 | "Fergie, clad in a latex yellow and black bikini which reads “slippery when wet” across the chest pours milk over her shiny breasts multiple times throughout “Milf $” her new music video." -Ari Brodie-Weisberg |
Fergie, clad in a latex yellow and black bikini which reads “slippery when wet” across the chest pours milk over her shiny breasts multiple times throughout “Milf $” her new music video. The video is set in “Milfville,” a fictional fifties pastel town where famous mothers (Kim Kardashian West, models Chrissy Teigen and Amber Valletta, among others) dress in sequined lingerie for work. “[Milf $] is about empowering women who do it all.” Explained Fergie during an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
But what are there are consequences to such sexual extremes? As the video portrays these women as sexy teachers, waitresses, and bathing in tubs of milk, it raises the question: Is “Milf $” meant to empower women and reclaim sexiness, or is just another video hypersexualizing women thinly veiled as feminism?
With this video, Fergie addresses the societal norms about the way in which we are conditioned to view women and how this changes after a woman becomes a mother. In explaining her intentions behind “Milf $” she said, “This is definitely empowering moms to have fun. Being a mom and having a career, taking care of yourself and still being able to be flirty and fun and a little naughty sometimes — there's nothing wrong with that.”
For Fergie, “Milf $” is a form of protest. She is protesting societal norms for women, but particularly the Hollywood-esc society that she believes has made motherhood and desirability mutually exclusive. To illustrate this point, Fergie portrays herself as a teacher who commands the attention of her letterman-jacket clad male students at the same time maintaining a sexy attitude throughout.
While looking at the shot of Fergie as the teacher, it is made clear that her male students, though they do listen and seemingly fear her, are equally attentive to her body—clad in a short latex skirt and half-open blouse. Throughout the scene they follow her body as she moves through the rows of students, slapping the desks of rowdy boys who leap back, smiling. The camera cuts to her dragging her painted nails along her neck, then to her gyrating in front of the class, eyes set on the camera while the boys bang on the tables, leaning forward, mouths open.
Last Friday, in an empowering talk to a group of students at Oakland School for the Arts, Crystal Collins, a backup singer for Beyonce, shared her life story and her journey making it as an artist in the music industry. She demanded that her audience (all young singers, writers, and musicians) “command respect.” She said that young women in particular must cultivate an image of self respect to be taken seriously, and that many women who are famous today are so not because they are talented, but because they exploited their bodies in order to get to where they are. “Milf $” is as much about women being sexy (and therefore, given the audience who consume it, sex objects) as it is about the rapid fire trap beat and explicit lyrics. If half a singers song is a video of hypersexualised women, the question inevitably surfaces: How did they reach their social status? Through their talent, or body?
From the classroom scene, the camera cuts to Fergie and other women in the “Dairy Dutchess Love Factory” dancing half naked, and then to Fergie bathing in a tub of milk, whose color and consistency is reminiscent of semen. The culmination of these scenes does not portray these women as having overcome the boundaries defined by motherhood and reclaimed sexiness, but women who are defined by sex.
Many famous women today have cornered themselves into sexiness, a “talent” whose shelf life rarely extends past motherhood. Fergie’s attempt to claim exploitation of women’s bodies as motherhood empowerment is a last-ditch attempt to extend the screen time of women who society no longer views as sexy. But the trade off does not balance the scales. The sexualisation of women cannot be a form of empowerment when the target or actual audience are people who will only see these women as sex symbols instead of the powerful women and mothers they strive to be.
But what are there are consequences to such sexual extremes? As the video portrays these women as sexy teachers, waitresses, and bathing in tubs of milk, it raises the question: Is “Milf $” meant to empower women and reclaim sexiness, or is just another video hypersexualizing women thinly veiled as feminism?
With this video, Fergie addresses the societal norms about the way in which we are conditioned to view women and how this changes after a woman becomes a mother. In explaining her intentions behind “Milf $” she said, “This is definitely empowering moms to have fun. Being a mom and having a career, taking care of yourself and still being able to be flirty and fun and a little naughty sometimes — there's nothing wrong with that.”
For Fergie, “Milf $” is a form of protest. She is protesting societal norms for women, but particularly the Hollywood-esc society that she believes has made motherhood and desirability mutually exclusive. To illustrate this point, Fergie portrays herself as a teacher who commands the attention of her letterman-jacket clad male students at the same time maintaining a sexy attitude throughout.
While looking at the shot of Fergie as the teacher, it is made clear that her male students, though they do listen and seemingly fear her, are equally attentive to her body—clad in a short latex skirt and half-open blouse. Throughout the scene they follow her body as she moves through the rows of students, slapping the desks of rowdy boys who leap back, smiling. The camera cuts to her dragging her painted nails along her neck, then to her gyrating in front of the class, eyes set on the camera while the boys bang on the tables, leaning forward, mouths open.
Last Friday, in an empowering talk to a group of students at Oakland School for the Arts, Crystal Collins, a backup singer for Beyonce, shared her life story and her journey making it as an artist in the music industry. She demanded that her audience (all young singers, writers, and musicians) “command respect.” She said that young women in particular must cultivate an image of self respect to be taken seriously, and that many women who are famous today are so not because they are talented, but because they exploited their bodies in order to get to where they are. “Milf $” is as much about women being sexy (and therefore, given the audience who consume it, sex objects) as it is about the rapid fire trap beat and explicit lyrics. If half a singers song is a video of hypersexualised women, the question inevitably surfaces: How did they reach their social status? Through their talent, or body?
From the classroom scene, the camera cuts to Fergie and other women in the “Dairy Dutchess Love Factory” dancing half naked, and then to Fergie bathing in a tub of milk, whose color and consistency is reminiscent of semen. The culmination of these scenes does not portray these women as having overcome the boundaries defined by motherhood and reclaimed sexiness, but women who are defined by sex.
Many famous women today have cornered themselves into sexiness, a “talent” whose shelf life rarely extends past motherhood. Fergie’s attempt to claim exploitation of women’s bodies as motherhood empowerment is a last-ditch attempt to extend the screen time of women who society no longer views as sexy. But the trade off does not balance the scales. The sexualisation of women cannot be a form of empowerment when the target or actual audience are people who will only see these women as sex symbols instead of the powerful women and mothers they strive to be.
