Congrats, Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas — you created the first female rapper wax figure by sculpting Nicki Minaj!
One small step for women, one giant leap for — wait, what the hell is this? She’s on all fours and barely clothed, her backside popped in the air like an animal ready to pounce.
The biggest congrats the wax museum deserves is finding a team of 20 highly skilled artists who failed to see anything wrong with this picture.
They had six long months of sculpting, plastering, meticulously inserting hairs and painting the shiny gleam on her backside, but during that time they couldn’t step away from their magnifying glasses long enough to ask, “Huh, is it a little odd the first female rapper we’ve made is crouched over like a feral cat?”?
On its website, the museum boasts the creation involved “over 300 precise body measurements” to re-create “her now famous pose.”
Sure, Minaj strikes the pose in her “Anaconda” music video — which inspired the wax display — but other female artists do the exact same thing, yet they don’t get sculpted in a sexualized state. Just examine the evidence:
First, let’s look at the guys: Male stars like Michael Jackson and Tupac are standing strongly. Even Leo is sculpted pre-dad bod.
For women, there’s often less clothing — but at least they’re upright. Katy Perry: hip popped, standing. Rihanna: mike in hand, standing. Madonna: powerfully standing. Lady Gaga: standing. Beyoncé: standing. Britney Spears: awkwardly standing, as expected. You get the idea.
After the sculpture was unveiled earlier this month, rapper Azealia Banks took to Twitter to point out the obvious.
And she called the ensuing storm:
Madame Tussauds must not have anticipated that, especially when they promoted an “Instagram photo contest” with a Minaj goodie bag for the best selfie posted with the figure.
Cue this:
https://instagram.com/p/6ks6iVx7ie/?taken-at=792000
About the pose itself, Tussauds gave a statement to Fader saying that Minaj’s reps supported it. Minaj has even taken to Instagram voicing her approval.
But her praise just supports the twisted idea that her body not only defines her career but is also readily available to the public to do with it what they want.
Sure, it’s just a wax figure in a museum. But it sadly reflects how the world views the first female rapper deemed worthy to be in said museum: as little more than an ass. Rather than blowing up about her lack of a VMA nomination for best video of the year, maybe she should take a look at what people apparently took from that video: this “famous” pose.
Madame Tussauds has since said they’ll beef up security around the figurine, reacting to the photo of the man mounting her with: “It is unfortunate that this visitor decided to behave so inappropriately and we apologise [sic] for any offence [sic] this has caused.”
Sorry, Mme. T, but it’s unfortunate that you created a wax figurine so offensive in the first place.