course work

How does the representation of women differ in music videos depending on the gender of the music artist in western pop music with specific reference to the artist Robin Thick and Pink?

 

I plan to investigate if the representation of women differs depending on the gender of the musician being presented and whether the female is the core focus or just an accessory to a lead male. I will analyse if the different stereotypes, ideologies and representations that are presented within music videos and if they gratify their target audience. I will specifically lyrical content in the songs and the ideologies that these present, considering the effects that these representations of women has on both a male and female audience, with specific reference to the Robin Thicke album ‘blurred lines’ and pinks album ‘………’ .To do this I will apply theories such as Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory and how women are objectified for male scopophilia .I will also investigate the Marxist theory of hegemony and how the representations of women are used on a social scale to maintain power.

In Robin Thicke’s album blurred lines there are two singles released that charted the top ten: “blurred lines” reaching number 1 on billboard hot 100 singles (3) and “give it to me”. These are both extremely popular songs. The song Blurred lines has over 206,000,000 hits on YouTube and over 880,000 likes, then not as popular but also very successful “give it to me” has over 12,000,000 views and 77,000 likes. Both of these singles are well known for there videos specifically blurred lines as the original video features 3 topless models and created a lot of debate about the appropriateness of this video with the daily mail stating "its a song that has been seen as deeply offensive and derogatory towards women using controversial lyrics such as i know you want it and let me liberate ya "(4). These two videos share the same representations of women and are both vey objectifying.

The video for the song blurred lines features robin Thicke himself, T.I and Pharrel Williams. It also features three very stereotypically attractive and well-known models. The whole video shows these three girls seductively dancing around in very little, see through or in the original case no clothing. This represents women as sexual objects for the three men in the video "the three fully clothed men touch and gawk at them in which ever way they choose with no reaction from the women"(5)this presents the idea that men can do that they want and that women should be submissive to men’s actions and desires . Laura Mulvey states that women can act as the object of scopophilia for both the audience of the video and the males actually the video “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium” (6). In this video we see the men looking at the girls very clearly, they look the girls up and down and focus on their figure in a sexual manner. As the camera tilts up and down the girls figure the audience watching the video is forced to look at the women in the same way that the male’s in the video are taking on the male gaze. In this video the camera focuses on the girl’s body parts fragmenting them, this is a technical method of objectification so the audience see specific body parts representing them as an object of scopophilia. The women only serve the men, we see the three girls poring the men drinks and lighting cigarettes for them (?). This emphasises the superiority of the males and how the women’s only purpose is to serve men.. The Marxist theory of hegemony would say that this representation is used to maintain power over women in wider society as the women that watch this video see these older attractive women serving men it reinforces them with this patriarchal idea that they should be submissive to the will of men. This hidden message is displayed through lyrics and the video content of the song. This specific video is contributing to the cultivation of females to take on the ideology that females and inferior forcing women to take this on as their own belief allowing men to maintain control and power in society. At 7 years old little girls and little boys want to be president of the United States in equal number, 30%, ask the same question at 15 and a huge gap has occurred (7).this shows that this method of social control is working changing the minds of females from an early age enforcing oppressive gender roles on them and as this is presented subtly through media texts such as this song the women do not rebel as they are not being overtly oppressed.