Last month, an unfinished music video of Kanye West’s latest single “Monster” leaked online, and since that time, the hip hop community and its critics have been ablaze with commentary and critique.Always pushing the envelope, and some arguing too far, Kanye’s new video is graphic and violent, depicting dead white women hanging in a smokey alley, their necks wrapped in industrial chains, vampires devouring corpses, and Kanye also appears in bed with two dead, eroticized white women and holds a decapitated white woman’s head dripping blood.
The video, now released, can be seen here: Monster
Melinda Tankard Reist of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, among many others, started an online petition to ban the video, stating that the video represents the disturbing and misogynistic view that “men enjoy dead women as sex and entertainment. The female body is to be devoured, reduced to the same status as meat. Female bodies should be displayed before men as a great feast for their consumption.”
What is Kanye thinking? Does Monster make a political statement that eludes?
Here is a sampling of some of the commentary:
In Defense of Kanye West, That's Mr. "Monster" to You
Kanye West "Monster" Video Show Rapper Sexually Exploiting Female Corpses
Kanye West's "Monster" Video: Campy Horror Masterpiece or Misogyny?
The Meaning Behind Kanye West's "Monster" Video
