Audrey Fields Fields 1

Professor Burnes-Davies
Enc 1101
18 Nov, 2018

On August 4, 2018, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum unveiled its latest wax sculpture of

rapper and singer Nicki Minaj posed provocatively on her hands and knees. According to the

museum’s website this figure took six months to sculpt, with more than 20 artist meticulously

recreating Minaj’s famous pose from her music video “Anaconda”. With Nicki Minaj’s apparent

approval, this display, which took 300 hours to recreate, is set up to allow museum visitors to

touch and pose with this extremely realistic figure (Madame Tussauds Las Vegas). Instead of

presenting Nicki Minaj as an accomplished artist, this interactive display is objectifying her by

allowing her unmovable likeness to be used by museum visitors. As Janet Mock articulates in

her video essay, “Unfortunately, no matter how iconic that video and no matter how much

control Minaj exhibited over her body in the controlled environment of her “Anaconda” shoot –

when her body is taken out of context of that controlled space, her body and her likeness become

a prop, a stand-in for other people’s desires and sexual fantasies.”(Mock) By displaying her in

this position and allowing visitors to fetishize and use it for entertainment, it appears to

disrespect the long history of women, and particularly women of color, like Sarah Baartman,

who have had their bodies objectified for the entertainment and profit of others. Sarah Baartman

was a South African Khoikhoi woman who’s unusual figure was put on display throughout her

life. Even after her death in 1815, Sarah Baartman’s body was dissected and her brain, skeleton,

and genitalia was put on display for paying museum visitors to gawk at. Her remains were

interred finally in 2002. Keeping her body on display in this way, diminished Sarah Baartman’s

humanity and treated her as an object.

Defined by Martha Nussbaum, objectification is treating a human being as an object. She

suggested seven criteria to describe objectification; instrumentality – treating the person as a tool
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for another's purposes, denial of autonomy – treating the person as lacking in autonomy or self-

determination, inertness – treating the person as lacking in agency or activity, fungibility –

treating the person as interchangeable with (other) objects, violability – treating the person as

lacking in boundary integrity and violable, "as something that it is permissible to break up,

smash, break into.", ownership – treating the person as though they can be owned, bought, or

sold, denial of subjectivity – treating the person as though there is no need for concern for their

experiences or feelings. (Papadaki 35) Several of these criteria can be demonstrated by this

figure of Nicki Minaj, specifically, instrumentality, denial of autonomy and inertness. Museum

visitors can touch, grope, hump and lick Nicki Minaj’s frozen, unmoving and unfeeling lifelike

image. Depictions like this are problematic because it propagates the sexual objectification of

women's bodies and some research suggests that objectification of women can lead to violence.

In a study reported by Paul J. Wright and Robert S. Tokunaga, “the more men reported

exposure to objectifying media, the stronger were their notions of women as sex objects, and the

stronger their notions were of women as sex objects, the more they expressed ASV (attitudes

supportive of violence against women). These results are consistent with prior experimental and

longitudinal studies examining direct associations between objectifying media exposure, notions

of women as sex objects, ASV, or sexually aggressive behavior.”(Kristof) Women of all ages, all

around the world, face violence throughout their lives. “Women worldwide ages 15 through 44

are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria,

war and traffic accidents combined. The World Health Organization has found that domestic and

sexual violence affects 30 to 60 percent of women in most countries.”(cite) Given these types of

statistics, people should carefully consider whether or not it is responsible to propagate sexual
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objectification for mere entertainment. One also has to wonder why this particular image of

Nicki Minaj was chosen, given how other artists in her genre are depicted.

Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac, peers of Nicki Minaj’s entertainment genre,

also have depictions at Madame Tussaud’s museum. All of them are presented upright, mostly

clothed, and dignified. Visitor to the museum might put an arm around the depictions of these

artist, with a thumbs up, or a kiss on the cheek. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, Nicki Minaj is on

her hands and knees, with her bottom raised up into the air, seemingly available to anyone who

wishes to use her. Visitors have taken pictures of themselves with their faces buried in her

backside, and even pulling on her hair while mounting her from behind.

Nicki Minaj has every right to present herself to the world in any way she desires and

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum is cannot be held completely responsible for the actions of a

few very immature visitors. While everyone should be accountable for their own bad behavior, it

can be argued that Nicki Minaj, as a celebrity, should be more aware of the fact by allowing

herself to be objectified, it has an effect on other, less privileged women. Educating museum

visitors on the history of abuse and exploitation of women of color may be a more responsible

way to handle ignorant visitors.

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Works Cited

Kristof, Nicholas D. “Is Delhi So Different From Steubenville.” New York Times, vol. 162, no.

56015, 13 Jan. 2013, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost,

db03.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9

h&AN=84724772&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

“Madame Tussauds Las Vegas.” madametussauds.com. Merlin's Entertainment Group LTD

[GB], n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2018

Mock, Janet. Nicki Minaj’s Wax Figure & the Treatment of Black Women’s Bodies.

Janet/Mock. 21 Aug. 2018. https://janetmock.com/2015/08/21/nicki-minajs-wax-figure/.

Accessed 19 Nov. 2018

Papadaki, Lina. “What Is Objectification?” Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 7, no. 1, Apr.

2010, pp. 16–36. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1163/174046809X12544019606067.