Call Me Maybe Meaning

Director Sut Jhally, in his documentary film, “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex, and power in music videos”, analyzes the issue of how women are portrayed in the music world. Jhally, in his film argues how music and media has become a proud industry when it comes to advertising women, all for the benefit of popularity and record sales. Jhally believes these videos both inform and misinform our culture about our dominant attitudes regarding femininity masculinity, sexuality and race. He uses an empathetic tone in order to appeal to pathos, the feelings and experiences in women when he presents video clips that are somewhat offensive to watch as proof that women have become a common necessity shown in music videos. Often presented as being sexually aggressive and submissive, being objectified by men. He also intentionally wants to try to stir up emotions as he introduces song lyrics of women being called inappropriate names and images of women being fondled by men throughout the film. Sometimes, aggressively without consent.

Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, society wasn’t the most accepting of places for people who were different from the “social norms”. Now I know, people today still struggle with trying to fit in and be “normal” but it was different. Being a gay man living in San Fransisco at the time, which had a large gay population, Richard Rodriguez had a hard time dealing with the discrimination he faced. Richard Rodriguez was an American journalist who wrote and published a memoir about his life as a gay man. In October of 1990, Rodriguez published his memoir “Late Victorians” in Harper’s Magazine, a critically acclaimed publication of the time. In his memoir, Rodriguez describes what it was like to realize he was gay and watch as the country changed to become a more accepting place. He does this by setting up how things can change and then explaining the actual ways things change for the gay population.

In conclusion, the music industry is sexualising older teenage girls to a minor extent. According to the surveys, the older girls don’t feel that they have to display every inch of their body to be considered attractive, and most didn’t see having male attention as an important social standing to have. To the older teens in actuality, music videos are seen as false and a fake depiction of adolescent girls in reality. Lily Allen has made more or an impact on our

A peculiarity he mentions after explaining the search for a specific gender partner is how, in the South where he is, gay men tend to seek “masculine” partners, which defeats the idea of gender roles in same-sex relationships. The concept of gender is defined as “the identity and roles associated with, and/or appropriated by specific persons, regardless of their biological sex,” (Rich, 2016). While the concept is different across cultures and time, a constant happens to be the grouping and automatic attribution of roles based on a person’s biological sex. The author challenges the idea of gender roles associated with biological sex, however, saying that these men in the South tend to seek boyfriends who are sporty and have other classic masculine characteristics. Mays comments that there are few actions or characteristics that can be classified as gender neutral as these can be in present-day society. Thus, in their case, if both partners will exhibit these masculine qualities, they will both, in turn, be forced to take up women’s roles to live normal lives, for example cooking and cleaning, which would lead to the canceling out of masculine or feminine qualities.

Few people today know the true meaning of the word gay. Even fewer use it in its original context. To be gay was once a common and positive expression. When describing one’s mood, it meant that they were feeling lively and carefree. Gay could even be used to describe something that was “brightly colored” or “showy” (Merriam Webster, “Gay”). No one thought twice about it when people said they were “feeling gay” or “the sunset was gay.” However, this word is rarely used in that context in today’s society. Instead, it has taken on a completely different meaning and connotation. While gay had become something of a euphemism for prostitutes and their clients throughout the 19th century, it was ever changing. This change was gradual and began in the 1920s and 1930s. By this time, a “gay man” was no longer just a man that was promiscuous with women, but also one who was

The larger group was Dominated by all males, which is another thing I didn’t expect. You would think that the group would have at least one or two females in it, statistically speaking. The smaller group was female dominated with two females and a single male in it. I observed the male and he didn’t seem to follow his gender role4. This made me think because I have a gay friend and homosexual men seem to familiarize with females more easily than heterosexual males. Also I noticed a trend that most gay men spent most of their time being raised by their mother with a more distant or even non-existent father figure. It is probably not fair to make assumptions about the lone male in the group, but I’m assuming he fits in this stereotype5. The other thing I noticed about this group is that they all seemed to be equal; there wasn’t one that put themselves before the others.

