nicki minaj: the body as wilderness, orality-performance-poetry, and gender

nicki minaj in a TOTAL dolly wig

as i tried to finish my review of five broken cameras, a worthy film and a worthy subject, i was continually distracted by nicki minaj.  i'm so sorry if you're tired of her.
though if you're tired of her, i have to ask:  are you a robot? are you. . . dead?

check her out in super bass.

(once again, minaj updates parton's look = one-piece zippered jumpsuit showcasing outsized lady parts:)




i realized today that minaj needs to go on my doctoral exam lists, as three of my five topics are: performance and orality in poetry, the body as wilderness, and poetry as a gendered space.  if you think i'm bogus for tossing minaj in to the mix, throw a guantlet my way and we can duel to the death.

if you think i'm totally legit,  however, let me know in the comments section, and let's think about being bffs!!!!!!

here are a few (sketchy still) rationales for putting minaj on my exam lists.  i'm not gonna give away all my secrets yet.

1) minaj has an alter ego called roman zolanski, a gay male rapper.

2) implants or no?  is plastic surgery an kind of agriculture on the wild space of the body?

3) also embodied in the single body of this one trinidadian-american hip-hop goddess is martha zolanski, roman's mother, cookie, nicki minaj, rosa, and harajuku barbie.  this girl is mother, daughter, lover, sister, son--all in one.

4) poetry as a gendered space--radical re-appropriation of male dominated genres.

5) orality and performance in poetry:  duh.

okay.  so tomorrow, or friday at the latest, we'll address palestine.  i'm working up to it.

today i wanna talk about how minaj, like her precursors dolly parton and marina abramovic, appropriates preconceptions about femininity.  All three women/artists/poets/performers use their bodies often in dangerous ways, like undergoing surgical alterations, frighteningly high heels, and the extreme performances of abaramovic that contain the possibility of fatality, to send messages about femininity & the male gaze.

tights:  black, thick, supportive.  it's cold and dark out, and i'm afraid.
inspiration:  radical re-appropriation of the feminine voice and body.
looking forward:  yoga class tonight with dean.