 |
| Victim Claudia Aderotimi |
Dancer and aspiring rapper Claudia Aderotimi believed that a bigger 'booty' would help her land more hip hop music video gigs. Believing this would put her on the fast track to her dreams, Claudia left the UK for Philadelphia, USA to undergo her second round of illegal butt enhancement shots that would hours later prove to be fatal.
Instead of the medical silicone (used for breast implants), industrial silicone (used for caulking bathroom tubs and tile) was injected into her backside. Shortly after the procedure, she developed intense chest pains and struggled for breath. Doctors confirmed that the silicone filling had leaked into Aderotimi's blood stream causing heart failure. Sadly Ms.Aderotimi was not the first, and we fear she may not be the last person to die for the sake of bigger bottom.
We have all seen the music videos filled with the popping, shaking, jiggling, pumping and jumping that only the finest of behinds could champion. Celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Nicki Minaj are just a few of the women with glorified derrieres that have taken the world by storm and while we like big butts and we cannot lie, we wonder if perhaps things have gone too far?
Have we gone to the other extreme? Have we met the same cruel objectification that Sara Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus, faced on what we thought would be the other/opposite side of the spectrum? For those of you who do not know, Sara was taken from Southern Africa and placed on exhibition, naked and in a cage, throughout France and England for over 5 years. She was paraded as a freak much like a bearded lady of some circus sideshow all because an English ship surgeon wished to publicly display her large buttocks. Sara's "booty" was no symbol of beauty in fact it was the opposite, a symbol of racial inferiority and primitive sexuality.
One would like to think that once Sir Mix a Lot's "Baby Got Back" won a grammy in 1993, that black women were finally "moving on up" because our body type was being affirmed. But in the light of Claudia Aderotimi's death, that same person might question where exactly have we moved to.
What Love and the Black Woman wants to know is how do you feel about these, sometimes deadly, lengths women are willing to go in order to seem more desirable and attractive. Is the voluptuous black woman's body in hip-hop an affirmation or denigration. Please tell us your thoughts, and DON'T hold back.
I think this is absolutely ridiculous. No one should risk their lives to be paraded around as a sex object in a video!
ReplyDeleteI am an African woman and I have been blessed with a naturally curvy shape. I cannot say that I know how it feels to want big breasts or a big butt so bad that i would go to such lengths but I do know what it feels like to have so little self confidence you can hardly sleep at night. It is a sad sad situation but black women are told all the time by mainstream society that they are not pretty enough, not skinny enough, nose isnt straight enough, hair isnt long enough. Some people succumb much more easily to the pressure than others.
ReplyDeleteHELL YES things have gone wayyy out of hand, i have a 5 year old daughter and when she not watching Hannah Montana the twig I am afraid shes watching Nicki Minaj and nstarting to believe that she isnt light enough, that her hair needs to be blonde and that she needs this huge outlandish behind, none of which is real. aLL I want to do is to teach my daughter that she is beautiful, that she doesnt need gray eyes or blonde hair or a huge butt to be somebody and its becoming increasingly hard.
ReplyDeleteI dont think we have gone to the extreme, lets continue celebrating our natural curves why not its a free country.
ReplyDeleteummmm yea so whats the difference between butt implants and breast implants? whats the big deal?
ReplyDeleteListen i am going to get butt implants but i am going to go the legit way and get them professionally done. i think people should do whatever the heck they want to do regardless of what anyone has to say and if having a big ass will help you sleep at night then so be it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not antisurgery, but I find it interesting how the pendulum has swung. Though Black women continue to emulate white standards of beauty with nose jobs and weaves (no judgment. I wear weave.), we've now embraced the exaggerated "ethnic" features. It's all a symptom of being immersed in a culture that tell us we're wrong at every turn.
ReplyDeleteWell said Kimberly Nicole. There is nothing wrong with getting plastic surgery if that's what you're into. But going to extremes to satisfy some outsider's view of what is attractive and/or sexy is, to state the obvious, deadly.
ReplyDeleteI am all for surgery. I don't have any particular self image issue, I just wish my behind would fit in the jeans a little better. I do think that the media has played a very big part in female image in teens today. Everyone wants a coke bottle figure, big boobs, round behind. Not normal behind, not the average behind, ENORMOUS behinds, leading most young girls to think their bodies are awkward when they are simply average sized.
ReplyDelete"Is the voluptuous black woman's body in hip-hop an affirmation or
ReplyDeletedenigration." - Ultimately, it's denigration. While I used to feel that rappers and/or singers lauding black women's curves was a turn in
the right direction in affirming black women's body types, I now feel
that it is merely objectification. And I've learned that objectification is not the same as affirmation. Women shaking their enormous derrières in music videos are just as objectified as the Hottentot Venus. People watch for sexual arousal, amusement and the shock value of it--you know, like a train wreck. In no way are these women's body types affirmed as beautiful. It's sad because many young girls today confuse sexual objectification with beauty affirmation. They want to be like those girls in the videos because that is who everyone desires. They don't realize the real reason behind that desire.