The Film Dreamworlds III examines the explicit nature and the objectification of women in music videos across music genres. A similar theme is presented throughout these various music videos as women are sexualized and exploited. In addition, many music videos display the domination and antoagonizing nature of a man controlling the numerous women submitting themselves to him. The portrayal of these images in music videos advertise and influence audiences to accept this behavior on screen, which in turn strengthens aggressive masculinity and the pornography of women.

In today’s generation no matter what gender a person is, they have expectations of society to act like either a “women” or “man”. Back in the day when our parents were growing up it wasn’t the same social standers. Girls didn’t have to deal with such high expectations. Adults usually can’t relate to our situation. In the two essays, Mary Piper’s, “Saplings in the Storm” and Sandra Cisneros “Barbie-Q”, gave a better perspective of girls going through adolescents. During this stage in their life they have to deal with social norms, which pressures girls to compare themselves to others and strive to be an unrealistic model of femininity. This emotional battle to blend in leads to metal distress while not allowing adolescent girl be themselves

The working-class man who preferred sexual activity with other men fared better than the elites did. George Chauncey reveals the most visible gay world in the early twentieth-century “was a working class world … centered in African American” neighborhoods. Queer social spaces were formed within these neighborhoods. Gender nonconforming people of color could freely express their sexuality or identity without too much hassle from

In this chapter, the artist talks about how roles and what it means to be socially acceptable for women has changed: it talks about the sexual revolution and during this time it was socially acceptable for women to have sex prior to marriage. The chapter also talks about how men and woman start freshman year open minded about hooking up, and then after freshman year there is a shift from everyone wanting to hook up to men being more focused on it while the women’s perspective starts changing and looking for a relationship’s less than a hook-up. In this chapter, it also talks about how men go about dealing with women after a hook-up has occurred: how the men go about stop talking to the girl they hooked up with, and what they

My next song for analysis is, “ Sex, Yeah” by Marina Diamandis. The song begins immediately by mocking modern day pop culture. Just about every song you hear on pop radio is about sex. Marina repeats the word “sex” to lead the listener into thinking it’s another overly sexualized, shallow pop song. This first line, however, is pure satire and takes a direct jab at the shallow tendencies of today’s music.

Music can have a big influence on society or a person individually, this can be because everyone has personal feelings and perceives music differently. For this song assignment I choose If I were a boy by Beyonce Knowles. I choose this song because of how gender is seen in society and the differences between men and women and it’s impact in our world. The reason this song makes me think in a sociological manner is because we as people don’t know what it is like to be one gender or the other. Also, there are differences between the genders and we blame society for creating these differences, however we don’t actually stop assuming or agreeing with these differences. I think that personally I don’t always understand how there is such a big difference

Many young people seek to use music to help themselves be more accepted in the world, so that they can be easily categorisable in the mainstream. Many girls of ages 9 – 13 may have an interest in a popular ‘boy band' of the time. This is an example of how, though a girl's identity could be partly influenced by such a band, ultimately, their music and appeal is limited in scope because after four or five years the band is likely to have split up. The media promotes such a band because it targets girls who are seeking to find an identity and because these years

First, the music video connects with teen girls by using lyrics that question staying in these harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes sings, “And you’re spending all your time in this wrong situation”, to motivate teen girls not to waste their time in those harmful relationships. These motivating lyrics help to encourage teenage girls to remove themselves from these relationships. When Shawn Mendes sings about how she should not waste her time in the wrong relationship, it encourages teen girls to get out of those bad relationships. Second, the music video relates to teen girls by using touching lyrics so that teenage girls realize the harmful relationships, they are in. Shawn Mendes sings the words, “But I can see it on your face when you say that he’s the one that you want”, as encouragement for teen girls to do what they want and leave a relationship if they feel unsafe or do not want to be part of it. Again, these compassionate lyrics inspire teen girls to disconnect harmful relationships, because that is what they should want. When Shawn Mendes sings about how it is obvious that the girl feels unhappy in the situation, it relates to other teen girl’s emotions and interests them to leave those situations. Through the use of concerning lyrics, of questioning and emotion the music video encourages teenage girls to leave their harmful relationships. Shawn Mendes’ “Treat