There is nothing new about Nazi imagery in music, games, movies and video or on the Internet in general. What is new and wrong is the loss of context. This is especially a true when the use of the images is casual and the audience is young. This is the real problem with Nicki Minaj’s latest video “Only.” In no way does this video attempt to illuminate the problems with Nazis, totalitarian governments or the glorification of their symbols and images - exactly the opposite. This is even more shocking because, if you think about, had there been a significant black community in Hitler's Europe, they certainly would been on the extermination list too.
Regardless of what apologies or
justifications have been offered, the
true sentiment of Minaj'a camp is hard to miss - a bunch of older whites are
upset about our video and we really don't care,
they're not our audience.
I could be wrong, but if Minaj was
really upset about offending people, she would have pulled the video and
ordered it be re-edited. At the very
least, add a statement at the end about how the Nazis were evil
destructive, anti-American, anti-democratic
and should not be emulated or glorified.
But perhaps doing the right thing just takes too much effort.
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