In 2013, the music videos for Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" caused major controversy. Lily Allen's "Hard Out There" also caused controversy due to its parodying of several black music videos that depicted black women as "lurid props".
Are Pop Videos sexist? Do they depict women as objects of desire for the viewer?
Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory suggests that said gaze denies women human identity, reducing them to simple objects that are admired for their appearance alone. It also suggests that women often have to view their own gender in a film from the perspective of a man rather than their own gender. In addition, only 16% of the media creators themselves are female.
However, the actual presence of women is crucial to a mainstream film (just not in a good way). Rather than actual characters of importance, they are depicted with little to no importance and only important for making the male characters feel or act. The existence of female characters is only important when concerning the male characters in the narrative.
The Male Gaze leads on to Hegemonic ideas (stereotypical ideas about who is dominant and who is subordinate) in a society. Furthermore, Laura Mulvey believes that if women keep being subjected to media portrayed in the perspective of men, they themselves will start to see other women in their own Male Gaze and will start to see themselves as forever subordinate like other men (who are seen as dominant in society) seem to do.
As stated before, Laura Mulvey believes that female characters in a narrative are only used for two roles:-
- An erotic object for the characters to view
- An erotic object for the audience to view
The characters in a narrative that look at others are seen as "active" (mainly male characters). The characters that are looked at are "passive" (mainly female characters). Passive characters are under the control of a male's gaze and are used as visual pleasure. Female characters are portrayed as though they slow down the narrative and act as the male characters motivation to move the narrative forward again. Male characters, as "active" characters, move the narrative forward and make things happen,
Laura Mulvey also discusses the word "Scopophilia", which means the "love of watching". She states that the making and viewing of a movie are scopophilic activities, as we sit in the cinema, watching these characters, who are oblivious to the fact they are being watched. This term was derived from Sigmund Freud's ideas about the psyche.
Objectification is the result of the Male Gaze. People who are gazed at like this are objectified and and treated as solely an erotic object to be viewed by a voyeur (someone who enjoys looking at anything erotic). These people have their importance diminshed and their humanity removed/denied.
Laura Mulvey states that we live in a patriarchal (ruled by males) society, where men create and control the rules and represent the ideals for society that men are dominant over women. She worries that passive citizens will be influenced by these patriarchal views on life and will start to copy them, though, in some cases, this may have already happened.
To summarise Laura Mulvey's theory, in popular media, women:-
- Are seen as objects of erotic desire for male characters and the audience.
- Are portrayed as passive, while men are active.
- Don't have Agency; they can't move the plot forward.
- Are always seen with the male gaze because the audience is forced to do so.
- Reflect our patriarchal society through their erotic portrayal.
- Links together patriarchy and phallocentrism ("phallus" means penis, which is seen as symbol of power) through their erotic portrayal.
Contraversial Music Videos
Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball"
This video is widely controversial due to Miley Cyrus' provocative image throughout the video. The Guardian journalist, Michael Hann, criticised it as her attempt at distancing herself from her childhood success as the innocent Hannah Montana and "exploring the iconography of porn".
Miley Cyrus herself, however, defended her video by saying that she was meant to look broken not provocative by being nude and that fans have to look past that image and use their imagination to see the true meaning of the song and video. She also points out that she was actually acting more broken than the song or the video put across to us, but it was hard to actually record that brokenness in the studio, and she says that fans have to look her in the eyes in order to properly see this.
"The message you keep sending is that it's somehow cool to be prostituted.. it's so not cool Miley.. it's dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. We aren't merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career." - Sinead O'Connor warns in an open letter on her website addressed to Miley Cyrus concerning her image in "Wrecking Ball" and others.
There is also controversy about whether Miley Cyrus was exploiting or being exploited herself. According to Miley Cyrus' above defence, she wasn't being exploited, nor was she exploiting, at all, while others think otherwise.
Lily Allen - "Hard Out Here"
This was advertised as a feminist music video, but, despite it being in the title and some parts of the lyrics, the video doesn't seem to be portrayed in that way. Some think that this video was meant to be a parody of videos that do exploit women, while others think that the video does exactly that.
Lily Allen stated that the message of the song was about "body image pressures and misogyny in the entertainment industry", but some say that the video completely defeats this message.
There was also controversy about this video concerning the races of the backing dancers. Lily Allen responded to this with "The video is meant to be a lighthearted satirical video that deals with objectification of women within modern pop culture, It has nothing to do with race, at all."
Robin Thicke - "Blurred Lines" (Censored Version)
This song had to be banned by 20 University Student Unions because of it's controversial lyrics and probably more controversial music video. The video above is the censored version of the music video.
The lyrics seem to imply that women want to exploit themselves and that Robin Thicke was encouraging them. The music video backs it up (particularly in the uncensored version) with Robin Thicke (along with T.I. and Pharrell Williams) flirting with topless models.
Two versions of this video were made due to the controversy. The censored version featured the models with clothes on, while the original, uncensored version featured the models topless.
The women in this video are portrayed dancing with the three singers (with or without their clothes, depending on the version), which some have interpreted that the video and song are saying that women are asking to be raped. However, there were several defences of the song and video, saying that the message of the song is that women should be liberated of men and should be in control for once, i.e. "That man is not your maker", with the said liberation being portrayed in the video with the women dancing.
Jennifer Lopez - "Booty" ft. Iggy Izalea
The video is literally only Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Izalea showing off their butts to the camera. However, there is a 25-26 second long warning at the beginning of the video about the content following it.
Rihanna - "Pour It Up"
The video is about Rihanna in a strip club, turning a strip club anthem into a declaration of independence, while in amongst the chaos of said strip club.
The video matches the lyrics concerning its strip club references, e.g. it is set in a strip club filled with water (probably to reference the title). The song was praised for Rihanna trying to "trash talk", for being "moody and murky" and for using "a strip club as hallucinatory metaphor for an identity crisis about sex and materialism." but was also criticised for "killing the mood" with her "trash talk" and for being "obnoxious" compared to the sense to emotional trauma in the rest of its respective album, "Unapologetic". The video was criticised for "going too far" with the strip club theme. The former director of the video, Vincent Haycock, left the project because of "creative differences" with Rihanna.
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