Minaj’s new MTV documentary “My Time Now” premiered Sunday night and viewers who thought they’d seen everything from Miss Minaj had never seen this—the video vixen venting about a double standard in the music industry.

Minaj said, “I put quality in what I do. I spend time and I spend energy and I spend effort and I spend everything I have, every fiber of my being, to give people quality. So if I turn up to a photo shoot and you got a $50 clothes budget and some sliced pickles on a mother***in’ board, you know what? No. I am gonna leave. Is that wrong? Wanting more for myself? Wanting people to treat me with respect? You know what? Next time, they know better. But had I accepted the pickle juice, I would be drinking pickle juice right now.”

“The Pinkprint” rapper knew that some would be facetious about her complaining and blow her off as just another whining woman and got ahead of the criticism saying, “When I am assertive, I’m a b**ch. When a man is assertive, he’s a boss. He bossed up. No negative connotation behind ‘bossed up.’ But lots of negative connotation behind being a bitch. Donald Trump can say, ‘You’re fired.’ Let Martha Stewart run her company the same way and be the same way,” she states.

Minaj’s opening volley of “pickle juice” seems a silly start to her argument, but it’s the principle behind the pickle juice. It doesn’t matter if she were angry about bottled water vs. tap or Tylenol or a pink wig vs purple. Her point is that she is giving 100 percent and reciprocated with less than she’s putting forth. I don’t know if she meant “wanting more for herself” (which sounds greedy and arrogant) or if she meant wanting “better for herself”—which is just part of the human hierarchy of needs to be safe, belong and esteemed or as Minaj phrased it “to be respected”.

But the heart of her harangue was the double standard where men who do what she was doing—venting, criticizing, speaking her mind are considered forceful, in charge and in general, boss. But women aren’t boss, though they are called a word that begins with “B”. They’re considered irrational, emotional and out of control for the behaving the same way.

We’ve heard people refer to Oprah Winfrey as a “B” who requires employees to sign confidentiality agreements not to talk about Oprah. But would Rupert Murdoch be hailed as a genius or a shrewd negotiator if he required the same?

Minaj says basically women in the music industry have to be supergirls who multitask all while being sugar and spice and sexy, but the reality Minaj admits is “I can’t be all those things at once. I’m a human being.” No one can—but why aren’t men expected to? Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Biggie, Heavy D all launched successful careers as hefty men…but how many hefty female rappers can you name? They’re expected to be sexy, slim and every hair in place.

It’s good to hear Minaj speak up on the double standard—it shatters the illusion that the music industry and Hollywood use to brainwash masses that all these women are rich happy celebrities. They suffer the same injustices, unfairness, insensitivity and disrespect the rest of us experience. Knowing they suffer the same shouldn’t make us feel better, but it should motivate us to want “Blacks, Whites, Men and Women to do better.

Source: thereelnetwork.com

Date Posted: Tuesday, December 15th, 2015 , Total Page Views: 1630