Objectifying Music Videos

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 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.

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.

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

In the article, “The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image” by Esther Vargas, there were several issues discussed about the negative effects that media has on body image in society. Many girls

The female body image is highly influenced by the mass media and the media’s portrayal of women, ‘70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines’ (University of Massachusetts & Stanford University, 2006), the portrayal of women in the media has an unrealistic approach and brings out body dissatisfactions and this results in eating problems and disorders.

In music videos the dancing or portrayal of the people within these videos is often of a very sexual driven nature. This re-inforces the idea that women are sexual objects and the purpose of their being is to provide the male population with sexual satisfaction. Women portrayed are very thin and pretty, wearing heavy layers of make-up which portrays the idea that women need materialistic items such as mascara and lipstick

Women are seen through the eyes of the music industry as little more than sex objects; causing them to feel of no worth, leading to extremely dangerous long term mental illnesses and eating disorders. Music lyrics/video is a key source of messages that advocate and encourage drinking, smoking, drug abuse, sexuality, sex-role stereotyping, sex and violence. Exposure to music videos, has also been correlated with early uptake of sexual activity. (AMCA, 2014)

This study works to examine the use of sexual objectification of women in music videos today. The primary purpose was to examine the differences between genres, specifically hip-hop and country. I tested the following; Women are more likely to be sexualized in hip-hop music videos than in country music videos.

People should really take the time to identify what kind of songs are either bringing positivity or negativity towards the audience and see whether or not it’s even worth watching. And that’s exactly what this paper is going to discuss about. It will talk about how music videos such as “God Made Girls” inadvertently supports the racial stereotypes in our society and how it contributes to the way females are treated. The way all the girls are moving around so happy like they couldn’t give a care in the world as long men are still around, except the idea is twisted around and made into something demoralizing. This piece of information tells what a positive or negative influence a certain song bring and how gender stereotypes are still present daily.

“The media have taken many celebrity appearances into their own hands, many times without permission” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). Because of the media photoshopping women 's beauty on TV, social media, and even advertisements, it began to create a high rate of accusations of teenage girls’ all over the world. “In a recent study, the University at Buffalo sociologists found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even pornified"( Donovan par.1). Due to this, women have been treated as sexual objects everywhere. Objectification comes from the lack of confidence and media 's portrayal of beauty. Due to this, the portrayal of men is not the same as females. Objectification is when women are treated like sexual objects. ‘Objectification is often defined by physical appearance, rather than personality” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). As a result, women struggle to keep up with these trends today. “In order to achieve a ‘perfect’ look, the media manipulates photos using unnecessary editing in Photoshop to completely contort the original, creating an unnatural image” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). The media is the dominant cause of these actions of teenage girls insecurities, high rates of surgical treatment, and males creating these fictitious assumptions. Objectification in social media should end because it causes teenage insecurities, it

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

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.

In the American culture, women are frequently viewed and seen by others as sexual items, with attraction and slenderness, which is highly praised. Sexualized assessment is regularly established through one’s look or of an examination of the body (Kaschak, 1992). In the world today, women are seen to be objectified through commercials and music videos. This is mainly portrayed through the media. Nowadays, it is very common to see women objectified in various ways.

Music videos are easily accessible to everyone, especially adolescents. From its earliest origins on TV to recent upgrades to technology on the internet, such as YouTube, anyone can watch music videos at any time of the day. Online music video sites draw an average of 150 million people each month who view more than two billion videos per day (Mischner, Schie, Wigboldus, Baaren, & Engels, 2013). Sexually objectifying music videos have increased in the last couple of decades. With this, more adolescents are being influenced by viewing these videos and mostly all of them are affected in some way, either positive or negative. What a lot of people do not know is what is happening to adolescents after viewing these types of music videos and how it can lead to concerning effects later in development.