Rant-ish? On Kanye’s ‘Monster’

“Monster” didn’t even sound that bad after I heard the Chris Rock skit at the end of  “Blame Game,” most likely because it dealt with a very tangible idea of men and how they relate to the women they date instead of necrophiliac fantasies that, thankfully, don’t plague the everyday interactions between the sexes. In the skit, Rock is the local dude who has just finished sleeping with a woman who seems to be West’s ex-girlfriend. Rock asks the woman, in an array of ways, how she stepped up her sex game since the last time they slept together and she replies mechanically several times over again “Yeezy taught me.” The only time she answers differently is when she adds for comical effect, “Yeezy reupholstered my pussy.”

So what is it that bothers us? Is it the violence toward women in a visual context?  If Lady Gaga did it would we be as mad? If Minaj was holding a man’s severed head would we feel better? Is conflating sex with violence, “art”? Do visually offensive anti-women messages trump the audibly offensive? Can one eroticize death without being sexist?

I wish I knew.

What I do know is that Kanye West has always seemingly been a self-deprecating, narcissistic, undeniably talented man who has made it clear he loathes most women.

Even in the song “Monster”, it seems Ye prophetically acknowledges that he will probably offend, via Bon Iver:

I-I crossed the line-line

and I’ll-I’ll let God decide-cide

West’s impulsive stunts, moments of unfiltered streaming-of-consciousness demonstrate that his main objective has always been to shock, upset and at the very least leave us feeling uncomfortable.

As uncomfortable as Jay-Z looks in the video. Yea, uncomfortable but complicit, just like Jigga.

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