Sexism in pop videos
In the 2013 "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus provoked controversy. Lily Allen's "Hard Out Here" video parodied black music videos that reduce black women's bodies to lurid props.
Pop videos are indeed sexist, women are objectified and viewed as sexual objects.
some example of these are as follows:
However it may be that women bring this on themselves sometimes Miley Cyrus previously released her video called "Wrecking Ball", no she may be being sexualised and this may be to promote the video, but it was her choice on what she could and couldn't do in her video.
This is a video by Jessie J it was released in 2014 and is called "Burnin' Up" and featured in it is rapper 2 Chainz. The video has over 12 million views. Even though the lyrics are about sex and she does very sexual gestures, she is the main singer in this video even though a male is featured in the video she is still portrayed as a strong female figure.
Mambo Number 5 was a huge hit, it was released in 1999 by a man called Lou Bega, the video has over 12 million views. In this video the male is talking about various different women he has on the go at the same time and in different shots the women are dancing in next to nothing, this is almost like an old fashion "Blurredlines" video.
The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance.The theory suggests woman can more often than not only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a mans perspective. Only 16% of media creators are female.
However a women's presence in a film is VITAL! a female character has no real importance herself, but it is how she makes the male feel/act that is important, so as a result of this the female is only there to accompany the male.
Mulvey argues that the male gaze leads to hegemonic ideologies within our society. Hegemonic means ruling or dominant in a political or social context.
Mulvey states that the role of a female character in a narrative has two functions.
- As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view
- As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinema to view.
The Characters that look at other are seen as the are seen as the active role (male), the character that are to be looked at are passive, (female). they are under control of the males gaze and only exist for visual pleasures. Females often slow the narrative down they act as inspiration for men to act. Males on the other hand push the narrative forwards and make thing happen this is why they are active characters.
Mulvey also discussed the term "Socopophilia" this literally means 'Love of Watching', movie making and viewing have been analysed as socophilic practices.
Female Objectification.
Objectification is related to the gaze. the persons gazed at are objectified, treated as an object whose sole value is to be enjoyed or possessed by the voyeur. Objectified characters are devalued and their humanity is removed.
An example of this is the beer company Budweiser they put a women on their beer bottle to try and sell it more to the male buyers.
Lily Allen.
Allen released her new 'Hard out Here' in 2013 the video is almost a feminist video however i think she's is just pointing out the fact that not every women has the body or wants to be sexualised by men and that someone actually have got a brain and can do what men can do at the same time, if not better.
All their video consists of is them using their bums to make their song good in the same way Kim Kardashian uses her body to make money.
No comments:
Post a Comment