in Celebrities, Entertainment, Music

Russell Brand’s Attempt At Mansplaining Feminism And Cardi B’s ‘WAP’ Video Backfires Spectacularly

Russell Brand/YouTube; Cardi B/YouTube

You might assume that in this day and age, men might know by now that preaching at women about how they use their bodies and sexuality is not a good look. (Unless you’re a right-wing man of course.)

But you’d be wrong, because comedian Russell Brand has definitely not gotten that memo. He recently posted a 20-minute mansplaining YouTube analysis of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” video and… well, it went about as well as you might expect.

The premise of Brand’s video is interrogating whether “WAP” is a “feminist masterpiece or porn,” and, well… it doesn’t get much better from there.

The thrust of Brand’s argument is that “WAP” can’t really be called feminist because it’s operating within a male-dominated system.

He questions whether women can:

“…achieve equality by aspiring to and replicating the values that have been established by males.”

He goes on to discount the overt sexuality that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s display in “WAP” as:

“a template that already exists and was established by males.”

Which is… a strange argument to say the least, especially since we already had this conversation 40 years ago when Madonna showed up on the scene, and then had it again 30 years ago when female rappers first became a mainstream force to be reckoned with.

But that didn’t stop Brand from doubling down on this old chestnut.

“Is it equality if the template has already been established by a formal dominator? The answer is no.”

This raises the question of how women can seize equality, then. Do men need to be extinct for women to be able to cathartically own their sexuality?

What is the right way?

But, of course, Brand doesn’t delve into any of that. Instead, he reneges on his premise, acknowledging that he understands Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s work is also “liberating.” (SIR. You literally just said it can’t be.)

But then he reneges on that reneging because capitalism.

“It’s still ultimately a sort of capitalist objectification and commodification of, in this case, the female.”

Speaking of capitalism, Brand made no mention of the fact that he’s likely making bank off this very video, which is professionally produced, hawks his podcast and books in the description, and resides on his YouTube channel with nearly 2.5 million subscribers that is surely pulling down significant ad revenue.

In any case, as you might assume, folks on social media were not having any of this.

Anyway, let this serve as a reminder that it really is okay to just be quiet and let women do what they want. It’s literally free!

John Sundholm

Written by John Sundholm

John Sundholm is a writer, video producer and performer originally from Michigan, and is one of those people who says he "lived in London for a while" even though it was only six weeks for study abroad. He made Ellen DeGeneres laugh once so you should probably follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Medium, where he does a lot of yelling under the name @JohntheCraptist.