Reggaetoneras: undermining or embracing male fantasy?

ABSTRACT

This article discusses Latina women in reggaeton, a notoriously sexist music genre that can nevertheless encompass feminist goals of sexual agency, albeit in a narrow band defined and policed by capital. That contradiction is evident in the lyrics, videos, and media interviews of an avowedly feminist, straight reggaetonera, Becky G. Drawing on the genre’s textuality and political economy, we argue that her media interviews, performances, and video “Sin Pijama” [“No Pajamas”] incarnate a commodified visual narrative that reifies masculine fantasies while exploring female agency and sexuality. Becky G presents herself as autonomous even as she embraces a hyper-sexuality that reproduces patriarchal normativity.

KEYWORDS:

• Reggaeton
• Latinas
• feminism
• sexual agency

Introduction

Reggaeton has broken new ground for Latin American music in videos, streaming systems, and festivals around the world. Initially marginalized to a format known in the US as “Latin Tropical” (Arbitron 2013), reggaeton is now a global phenomenon, with its hyped-up and misogyny largely retained (Jeffries Micheal 2011; Murali Balaji and Thomas Sigler 2018; Petra Rivera-Rideau 2015; Wayne Marshall 2008). Data from 2016 in Colombia indicate that two-thirds of people aged 12–25 had listened to reggaeton the week before being surveyed (Statista 2018).

The genre is said by some to be progressive because of its rootedness in the popular classes’ oppositional challenges to US whiteness and Puerto Rican racial hierarchies, in the name of blackness and caserío [projects] culture. Reguetoneros are described as “sociopolitical ambassadors who calibrate the urban policy frames in Puerto Rico” (Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores 2008, 35), their sensuality speaking to bodily pleasure and resisting Anglo normativity (Asima Saad Maura 2009). Reggaeton is known for its membership categorization devices, such as hairstyles, fashion, language, seduction, and religious cultism (Dulce Martínez-Noriega 2015), many of them dedicated to a mimesis of black male gangsterism in the name of cultural resistance (Jennifer Domino 2012). For some, hip-hop in general compensates for the systematic exclusion of black men from the formal economy (Rashad Shabazz 2014).

María Elena Cepeda (2010) endows reggaeton with “an understanding of citizenship beyond the conventionally political that ultimately privileges quotidian experience and self-understanding,” providing young people with a sense of unity that does not emanate from the more established musical genres favored by their families, and generating “pan-Latino solidarities.” She argues that its ties to alienated US-based youth arch back to a genealogy that includes Zoot suits (Cepeda 2009, 550, 560) and the refusal of borders in the name of hemispheric identification (Cepeda 2010). For some US-based queer activists of color, the shifting rhythms and melodies of reggaeton and related genres evoke feelings and histories akin to their sense of themselves as liminal subjects, both territorially and sexually (Luis M. AraAndrade and Robert Gutierrez-Perez 2017). Ruben López Cano (2014) argues that reggaeton “has expanded the representativity of the new Cuban consumer subject and his/her material desires and preoccupation with sex and individual pleasure” (p. 143). Darker-skinned Cubans look to the genre for aspirations beyond the state and Marxism, its seductive sound and rebellious lyrics flaunting official culture (Ligia Lavielle-Pullés 2014; Nora Gámez Torres 2012).

Although the genre is dominated by men and misogynistic lyrical content, women reggaetoneras have emerged as part of a putative tendency towards “a space for women’s negotiation of power and territory in a sexist context” (Jillian M. Báez 2006). Publicists, journalists, and reggaetoneras alike claim that the genre can express women’s desire in song and dance, on its own terms. However, despite reggaetoneras’ success in the music industry, they navigate contradictory influences of neoliberalism, heterosexuality, and traditional gender ideology. Even when they express sexual freedom critiques of their interventions stress their ongoing sexism and obeisance to corporate norms (Gallego Beatriz 2017; Kopecká Anna 2015; Ocampo Andrea 2016; Pangol Melanie 2018; Rodrigues Carolina 2012; Ramos Isabel 2015; Zas Marcos Mónica 2018).

We examine the constraints and possibilities of women’s sexual agency and feminism that reggaetoneras communicate, with particular reference to the lyrics, performance, and interviews of a prominent reggaetonera who considers herself a feminist: second-generation Mexican-American/Chicana, Becky G (Rebecca Marie Gómez).

