Black Monsters/White Corpses: Kanye’s Racialized Gender Politics

Sexualized depictions of violence didn’t begin or end with Kanye – over the years, the Jezebel team has documented dozens of ways in which advertisers and fashion photographers seek to titillate viewers and readers with images of gruesome murder victims draped in high fashion. Jenna Sauers wrote the definitive call out back in 2009, but there are examples a plenty (link mildly NSFW) in the horror genre.

So why did this video provoke such outcry?

Kanye violated the norms of the usual amount of misogyny by making the women two things: (1) dead and (2) white.

Look at that tenderness in the shot above, the almost loving caress. In divorced from racial context, it would be the same as many other depictions of the glamorous serial killer. Anthony Hopkins turned his portrayal of the disturbed, yet highly cultured Hannibal Lecter into an Oscar. Patricia Cornwell laces each of her novels with charismatic killers. That caress that Kanye gives the dead model in his bed matches the way Cornwell characterizes many of her murders – they approach their grim work feeling tenderness toward these women they intend to mutilate. The last time I picked up a Scarpetta novel, I wanted to skip through the pages, avoiding the long drawn out depictions of the soon to be dead woman lying sexily in bathtub, filled with cold water. Infusing the macabre with sex appeal is a deeply rooted tradition.

It’s also a tradition in music videos, to fuse both sex and violence as a way to sell records. As Sut Jhally explains in Dreamworlds 3, this type of violence has become so normalized, it manifests in real life interactions:

However, within the racial context, it’s designed to simultaneously play into America’s deepest fears and deepest needs at the same time: the fear of black men (in general) and their alleged desire for white women. I would think Kanye was playing into that idea consciously, and perhaps he is. But the segregation of treatment contributes to a final note, where Kanye is also upholding the ideals of white supremacy. Even in death, white women are worthy of love, tenderness, and a starring role in male fantasies. Brown women are relegated to the background, left to their own monstrous devices, shadow creatures performing their roles.

Neither depiction is great for women – it’s essentially a loss all the way around. But I do wonder, if the video was full of the corpses of black women, would it have provoked such an outcry? I would certainly hope so – but considering the silence around the rape and murder of black women (even those committed by serial killers in L.A. and North Carolina) in real life, there is room for considerable doubt.

(Images from Hip Hop Connection, via Necole Bitchie)

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