Kreayshawn

Alright guys, so I know we talked about Kreayshawn awhile ago, but since I need another blog post I thought it would be cool if I wrote about her (since she’s something from gender performance that I took away from this class). Here’s some close reading info that I’ve done:

In order to make a statement about denouncing gender performance and gender roles, Kreayshawn creates an assertive, non-conforming, (way she dresses in her music video), and raunchy (at times) female persona (as we referred to it in class a “sister with attitude” persona). However, because she is constantly making references to separate herself as a woman (rather than just a person in general), she may actually be conforming to another role in retaliation to the stereotypical female gender role. There are some distinct elements of gender performance going on in this song, all of which Kreayshawn deliberately creates to 1. separate herself from her assumed highly feminine audience and 2. to hopefully poke enough fun at highly feminine women to increase her number of followers.

Separating herself from “materialistic women”; goes with her trying to be gangster- cutting down the stereotypes of her own gender in her chorus (mentioning designer labels that generally appeal to women, “so posh, nails fierce with the gold gloss”); she’s proud to be a woman, but not in the way that conventional women act. In the line: “Bitch you ain’t no Barbie, I see you work at Arby’s”, she could be telling women that they don’t have to appeal to gender expectations; they don’t have to pretend to be something they’re not; but she ends up just creating more of a divide between herself and women that play into their gender role.

Kreayshwan also compares herself to royalty; she sets boundaries for women similarly to queen latifah’s song; “majesty”, in which she separates herself from her audience through braggadocio techniques, but ironically may end up putting herself on that materialistic level.

Atypical feminine acts from the persona of Kreayshawn include: drug dealing, having a “raspy throat”, “shitting in your litter”, “smoking swisher blunts”, and driving around with stolen plates. Kreayshawn is testing the boundaries of gender performance in this way but she also puts herself in this own category, still allowing the normative female performance boundaries to remain. In the line: “I got the swag and it’s pumpin’ out my ovaries”, the narrator says that swag is not strictly male-gender related, though it is often used by male artists in their created personas she put’s this line in at the end to reinforce that swag can be just as easily a female characteristic.

With lines like: “The type of bitch that make you wish that you ain’t never met her”, “Plus I’m my own boss”, there’s a sense of contempt between the narrator and her inferior third person “character” (women who are subordinate to her).

Another facet of Kreayshawn that is important to denote, is that she creates not a sex based or even romantic based female character which is unique considering those are the two main types of motives or methods that are popular in women’s music; Kreayshawn is definitely a zany character, and she pushes the boundaries of gender performance that she creates.