Iggy Azalea has been the most divisive popstar of 2014.
The Australian-born 24-year-old rapper has an ongoing beef with her contemporary Azealia Banks – Banks thinks “Igloo Australia’s” appropriation of black culture and lack of care and empathy for black issues is despicable. She has called out Azalea on social media, accusing her of masquerading as a part of black culture with her aesthetic. There’s even a blog, piggyazalea.tumblr.com, dedicated to the rapper’s allegedly racist social media presence.
More recently, Snoop Dogg attacked Azalea’s looks, saying she resembles one of the Wayans Brothers in the movie “White Girls”. Pretty harsh, considering the Wayans wore white plastic masks to portray two Hilton-esque socialites.
Then there’s the issue of Iggy’s actual musical talent and her authenticity as a rapper. Many (including Nicki Minaj) have accused her mentor TI of writing all her rhymes for her, an accusation he denies.
The reason Iggy is a target for great criticism and even greater commercial success is evident before she even opens her mouth. She’s a beautiful, voluptuous white woman from Australia who throws her accent to rap like a Southern-born black dude. Essentially, she’s a white girl playing the rap game and she’s ripe for criticism. But the latest Iggy-bashing came last week via a gossip/conspiracy website called Huzler – “Iggy Azalea Reveals She Was Actually Born A Male Named Cody”, read the headline.
In response, Iggy took to Twitter, jokingly asking her followers, “Will I still be able to get my Billboard Women in Music Award?” She added that if she were a man, she would never be called “Cody”, but instead opt for Liam.
Accusing female pop stars of being born male isn’t anything new – just a weak, obvious attempt at a put down. It’s happened to many women in the spotlight (hello, Jamie Lee Curtis). Most recently, R&B star Ciara had the tag attached to her, as did Lady Gaga. Each singer dealt with it in her own way: Ciara denied the rumor and attempted to brush it off as just silly gossip, while Lady Gaga looked at it as a compliment, saying she “loved the rumor that she had a penis” because her sold-out shows proved that her fans support her art no matter what.
It was almost too predictable that the next attack on Azalea would be the accusation that she was born with a penis. What else is left to hurt her with? The formula for female celebrity hate follows the formula for love. Everything is up for scrutiny: her voice, her performance, her ass, her tits, her hair, her femaleness. Even the authenticity of her vagina is challenged.
Women never escape a disbelief that they wrote their own songs, produced their own records, or performed live without a backing track. In the documentary The Punk Singer, Kathleen Hanna states, “There’s this certain assumption that when a man tells the truth, it is the truth. But as a woman, when I tell the truth, I have to negotiate how I will be perceived. There’s always this suspicion around a woman’s truth.” Compound the disbelief in a woman’s talent and skill with the social pressure to have the poise, grace, beauty, and perfection of a doll.
Women are always going to endure harsher criticism of our physical selves than any other group experiences; the type and degree of criticism depends on class, race, and sexual orientation within the female identity. I think Azalea handled the ridiculous accusations that she was born a man the only way she knows how: by laughing it off. Of course, it probably hurt her a little. It made her feel down for a second, stare in the mirror at her make-up-free face for an extra two minutes – but that’s par for the course when you become a successful female pop star.