The article explores Becky G’s image through the US and Latin American ideological norms and intersectionality, based on her hybrid/mestiza identity, and performances enacted within the largely male-oriented space of reggaeton. We argue that although reggaetoneras’ narratives of sexual agency remain inscribed in dominant discourse as a rhetorical strategy, they speak to young women and raise relevant questions about feminism, sexuality, and new subjectivities. We focus on Becky G’s music video “Sin Pijama,” which we consider it illustrates her depiction as a putatively independent woman who follows her desires but is “reinscribed as a sexual object” (Rosalind Gill 2007, 163) for the male gaze (Laura Mulvey 1975).

We ask how reggaetoneras present their bodies within a hypersexualized culture and demand the right to express their sexuality on their own terms. How do they dialogue with young Latinas about the constraints they face in terms of sexual agency? Here is the paradox: to “disrupt the gender norms that restrict women’s bodily autonomy [we] must locate the body in the webs of power that give meaning to such norms” (Theresa O’Keefe 2014, 16). Gender norms, heteronormativity, and patriarchy are inscribed on the bodies, are part of the biopower (Michel Foucault 2004). Biopower regulates populations to direct sexual behaviors towards an embrace of heteronormativity as a cultural, social, and medical universal.

Since entering the music industry, reggaetoneras have navigated dominant discourses of heteronormativity that reproduce patriarchal structures to represent their agency. On the one hand, they struggle to present themselves as active agents, interrupting the standard dichotomy of Latinas as either repressed or liberated; on the other, they remain embedded within dominant constructions as hyper-sexualized symbols.

In 2018, she won a Hispanic Heritage Award: Inspira, and is one of only six women aged under 21 to have a No. 1 record on the Billboard charts. “Sin Pijama” (with Natti Natasha, a Dominican) was among the world’s ten most-viewed and controversial music videos in 2018 (Marisa Arbona-Ruiz and Nicole Acevedo 2018) and labeled a “girl power anthem” by Billboard (Suzette Fernandez 2018). The duo promoted the video on Instagram with #HoyNoVamosADormir [Today we’re not going to sleep] (Clarín 2018). As at January 2022, it has been viewed two billion times on YouTube.

Becky G was born in California in 1997. A singer, rapper, actress, songwriter and youth model, she is known for her single “Shower,” her collaborations with other artists such as Pitbull, J Balvin, and Thalía, and appearances in television and film. She started her career singing in English, but began performing in Spanish in 2016 with “Sola,” [Alone] “Todo Cambio” [All Change], “Sin Pijama,” and “Mayores” [Older Guys]. The video for “Mayores”—a catchy song featuring Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny—has gained more than two billion views on YouTube.

Becky G’s performance in the video to “Sin Pijama” exemplifies how the female body is objectified—sexualized through the camera, and ultimately inscribed within patriarchal logics for heteronormative audiences. Becky G and Natti Natasha show that women can forget their guilt and explore their sensuality. That said, their lyrics question “structures of heteronormativity and the gender binary, and underscore … the prevalence of and necessity for ideological resistance” (Cavalcante, et al. 2017, p.3).

Literature review

Agency in a sexist/corporate-feminist context

Twenty years ago, celebrities rarely mentioned feminism. With Beyoncé’s declaration of her feminism in 2014, an increasing “crop of celebrity feminists” (Jessica Valenti 2014) came out in support of women’s empowerment. Gill explains, “feminism is now part of the cultural field. That is, feminist discourses are expressed within the media rather than simply being external, independent, critical voices” (Gill 2007, 161). She points out that “the body is presented simultaneously as women’s source of power and as always unruly, requiring constant monitoring, surveillance, discipline and remodeling to conform to ever-narrower judgments of female attractiveness” (p. 149). Women are immersed within a “Sexualization of Culture” (Rosalind Gill 2012) that urges them to present themselves as admired and desired by men.

The female body is a commodity to be presented in terms of the capitalist market. Rebecca Hains (2014) argues that the music industry privileges a very limited image of girl power: “the slender, curvaceous, yet toned physique adorned with stylish clothing and accessories, perfect hair, and trendy makeup” (para. 4). That ties in with Graham’s account of femininity as “personality traits of individuals who have taken on behaviors pleasing to dominants” (Dee Graham, L.R. Roberta, K. Ribsby and Edna I. Rawlings 1995, 187). This individualistic approach reduces feminism to a sexual agency without reference to the broader goals of women’s empowerment.

