To what extent do music videos sexualise women, with
particular reference to ‘Anaconda’ by Nicki
Minaj?
This investigation
will focus if the media has increased in the sexualisation of women in music
videos and how this might have an effect on the audience. A hypothesis on this
topic would be that although the introduction of feminism and their power,
music videos do sexualise women in their videos more than ever.
quotes that will be used:
From Emma Watzon lecture on feminism
We should stop defining each other by what we are not and
start defining ourselves by who we are."
"I want men to take up this mantle so their daughters,
sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so their sons have
permission to be vulnerable and human."
'For years young women have been telling us that they are
not happy with the representation of women in popular culture, including music
videos."
" Nicki Minaj's
hit Anaconda features dozens of women gyrating their exposed flesh to the lyric
My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hun, classy isn't it?" He
also adds "I am sick of trying to teach my daughters how much they have to
offer the world, only to have everything I say undermined by the sleazy,
unhealthy messages that someone with no respect for womanhood promotes to the
mass market to make some more money."
-I will start with a little introduction to music videos
which sexualise females, I will also give some examples apart from Nicki Minaj.
-This first paragraph will mention how Emma Watzon says
about feminism and how she feels about the changes that have occurred.
-It will also link back to my main question about Nicki
Minaj by mentioning what a father says about how Nicki Minaj influences young
people.
-I will then go and analyse some Nicki Minaj videos, I will
start from Super Bass.
Influences
Influences
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100245877/the-feminist-war-on-sexist-pop-videos-is-fuelled-by-ugly-misanthropic-prejudices-of-its-own/- references to this
The idea that pop videos have a massive influence on
people’s thoughts and prejudices is underwritten by the most discredited theory
of the modern cultural era – the theory of “media effects”. This is the notion
that we are what we see, that a violent film can make us violent, a racist
newspaper can make us racist, and a sexist pop video can make us hate women.
Media effects theory has existed for as long as mass culture has. In the 1950s,
concerned commentators railed against comics, through which, in the words of one
comic-basher, children “absorb… beatings, shootings, stranglings, and other
acts of violence”, potentially making them violent too. In the 1980s it was the
“video nasty” – the ready availability of horror films from one’s local video
store – which got moralists in a tizz, with some even claiming these movies
posed a “threat to the social order”. And now it’s the turn of raunchy pop
videos, which stand accused of spreading prejudice and even creating a
“conducive context for violence against women” – that is, threatening the
social order.
Things to mention:
reinforcement to stereotypes
male gaze
Primary audiences of Nicki Minaj
Historical context
Quotes that will be used:
the controlling male gaze’ (ibid., 33), presenting ‘woman as
image’ (or ‘spectacle’) and man as ‘bearer of the look’ (ibid., 27). Men do the
looking; women are there to be looked at. The cinematic codes of popular films
‘are obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego’ (ibid.,
33). It was Mulvey who coined the term 'the male gaze'."
References to the study in the guardian on the differences
in actors and actresses wealth.
How is it similar/different to your main text?
. In comparison to Nicki Minaj, she doesn't present herself
in half way naked manner in her videos. She seems covered. Also, in Nicki
Minajs videos there is always men surrounding her and dancing along with her
how society and the issue you are investigating has changed
over the years and how these changes are reflected in different media texts?
In the society that
we live in today, female singers or rappers who want to gain fame and wealth
feel the need to show off their bodies and their dancing skills. In a
newspaper, there was shown the ratio to how many females are in Hollywood films
compared to women, the ratio was 5:1. Also, it was shown that the percentage to
how many females get naked for the camera compared to males is much higher.
how popular culture reflects the 'spirit of the age' or
zeitgeist
The zeitgeist of that
era shows that female were not necessarily seen as sex objects like today.
Regardless to how they presented
themselves they were still able to gain wealth and fame. The culture that still
existed during Dianna Ross's time was much different than the culture that is
reflected by society today.
How does this show how the genre/society/issue has changed?
Many sociologists claim that females feel the need to make
themselves for more attractive for the camera. The differences in the
content of the music videos show how as
time goes by, females begin to respect themselves less and less everyday. They feel like the only way
for them to be famous and recognised is by impressing men, this is known as the
male gaze. This refers to how everything on television and music videos is most
likely to be there to impress males (MULVEY) "Such films objectify women
in relation to ‘the controlling male gaze’ (ibid., 33), presenting ‘woman as
image’ (or ‘spectacle’) and man as ‘bearer of the look’ (ibid., 27). Men do the
looking; women are there to be looked at. The cinematic codes of popular films
‘are obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego’ (ibid.,
33). It was Mulvey who coined the term 'the male gaze'."
Primary text
Firstly, textual analysis
Secondly, debates and theories
Intro- Nicki Minaj is a very dominant artist, who represents
power and female leadership in many of her music videos. For the example the
song Super Bass is very well presented, when it comes to visual aspects and
creativity of both the narrative and illustration of the music video. The
lyrics of the song talks about super bass. Meaning the amplification of a sound
being exported out to create an enormous effect in sound and appearance. This
is shown, as there are big bass speakers behind her singing, which is known as
an illustrative performance narrative, by including elements of the lyrics in
the performance. She’s talking about guys in the video and everything she makes
reference to about a guy in the video is shown, for example in the lyrics it
states gripping a tie and twisting it up, whilst Nicki Minaj did exactly that
to a guy.
Gender and ethnicity
This is a very hard genre that recognises females. This
genre is usually for male rappers but Nicki Minaj was able to show an
alternative to this by being one of the most successful female rappers.
Audience Theories
The users and gratification includes an audience that seeks
entertainment and escapism; this is because they want to be amused and watch
something interesting as well as watch something that includes things or a
lifestyle they desire. Many people wish to be rich and recognised like Nicki
Minaj is.
Marxist and Hegemony
One could argue that in her music videos, Nicki Minaj
presents an alternative lifestyle and by ding this she changes the cultural
norms. After doing some research on different cultures, I found out that there
is no culture that accepts Nicki Minaj lifestyle.
Genre theories
A musical genre is ‘a set of musical events (real or
possible) whose course is governed by a definite set of socially accepted
rules’.The notion of set, both for a genre and for its defining apparatus,
means that we can speak of sub-sets like ‘sub-genres’, and of all the
operations foreseen by the theory of sets.
Post-modernism
The term post-modernism has been applied to a host of
movements, many in art, music, and literature, that reacted against tendencies
in modernism. Post modernism theories claim that we have left the period of
modernism and reject the age on enlightenment.
Theories that will be used: Katz and Blumber, audiences
theory, hegemony and genre theoreis
Next Paragraph- black women
http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/162/sexism-racism-endemic-in-music-videos-new-briefing
References to this article
Black women are commonly portrayed as hypersexual and with a
focus and fascinated gaze on their bottoms, invoking ideas of black women as
wild and animalistic. The music industry seems to find it profitable to promote
both female and male blackartists in a highly sexualised way, whatever their
genre of music – racialized tropes are deemed marketable.They are more likely
to endorse the ‘sexual double standard’ which sees men who have many sexual
partners as admirable and women who do so as ‘sluts’. In one study, viewers who
watched sexualised videos and who were then asked to comment on an
‘acquaintance rape’ scenario were more likely to make excuses for the
perpetrator.
Conclusion:
"Watching televised gender portrayals has an effect on
individuals' real-world gender-based attitudes, beliefs and behaviours" P1
http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/behm-morawitz/Mean_Girls.pdf
- The future of feminism
Re mention the male gaze theory
