Popular culture is all about the shock factor, especially when it involves female popstars. The late Eighties set a precedent for women making statements in their music videos. In 1989 Madonna broke taboos with an interracial love story, complete with burning crosses and a crying saint. A year later Sinead O’Connor was the first woman to cry in a music video. Since then pop-feminism has produced a steady stream of provocation, from the Spice Girls kicking girl-power in our faces, angry man-hating from Alanis Morissette to the independent women of Destiny’s Child. The noughties were pretty much a romp through string bikinis in preparation for Lady Gaga borrowing an outfit from the butchers in 2010. Therefore it didn’t shock me at all to see Rihanna, in her new video for ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, naked in a Louis Vuitton trunk full of cash, covered in blood and smoking a cigar.
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