Kathryn L. Miller and Joshua Plencner (2018) argue that celebrity-feminist discourse relies on “corporate feminism” in its “obsession with individual stories of success,” when “many women don’t have much at all” (Foster, 2013). Corporate feminism incarnates “politics-free” feminism, of a young, free woman gazing at her own sexual liberty”(Angela McRobbie 2004), ignoring young girls may have little sexual agency within their own culture, religion, or family, where “[w]omen are still making sexual choices based on the needs of their partners rather than their own desires” (Pamela Madsen 2014). Gill (2007) discerns a:

Shift to neoliberal subjectivities in which sexual objectification can be (re)presented not as something done to women by some men, but as the freely chosen wish of active, confident, assertive female subjects

(p. 153).

There is a change in popular culture from patriarchal perspectives that constitute women as passive objects of the male gaze to “the sexually autonomous heterosexual young woman who plays with her sexual power and is forever ‘up for it’” (Gill 2007, 41). The emergence of new media discourses has opened alternative venues to disrupt the racialized binary narrative of virgin and whore in popular culture as applied to Latinas. As Molina Isabel Guzman and Angharad Valdivia (2004) note, icons such as “Salma Hayek, Frida Kahlo, and Jennifer Lopez disrupt some of Hollywood’s symbolic boundaries surrounding ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality” (p. 218).

In Ramos’ words, “even though feminists have worked extensively to change patriarchal power structures and ensure women’s rights as citizens, they still cannot control the ways in which they are represented in reguetón” (Ramos 2015, 73). In this context, reggaetoneras comply with the capitalist and patriarchal normativity of the industry—identifying as feminists while presenting themselves as conventionally attractive. In short, “despite the recent surge of female reggaetón artists, the genre is indisputably male-dominated and continues to objectify women” (Schroeder, 2017). However, the inclusion of women in a genre that used to be dominated by men has called into question the notion that reggaeton is a purely macho genre.

Reggaetoneras celebrated by the media as “feminists” fit the model of “active, desiring sexual subjects: women who desire sex with men (except when lesbian women ‘perform’ for men) and [are] young, slim and beautiful” (Gill 2007, 152). Within this hyper-sexualization, reggaetoneras present themselves as autonomous subjects with their own lifestyles and sexual pleasures: this neoliberal environment encompasses “girl power” as one more selling point. For the Latina performer, “the emphasis on her colorful-ethnic dress and facial hair, both physical markers of ethnic bodies, work to mediate her ethnic identity for capitalist consumption” (Molina Guzman and Valdivia 2004, 213).

The discourse of Latina sexual freedom in reggaeton began in the late 1990s with Ivy Queen (IQ) (, Juan Pablo Castiblanco 2016). In order to “succeed in this masculinist, competitive arena, she sacrificed agency in choosing how she is physically represented” (Báez 2006, 4). As Báez (2006) points out:

The paradox is that in order for Ivy Queen to succeed in this masculinist, competitive arena, she must sacrifice agency in choosing how she is physically represented. Although she has feminist agency in writing and performing her lyrics, IQ has little control over her physical image

(p. 74).

Her 2003 song “Yo Quiero Bailar” [I Love to Dance] insisted that women control their sexualities. Ivy Queen identifies as a key figure in women’s empowerment through reggaeton, pointing out that over her twenty years of making music (Castiblanco 2016) she has questioned sexual objectification: “Reguetón was talking about women and asses, and I was talking about empowerment, so it was like, ‘Hey, who’s this woman?’” (quoted in Herrera 2018). Ivy Queen insists that: “I need to work because I was not born to scrub and sweep” (quoted in Castiblanco 2016). She forged a path for later generations.

One of Ivy Queen’s main contributions to the discourse of Latina sexual freedom in reggaeton is that “the visual aspects of IQ’s concerts and music videos portray competing discourses of gender and sexuality” (Báez 2006, 72). She opens the possibility for reggaetoneras to self-reinvent their images, concert performances, and music videos beyond binaries. Báez (2006) points out that competing discourses in Ivy Queen’s videos are particularly evident in her use of mostly female dancers to advocate for women´s solidarity and sexual agency and provide “the potential for a queer reading of these performances” (p. 72).

There are important feminist reggaeton projects beyond the corporate mainstream (Núria Araüna, Iolanda Tortajada, and Mònica Figueras-Maz 2020). The Spanish singer Brisa Fenoy and Argentina’s queer Chocolate Remix question gender inequalities and challenge the male narrative underpinning reggaeton. Fenoy has expressed her commitment to contest problematic representations of women with a message of autonomy (Araüna, Tortajada, and Figueras-Maz 2020). Chocolate Remix concedes that reggaeton is sexist but adds “como todos los estilos de música [like all kinds of music].” She sees it as one more area of public life colored by prohibitions on women’s self-expression and is critical of denunciations from academic feminism that are as class-based as the capitalist intent to commodify and control cultural production (quoted in Gallego 2017).

