, female genital mutilation, Afghanistan’s dancing boys, and genocide… it shows how low a sheltered,desperate, ignorant and pampered diva is willing to go to maintain street cred.
I honestly hope YouTube, MTV and any other source that might transmit it will reject it. For more coverage, please visit AdiosBarbie or the Sydney Morning Herald.
—Media Lizzy
Well, you’ve got me thinking and pondering for the second straight late Friday night. What to even say about this music video that you didn’t already say. Something you touched on that I’ll hammer away further at; the fact that someone would look at this video and say “Yes, that’s what we wanted. It’s a wrap.” is pretty disturbing. We’ve fallen as a society when this is acceptable, so acceptable that it makes it to the media outlets for all to see.
We always hear the garbage that “responsible parents won’t let their kids see this”. Well, there are nearly 310 million people in this country, somewhere, this is bound to get through, no matter how good the parents are. As we saw with the deranged Tucson shooter, this stuff has an impact.
West will likely win an award at the next event where these people all vote themselves awards. No one will hold him responsible, I do hope I’m wrong on that though.
First of all, you are calling for the internet to censor the video, which is pretty bad. I’ve seen the video, and I honestly think it is by far no worse than most sci-fi horror movies out today.
If you knew more about Kanye West, you may recall his little debacle at some stupid music award last year. I get the sense that he is trying to say that he is sick of people being blood suckers, because THAT’S WHAT HE SAID! Is he saying that he sometimes feels like killing all the people who are constantly “hating”? Yeah, maybe, but that’s a pretty common theme in music, literature and art (see Hemingway and Faulkner, Tupac, and just about everyone else who has dealt with a “scandal”)
The video is not for kids, but I would say that exagerating it as a violent diatribe against women, and sexuality is going a little far. Its clearly not meant to have a whole lot of verisimilitude to reality and is highly stylized and fantastic.
Frankly I think that suggesting a connection between female genital mutilation/sex trade and this video is a stretch too far, and dismissive of the pain experienced by people who have actually gone through that. I recall the scene from the Big Lebowski, where Walter tries to connect something to Vietnam and The Dude rebukes him saying “There’s no connection to Vietnam here, Walter…Your move.” Similarly, there is just no connection to most of the stuff you tried to connect this video to. Its just over-hyped, over-sexed, shock value pop art. That’s it. Why insist on making it worth more than it is? You actually suggest that Jay-Z’s wife and mother should disown him as a result of this. Get off your soap box. As for the drugs, I didn’t see any evidence that there are drugs, and the suggestion of necrophilia is more revealing of where your mind is, not what the video is saying.
Finally, this article is probably exactly the kind of constant negative press he is singing about being sick of. You’re just adding fuel to the fire.
Oh and fucking dead people isn’t sex without consent. Its gross, but does not constitute rape.
i agree he’s digging too deep with some things but this video is waaaaaaay too much. If Kanye wanted to incorporate people sucking blood? naked ass dead ass chopped up women in his bed isn’t the best idea. I mean he’s got blood suckers now…but there are other blood suckers who’ll not only cause light headedness(spell check) but maybe death. He has to keep some sort of image and this shit is just bad. I’ve been a kanye west fan since college dropout and I watched this music video through clenched teeth. The title is MONSTER the lyrics are about blood suckers/haters the video is about neither a monster nor a blood sucker nor does it resonate with the title of the song.
Common theme or not, there are very many ways to symbolize want for fewer “haters”.
Jay-z shouldn’t have even been in the video.
He’s holding the head of a dead woman! come on! If you want to argue that this video is acceptable and completely sane then let me flop my dick on your girls head and rap about it but put a variation of condomns in the music video…the video’s gonna be called slap.