Video vixen

A video vixen is a woman that is featured in a video to be eye candy for the viewer. Her only purpose is to show off her body and face for the pleasure of those watching.The Video Vixen image has become a staple and a nuanced form of sex work within Black popular music; especially within the genre of hip-hop. Commercial hip-hop videos and music glorify and objectify the black female body.

Hip hop models (alternatively: hip hop honeys, video girls or video vixens) are female models who appear in hip-hop-oriented music videos and related men's magazines, calendars, award shows, beauty pageants, or live performances. Many video models are aspiring actors, singers, dancers, or professional models. Their reasons for appearing in rap videos can vary, with most hip hop models hoping to gain commercial exposure and make a living. Other video models work for free and have a brief moment in the limelight.

History

The jezebel

The jezebel is a stereotype that depicts the modern day video vixen. Jezebel is a stereotype that is often used to describe the oversexualized Black woman. Black jezebel is the bad female who is promiscuous, the embodiment of lust. she uses her sexually exhausted, chaste or truthful. The jezebel is the promiscuous female with an insatiable sexual appetite. Referred to as "hoochies" "freaks" "hoodrats" or "chickenheads" contemporary Jezebels can be found jiggling and gyrating in hip-hop music videos. Misogyny and objectification neither originated in, or is it endemic to hip-hop, but the glorification of the degradation of Black women has become pervasive in hip-hop culture. Hip-hop, a culture birthed out of youth resistance to the state simultaneously started by the 1980s, to celebrate and exploit Black women's bodies and parts.

Social aspect

The work of hip hop models and their portrayal in music videos have drawn criticism. Critics suggest that music-video models are typically placed in subordinate and submissive roles while male artists are shown in positions of power. Others argue that music-video models are depicted as sexual objects, signs of male power, and referred to in derogatory terms such as "bitch" and "slut". In the rap world, women represent success, and they are treated almost as accessories: a means for rappers to prove that they have made it to the top. It is not that rappers feel that women are inferior, but they feel treating women like a collector’s item is how they should go about displaying their new-found success.

Hip-hop models, also defined as video vixens, used their bodies to sell an ideal or fake notion of beauty. The ideal of beauty is associated with lighter skin, longer hair, and having a body that men fantasize over. It was this portrayal of black beauty that continues to spark controversy in today's mainstream hip-hop music.

In 2004, Nelly's video for his song "Tip Drill" came under particular criticism for its depiction and sexual objectification of women. While some people pointed out that the women who appeared in Nelly's video voluntarily chose to participate, others insisted that male rappers continue to sexually objectify hip hop models while denying that the hip hop artists' career is, at least in part, based on the exploitation of other people.

In 2005, former hip hop music-video model Karrine Steffans authored the book Confessions of a Video Vixen, in which she depicts the degradation of women in the world of hip hop. The book's publisher describes it as "part tell-all, part cautionary tale". The book went on to be a best seller in the US. Another hip hop model, Candace Smith, said in an XXL interview, "what I’ve seen on [hip hop music video] sets is complete degradation".

The image of the Video Vixen can be witnessed being coy, dancing, stripping or being sexually suggestive in videos of all genres, her position however, within hip-hop culture and discourse places her in a peculiar place. Saartjie Baartman, also known as “the Hottentot Venus” was a Khoisan woman from South Africa who was exploited and put on display for white people all over Europe. Her body was the center of what was essentially a freak show because of the size of her butt and other body parts. The history of the exploitation of Sarah Baartman illustrated the hyper-sexualizing of Black women,the fascination with the black woman’s body, and the cultural appropriation of black and brown performance and bodies. Baartman, who was referred to as an animal and seductress simultaneously, has come to be replaced by the Video Vixen who for all intents and purposes represents the same polarized figure.

Female rappers as video vixens

female rappers have most substantially felt this pressure, where sex appeal is now the currency by which women in the music business are valued and devalued. In particular, female rappers such as Lil’ Kim and Trina occupy what T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting calls a “peculiar place of cultural antipathy”, often accused of selling out and blamed for participating in the exploitation of women

Successful career paths

Some hip hop models who have made a name for themselves in the music video industry, as well as girls with limited work as hip hop models, have gone on to other types of work with greater success, mostly by marketing themselves.

See also

• Misogyny in hip hop culture
• Sexuality in music videos

Other references

• Thompson, Bonsu and Huang, Howard (Aug. 4, 2004). "Eye Candy Hall of Fame". XXL Magazine. New York: Harris Publications. Retrieved on February 11, 2006.