Across the region, it is no surprise that pro-sex lyrics are welcomed by many young latinoamericanas, who live with a legacy of Catholic morality and a currency of evangelical Christianity. In Latin America, women’s empowerment based on sexualization appears to promise freedom from moralizing ideas about chastity and submissive femininity (Susana Derkz and Maria Julia Carozzi 2009, 5) that Latinas must constantly manage. These religious values are directly addressed by reggaetonera lyrics. They question why men can talk about women’s bodies, but when women reciprocate, they are judged. Becky G herself has said: “We have to talk like that and not like that … men can share the stage and say what they want, and that’s fine” (Paula M. Gonzálvez 2018).

Reggaetoneras speak openly about their bodies and what they want, rejecting traditional roles and seeking to control their portrayals. Their lyrics speak explicitly about the “erotic” not only in the sense of “sex/fucking” (Joan Morgan 2015, 39) but also about the freedom to pursue all the forms of sexual expressions. As Morgan explains, erotic must include “sexual and non-sexual engagements with deeply internal sites of power and pleasure—among them expressions of sex and sexuality that deliberately resist binaries” (p.40). Undeniably, there is potential in using the erotic to express one’s humanity and individual creativity beyond the constraints of dualisms. We concur that reggaetoneras may embrace the power of erotic to speak openly about women´s pleasure without the negative consequences of patriarchy. Brazilian singer Anitta explains why she talks about women’s sexuality:

I do it so that people get used to hearing this from a woman’s mouth. When a man does it, nobody cares, and nothing happens. But when he’s a woman it’s a scary thing, and I want that to end. If men can say it, so can we. That’s why I like to provoke debate with what I do

(Isabel Sandoval 2019).

“Provocation,” then, becomes one of the main elements that reggaeton artists play with to create controversy and challenge established paradigms (Sandoval 2019). They are reclaiming “erotic power” (Lorde, 2007) as a source of power in women’s lives.

Reggaetonera lyrics circulate in a context where it is often said that men do not know how to give pleasure to women because women do not know how to please themselves (Ocampo 2016). Reggaetoneras resonate with young Latinas who are making sense of their lives, and the world around them—where “reguetón rhythms are at the center of the mainstream pop music spheres” (Carlos Dávalos 2018, 4).

Reggaeton has become a form of expression for Latinas to negotiate sexuality through dance (Carolina Rodrigues 2012, 94). As Pangol (2018) states, “many Latinas have de-constructed the machista narrative of reggaeton by creating spaces in an urban music platform that initially left no space for Latina women to redefine their gender roles” (p. 4). Frances Negrón-Muntaner (2016) argues that Latina stars like Hayek, López, and Sofía Vergara aims to question a critique of the beauty stereotype, which includes the idea of Latinas being both smart and attractive, or, even further, of being smart as a sort of beauty.

By navigating problematic representations, Latina artists have not only created alternative representations but also embraced their identity and resisted erasing it in the media industry. Molina Guzman and Valdivia (2004) argue, “Despite the problematic nature of ethnically pure notions of identity, Hayek is using her accent and Spanish fluency to promote herself as ‘the authentic’ Hollywood Latina” (p. 210).

However, Latinas’ transition from stereotypes to alternative representations might be both empowering and problematic for women (Anna Kopecká 2015) because women’s bodies are part of the commodification for a capitalist enterprise. By presenting their bodies as part of a hypersexualized society, Latina artists continue to be part of the marginalization and part of a culture dedicated to the male gaze. Molina Guzman and Valdivia (2004) point out that:

The marginalization of Latina bodies is defined by an ideological contradiction—that is, Latina beauty and sexuality are marked as other, yet it is that otherness that also marks Latinas as desirable. In other words, Latina desirability is determined by their signification as a racialized, exotic Other

(p. 213).

