Justifying Madonna 's Work By Madonna

Feminists that approach analyzing popular culture proceed from a variety of theoretical positions that carry with them a deeper social analysis and political agenda. Popular culture has been a critical part of feminist analysis. “Cultural politics are crucially important to feminism because they involve struggles over meaning” (Storey, Intro 136). Analyzing a piece of pop culture through a feminist viewpoint, whether it be a music video or any sort of media, opens up a broader discussion about the structure of our patriarchal society and the ways in which politics are constantly portrayed and

Twerking serves as a sign that objectifies the female body by placing focus on sexual movements of the buttock. In one particular scene, Rihanna is shown twerking on a throne, with her back facing the camera. The fact that her face is not directly shown establishes her buttock as the focal point and therefore Rihanna purposefully objectifies her body. The fact that a well-known, successful female artist is taking part of this submissive dance both promotes and idealises submission by women. These signs are present consistently throughout the “Pour It Up” music video and establish the hegemonic message that directly correlates the female gender to sexual appeal, submission, and objectification.

Drag queens have spent years performing for themselves and for many other people. Their shows today are a way to express themselves and make people question what they know about gender and sexuality. Rupp and Taylor in their book, “Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret” discuss this subject in detail, calling their performances a form of protest. They question the roles that society has put them into, and in turn provoke their audiences to question these things, such as gender and sexuality. This type of social protest is called “subversion.” Through this book, we can more specifically look at two types of subversion that played a major role in the 801 drag queen’s performances. The first, and most obvious, is the idea of masculinity versus femininity, and how the Queens use different techniques to break free from the traditional way of thinking about these concepts. The second is the overt way that the Queens portray sex and sexuality, in ways that are impossible for the audience to ignore. Both these types of subversion have an overarching theme of crossing boundaries, whether over the division of the gender binary, or the limits of what is socially acceptable to talk about regarding sex. Drag queens envelop the audience and take many of them out of their comfort zone.

LGBT+ awareness is shown in this movie as Elle is a lesbian, who had a long-term wife and a short-term girlfriend, as shown in the movie. One of the people Elle and Sage go to visit to get money off is Elle’s ex-husband Karl, whilst they are there, Sage asks Elle if she ever liked men and Elle replies with, “no I always liked women I just didn’t like myself,” this shows the expectation Elle felt she had to live up to, whilst knowing her true feelings and felt as if she was lying to herself. I feel as this theme is very common among people struggling with identifying their own sexuality, as people feel they have a standard to live up to. There is a part in the film where Sage and Elle visit Elle’s friend Deathy to get money from, as she owed Elle, Deathy works at a tattoo shop and offered a tattoo instead, Elle said yes and got a circle, which looked similar to an ‘O,’ Sage told

Allen’s music video introduces half-naked women committing sexual acts in a provocative scene to establish the role of women in pop culture as dehumanizing. The scene starts with Allen joining the female dancers, clothed enough to barely cover their genitals, beginning their dance routine. As Allen sings, the dancers are seen performing the twerk, and the video zooms on the dancer’s genitals as the dancers lick their hands and slap their genitals. Allen’s incendiary scene highlights women as needing to be overly sexualized in music videos and performing suggestive behaviors to be included in pop culture. This scene dehumanizes women in music videos because women are expected to behave and dress in a specific manner or not be included in the

Within popular culture today, objectified female bodies can be represented everywhere from advertising images to magazine covers, television, music and many more. Through these media institutions, we allow them to construct social identities in ways that allow us to understand what it means to be black, white, Asian, male or female etc. Within many popular culture mediums such as music, stereotypical representations of racially marked female bodies are often formed. Thus, these representations also have the ability to create stories about a certain culture. In music videos, it does not go unnoticed that women are portrayed as objects whose objectives are to pleasure men. In this paper, I will argue how racially marked female bodies are represented. This paper will mainly focus on how these racially marked women are depicted in the hip hop culture. To demonstrate this, I will draw examples by using award winning music videos by Nicki Minaj, R.Kelly, 50 cent to exemplify representations of the female body and how they are objectified as sex objects. In conclusion, we will be able to see how the female bodies are used in mainstream hip hop videos to convey seductively.