That contradiction suggests that the sexualization of reggaetoneras is, in part, an effort to “manage” their entry into the reggaeton music industry. This suggests that femme expressions of womanhood not only exist as internalized misogyny; they might be women’s choices in performing gender as an industrial tactic. There is an extensive debate whether these women are “freely” making decisions within this system of oppression. Some scholars suggest empowerment cannot be reduced to women choosing to be portrayed as sexual objects (Levy Ariel 2005; Hatton Erin and Nell Trautner Mary 2013; Zeisler Andi 2008). We do not aim to assess whether reggaetoneras’ agency is right, “real or imagined” in their own lives (Hatton and Trautner 2013, 86), but we do hold that although reggaetoneras’ agency remains inscribed within a corporate-capitalist and macho system of oppression, their voices are opening conversations about feminism, sexuality, and new subjectivities. Even though neoliberalism limits reggaetoneras’ agency, amongst these restrictions reggaetoneras are making a positive impact on young women.

Becky G

Like other Latina singers, Becky G has declared her affiliation to feminism. She presents herself as an autonomous sexual individual rather than a passive object of the phallocentric gaze. Becky situates her performance as part of a feminist agenda that aims to create new intersections between women’s sexualities, subjectivities, and feminism. Beyond her commitment to feminism and her agency, the central issue is how she and other reggaetoneras present their bodies within a hypersexualized culture and demand the right to express their sexuality on their own terms. How do they dialogue with young Latinas about the constraints they all face in terms of sexual autonomy?

In interviews Becky G makes claims to the male-dominated genre of reggaeton, while stating that machismo limits women’s freedom: “All your dreams are impossible when you are a woman because you are a woman” (Yanel Tilke 2018). Being a prominent third-generation US Latina has given her the possibility of navigating between two cultures and carving out a space beyond traditional Latina dichotomies. Trying to be that “authentic” Latina has proven complicated, because “attempting to straddle both [identities] can draw as much criticism as aligning yourself with just one side” (Jhoni Jackson 2019). Like many US Latinas, Becky has often been told: “You don’t look Latina” (Diana Marti 2016). However, she embraces the possibilities of being “half and half—mitad y mitad—neither one nor the other but a strange doubling” (Gloria Anzaldúa 2012, 41) and hence beyond the dualisms of “oppressed” and “spicy” Latina.

In 2017, Becky began singing in Spanish with “Mayores.” She refers to controversies over this fragment: “I like the bigger ones that I can’t fit in my mouth/the kisses he wants to give me that drive me crazy.” Some programmers requested a “clean” version for radio. She refused because she “like[s] smart lyrics, lyrics that have dual meanings” (Leila Cobo 2018a). Becky explains that “Sin Pijama” is talking about “being a lady in the street and a bitch in bed.” This suggests a desire to co-opt the terms “bitch” and “lady;” to claim a space between both notions and question “traditional” Latina sexuality, often characterized as selfless (Ana Maria Juárez and Stella Kerl 2003, 11). Becky is using “bitch” to “re-appropriate these negative connotations of womanhood into female empowerment” (Báez 2006, 70), while being a “lady” in the street is behaving in ways patriarchal society expects of women: a “lady … attaches herself to one man” in order to be “a respectable member of society” (Russell Campbell 2006, 3). The increasingly frequent use of the word “bitch” among celebrities (re)signifies sexist language in everyday interactions. In 1968, Freeman wrote, “The BITCH manifesto,” (re)defining the term to describe a strong, independent woman in contrast to stereotypes of weakness and submission. Although the use of the word is debated within the feminist community (Theresa O’Keefe 2014), it is used more and more by women pop stars to express sexual freedom and transcend the dualism of virgin/whore.

Latina women are able not only to point out a site of oppression but also to “engage in opposition and even resistance to the discourses about purity through virginity that brings honor for their families and some challenge heteronormativity” (Zavella and Catañeda, 2005, p. 230). As Becky puts it: “men talk about sex with us [,] but if we talk about sex they are shocked” (Tele 13 2018). She wants to destabilize audiences’ cultural prejudices about women, noting that “some people say ‘oh, my god, it’s too much, why did they say that?’” (EFE Agencia 2017).

Methodology

We selected thematic analysis as our method. Based on thematic analysis, we report patterns within a body of data (Braun & Clarke 2008) to find meanings that can be interpreted inductively. We understand the music video as a promotional tool for the entrainment industry that combines visual and musical elements (Valdellós 2009). As Diego Hidalgo (2018) points out, while that modality fuses two different discourses, its priority is urging the purchase of music (p. 19). Our analysis of the video “Sin Pijamas” focuses on musical discourses such as, melody, rhythm, harmony, and lyrics and visual like image, lighting, colors, scenarios, characters, graphic texts, camera shots, angles and movements, and image composition (See table 1).

Table 1. Categories for analyzing musical discourses

Video clip	Music discourse	Melody, rhythm, harmony
		Lyrics (verbal discourse)
	Visual Discourse	Staging
		Video Frames
		Sequence

Per the table below, once elements of the visual text were registered, we analyzed their intersection with the musical discourse, and then conducted a thematic analysis from the collected data. Through the two coded categories, we identified two central themes: “An anthem to male pleasure” and a “constrained agency.”

Results

We apply “An anthem to male pleasure?” to musical and visual data that speak directly to how reggaetoneras’ narratives of the sexual agency remain inscribed in the logic of the male gaze. In referring to a “constrained agency,” we are highlighting the ways that reggaetoneras speak to young women about the challenges to exercise their sexual agency and raise relevant questions about feminism, sexuality, and new subjectivities. The thematic analysis is connected with Becky G’s media interviews to examine how she presents herself as a feminist.

The results suggest that, on the one hand, Becky G´s performance in the video expresses women’s capacity to re-create subjectivity and communicate sexuality on their own terms. She is undeniably engaging in visual explorations of agency and sexuality. On the other, she embraces a hyper-sexuality that reproduces patriarchal normativity and the disciplinary power of the male gaze.

“Sin Pijamas:” the male gaze as first-person view in a narrative music video

“Sin Pijamas” is a type of a narrative video in which the visual text focuses mainly on graphically reproducing the lyrics of the song. Lyric videos have a verbal narration of the song to identify the story that the song tells and the emotions that it wants to convey. As a narrative video, it follows classical succession of events that happen to characters in time and space, with the classic structure being the presentation, knot, and outcome—a motion from equilibrium through disequilibrium and back to equilibrium. The introduction of the video is an image of the Dominican-American performer Prince Royce (Geoffrey Royce Rojas). He receives a phone call and text from Becky announcing a “Girls” night” while watching remotely from a soundproof-booth eyrie. Prince exclaims, “Girls” night! This is going to be interesting.” A fade-out blurs the scene to suggest we are inside Prince’s imagination. This filmmaking technique suggests he is the “witness character” who is not necessarily involved in the story but provides his point of view. By having Prince as witness character in the video, we know his version of Becky pajama’s party, as viewers, we know what he wants to tells and how he wants to tell it.

The introduction continues with Becky and Natti wearing garters, black and white feathers, and heels, their skinny bodies posed as mobile, lubricious, and inviting. The video transitions from long shots to close-ups on the female body, entering deeply into the masculine imagination, its most intimate side. They move through this imagination, their body language seductive and assertive. The scene and lyrics position them as sexually autonomous heterosexual young women, who play with their sexual power within a commodified visual narrative that reifies masculine fantasies—confident as manipulators of Prince’s fantasy, comfortable knowing they fit in.

In the 27^th second, we realize Becky and Natti are not the only women in his imagination. A shot from above shows another woman in underwear, silently wandering across the first floor while Becky and Natti confidently walk down the stairs of what appears to be an upper-class bordello. Their bodies are not only hypersexualized but also glamourized. The glamour makes it difficult for the naked eye to see this as a place of oppression for women. Gibbs et al. explain how the sex worker qua cultural icon is often “romanticized in the mass media and the public imagination” (Erin Gibbs, Rosalid Sydie, and Catherine Krull 2008, 47). Such “representations constitute symbolic violence, obscuring the gendered inequality of commercial sex and the physical, sexual and psychological harm experienced by women in prostitution” (Maddy Coy, Josephine Wakeling, and Maria Garner 2011, 441).

The song’s third verse serenades the loneliness of men, which only they can heal:

You are alone, (…) You want a remedy for your pain.

The setting, their words, dresses, and non-verbal language suggest they are recreating a male fantasy of exotic dancers, showgirls in Prince’s imagination, who can salve his wounds. From Prince´s perspective, Becky and Natti’s performances send the message that they are embracing their own pleasure, that they are sexually autonomous young women: “active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to present themselves in a seemingly objectified manner because it suits their liberated interests to do so” (Goldman 1992, cited in Gill 2007, 151). They appear to be in control of sexual arousal when they issue instructions to Prince:

You know that I won’t leave you stuck there

In Prince´s imagination, they present themselves as women who have the power of “‘leaving him wanting more’ somehow as a modern and powerful position” (Gill 2007, 155). To maintain Prince’s sexual arousal, Becky G and Natti are assisted by several other women in underwear, who move seductivey near an “ON” sign, which their performance is being turned on and plays with the notion of being “turned on.” While the other women move the “ON” sign, Becky G and Natti continue singing and encouraging the man: his “arousal won’t go away. [He] know[s] that [they] won’t leave [him] stuck there.” Becky G and Natti ask Prince for a “video call” and send pictures “showing everything.” They and the anonymous women set up a photoshoot, with Becky G and Natti dressed in black-strapped bodysuits.