“I Enjoy Being a Girl” (music videos and women’s capitalist role as primary consumers and sexualized objects)-

and the way it is perceived. She knew that the body needed to be sold

Queer is a term that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people use to describe the entire LGBT community. It has made them feel like they have their own community where heterosexist people won’t judge them. “The term is used positively to say it is okay to be different and it serves as an inclusive category that encompasses the shared political and social experiences of the group (classnotes, 2016). Basing on this assertion, Queer Theory through the theme of lesbian isolation in a heterosexist world is seen in “Don’t Explain” by the ways the protagonist Letty recognizes her sexual orientation but denies it, demonstrates internalized homophobia, and the way Letty interacts with Delia and Terry. In addition, the articles “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Y’all” by Karen L. Cox and “The Paradox of coming out” by Steven Petrow further proofs how queer theory is evident in “Don’t Explain.” It is clear that stereotyping basing on sexual orientation has led to negative perceptions of different LGBT community members (McDonald, 2013). In most cases, lesbians have been painted as men haters or over-feminized just as gays have been portrayed as haters of women. These stereotypes do not apply to all lesbians but creates undue pressure on characters like Letty forcing then to live in fear because of being different. The fact that fictional lesbian visual representation has being distorted by heterosexuals males has caused Letty and her lot to conceal their true

When one thinks of the 1980s, often the first thing they think about is the big hair. Perhaps they think of the iconic soap opera cliffhangers or the War of Drugs. Or maybe they think of Madonna. Madonna’s career fully embraced the sexual onslaught of the 1980s, and in addition to becoming a pop icon she became a sex icon. Madonna faced much adversity in her life and career from the start.

Although music videos contain a variety of musical styles, they have many common visual themes that inaccurately portray famous artists. These themes are the degradation of women, and the promiscuity of men. Many of videos display women as sexual objects to be looked at while they rhythmically dance to the beat of the song. Women are not the only dancers though; men can often be seen grinding against many different women throughout the same song. This implies that

The development of visual media has introduced the concept of The Male Gaze Theory. The Male Gaze Theory is defined as how women are depicted in the media from a male perspective, such as presenting women as sexual objects for men’s pleasure (Loreck). The article, inexplicitly, talks about the male gaze: “Up to 81% of music videos contain sexual imagery, the majority of which sexually objectifies women by presenting them in revealing clothing, as decorative sexual objects, dancing sexually, or in ways that emphasize body parts or sexual readiness.” The article talks about how women are sexually presented in the media which is what the male gaze encompasses the “male gaze” is a harmful contribution to the sexualization of girls and is also seen throughout the music video. The beginning of the music video shows 50 Cent walking into a brothel-type mansion where the camera pans to focusing on the writhing, half-naked women in the foyer of the mansion. This scene is viewed from a male’s perspective because the camera focuses on their sensual movements and physical assets instead of their normal facial expressions or more appropriate places on their body. Also, since 50 Cent is the only male in the mansion, the camera is only coming from a male perspective because brothels are only truly for a male’s pleasure. The other women in the video are objectified from their revealing clothing

The comparison/contrast of Giorgione’s Enthroned Madonna with Saints Liberals and Francis of Assisi and Tintoretto’s The birth of John the Baptist. Giorgione’s is painted during the high renaissance era and Tintoretto’s is painted during the Counter Reformation era. We will begin with the main focal points in the paintings. Both painting have different main subjects but they both have the Madonna as/in the main focal point.

Her entire reason for creating this was to make lesbians and people like herself more visible to the public’s eye. She has a good point there with the hunger of people wanting to see themselves in art. Up until recently there just wasn’t many positive arts featuring lesbians. It’s the same way with genderqueer people. While they have things like “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, is that really a good reflection of themselves? For some perhaps but not for most. Del Lagrace Volcano set out to show these genderqueer ideas in her own art through breaking gender stereotypes.

Although Jan Van Eyck was one of the most influential artists during his time period, his work, Lucca Madonna is fairly unknown. Whilst researching Jan Van Eyck the work rarely appeared unless one research specifically the name.