I’m going to tell my secrets to your pillow

Until then let’s make a video call

Send me photos, little pics

Being coherent with Prince´s point of view, they pose close to a zebra, incorporating their bodies as part of what appears to be a wild nature location, thus creating an erotic fantasy that situates Latinas in a colonizing land as bodies in need of conquest. The scene reinforces the “spicy-Latina” stereotype inscribed within the gaze of the white mainstream music industry. The male point of view privileges the construction of stereotypes as an oppressive practice is directed to address racialized women, non-white women, reducing them to sexual connotations derived from their racialization.

By positioning Prince as “witness character,” we have a patriarchal-capitalist version of Becky and Natti´s performances. From this point of view, feminine performance and dress are primarily aimed to attract male attention. Such assumption invalidates women’s autonomy and ignores they have dressed that way for themselves and not for others. Undeniably, high heels and short skirts may be part of the male fantasy, but it does not preclude women from enjoying them and choosing these items for their own pleasure.

Constrained agency: the seven-second women’s version

The video ends up leading to a new narrative by introducing a pajama party. This scene suggests this is the “real” pajama party that Becky and Natti are having. At the end of the video, we can finally know Becky´s version of a pajama party. At this point of the video, the audience sees what Becky calls “the reality:” a group of young women at a pajama party—“Girls” night”—without makeup and with cucumber faces masks. In fact, Becky describes the scene as the true pajama party: “when we wear pajamas we are laying there without makeup, eating potatoes and that’s it” (quoted in El Español 2018). This short scene seems a valuable contrast to Prince’s phallocentric version of “girls” night.” The scene conveys Becky´s point of view as witness character. It represents young women redefining femininity beyond the hegemonic model of emphasized femininity. Brown (2014) considers girls’ nights out to be a “complex mix of pleasures that allow women to subtly shift, affirm and play with feminine subjectivities” (para. 1), a space in which women get together with other women whose company they enjoy. This is a moment of sorority, an extra-diegetic moment of seeming realism, separate from the video’s principal drama and a space where the women laugh at their performance and the male spectator, whether Prince or any other man. This scene has the potential to explore sorority as a collaborative practice that supports relationships among women. A pajama party becomes a safe and suitable space in which there are no stances or judgments, but a lot of fun and sorority. As a fundamental value for the feminist movement, sorority could be narrated in more than a few seconds in the video. It is at the end of the video where, finally, young women act “as if” men are not looking at them. They assume relaxed postures and are authentic, which suggests despite the existence of individual differences among them, they share similar experiences and open space for the construction of new ways to signify the female body.

Nevertheless, this “reality” is only seven seconds at the end of a video, and seven seconds when the audience is not presented with any music. That brief putative reality shows young women do not exclusively aim to please men and may assume relaxed positions when they are not subject to the male gaze. But those last few seconds confirm that the video is mostly about a masculine fantasy. For the media industry, images of women with cucumber face masks, dressed in long pajama pants, and arrayed in non-erotic postures are not as attractive as putting them in black-strapped bodysuits and high-heeled shoes, markers of sexualized femininity.

Discussion

Becky G acknowledges that although she was involved in the idea of the video, her influence was not very significant (El Español 2018). The fact that the producers included seven seconds of an “authentic” pajama party does not legitimate talk about women’s empowerment and feminism, but it does open possibilities for examining their agency in the music industry.

Reggaetoneras like Becky G are consistent in claiming agency in their careers because they have the “freedom” to write lyrics and participate in video production. Reggaetoneras’ appearance has changed the conversation about a genre that had previously been reserved for men, with lyrics objectifying women as mere objects of desire. Their emergence into the mainstream global music industry has re-framed conversations about sexual politics. Today, although men continue to dominate the genre, media attention has also been placed on reggaetoneras. They send a message about young women exploring their sexuality. That resonates with feminist ideals to the extent that it emphasizes women owning their desire; it echoes feminist arguments “with regard to bodily autonomy and sexual expression [that] represent a continuity with second-wave debates” (O’Keefe 2014, 5). Reggaetoneras stress women’s control of their bodies, sending the message of “dancing as an alternative space to exercise sexual agency” (Báez 2006, 72). Their music offers a counter-narrative to problematic representations that reduce Latinas to the virgin/whore dichotomy, negotiating more positive versions of their ethnic and gender identities in a shift from objectification to subjectification.

Becky G explicitly declares she has fun, “playing” at being both a “lady” and “bitch.” She loves “to scandalize those more puritanical people” (Lorena G. Maldonado 2018) because she is “a Mexican woman and Mexicans are the sexiest in the world” (quoted in Maldonado 2018). By opposing dualism and essentialism, Becky’s feminism celebrates multiple identities.

In her own words, “everyone has their own definition [of feminism]” (quoted in Tele 13 2018). The fact that women have different understandings of what it means to be “sexy” or how to talk about sexual pleasure makes it complicated to attain a single definition of feminism: “For me [feminism] is also saying ‘who am I to tell a woman how to be sexy?’” In response to this dilemma, Becky concludes that the solution is letting each woman express what pleasure is on her terms, without judging her. For Becky, conflicts arise when older women criticize her behavior: “The generations before are more accustomed to thinking: ‘Oh no, a woman cannot talk like that’ and I respect you come from another era, but who are you to tell me how to express myself as an artist?” (quoted in Tele 13 2018).

Spanish singer Beatriz Luengo is concerned that Becky G constructs music that is “supposedly feminist but only male sexuality is satisfied” (Monica Zas Marcos 2018). The video we have selected is phenomenally popular and fits a tee the image that Becky G projects in interviews. Its sexualization is a core component of her self-presentation more widely. Assuming her declarations of allegiance to feminism are profound, what might that suggest?

Like Ivy Q and Chocolate Remix, Becky G should promote a productive debate about actual women’s issues. Angela McRobbie (2004) warns against individualistic approaches to feminist goals, noting that differences among diverse perspectives might consolidate into “something closer to repudiation rather than ambivalence” (p. 257). A personal definition of feminism does not preclude possible collaborative efforts among reggaetoneras committed to feminist agendas, to create dialogue, find solidarity, and seek collaboration. There is substantial momentum among women artists who take advantage of their privileges, interchanging their notions of feminism and sharing a common project of young women’s empowerment. Reggaetoneras who call themselves feminists should work together, create synergies, and use the aesthetics of pop culture to help make feminist ideas influence the wider culture in ways that are relevant to the younger generation’s everyday lives.n Being a feminist “celebrity” is not only about labelling oneself “feminist” as a marketing strategy. It means committing oneself to undermining patriarchal culture and “coming out in support of social justice issues” (Jessica Valenti 2014).

Our analysis suggests that Latina reggaetoneras have raised relevant questions about feminism, sexuality, and new subjectivities, but remain inscribed in the logic of the male gaze. They have immersed themselves in an oscillating dynamic between objects and subjects: women as eroticized objects that embody patriarchal normativity and subjects but present themselves as active agents reclaiming the right to express their sexuality.

Conclusion

Reggaetoneras’ discourses of empowerment fit within post-feminism, in which feminist and anti-feminist ideas are entangled. Their lyrics, performances, and media declarations communicate contradictory discourses of women as “desiring social subjects” that overlap with patriarchal views. However, Becky´s narrative has broken the silence around Latinas’ sexuality and opened spaces to new meanings of femininities “in-between” for Latinas, beyond essentialisms and stereotypes.

Even though Becky´s performance in most of her videos—“Ni mala, ni santa;” “A mi me gustan mayores;” “Otro día lluvioso”—presents an oversexualized image of the artist, we do not aim to opaque her efforts to empower Latina artists in the music industry. We acknowledge her commitment to promoting women´s solidarity and sexual agency. For example, Natasha and Becky G in the video called “Pam Pam, they both sing to a man who abandoned them and explain how a new man satisfies them. Also, in promoting women´s empowerment and solidarity, Becky G has acknowledged Jeniffer López´s support in one of her first videos Becky from the block’ (I. Dorta 2019).

However, despite Becky´s efforts, the genre’s sexism remains largely unscathed. If anything, it is re-emphasized through the appropriation of “girl power.” Reggaeton’s misogyny has been transmogrified rather than eviscerated. Few women artists transcend sexualized styles to political ones; most reggaetoneras follow macho norms, as the critics cited above attest. Becky G and “Sin Pijamas” are simultaneously typical of the genre’s star system and imagery, while offering a different, supposedly transgressive perspective. Our concern is that they remain constrained by corporate and patriarchal control—some distance from progressive cultural politics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).