To what extent
does the representation of women in contemporary R ‘n’ B music videos present
stereotypical dominate views of female sexuality?
Modern day R ‘n’ B is the best evidence of the strength of
the “Sex Sell” motif, and the willingness of people to conform to anything that
appears to rebel against former generations’ ideas and beliefs in regard to
morals (
Urban Dictionary, 2004) –
including sex, drugs and attitudes towards women, men and money. According to
modern day R ‘n’ B music videos, all that really matters about women is their
sexuality
(Derrick
Daye,
2008); they are represented as being nothing more than a sexual
object. The lyrics heard and the narrative or the general direct can evidence
this, along with the camera angles, the mise-en-scene, shots used, pace and
style of editing – including props, costumes, hair and make-up, location
setting and colours used. I analysed three music videos; two show a negative
representation of women, and have very similar outlooks on female
objectification (
Tip Drill by Nelly
and
Lapdance by N.E.R.D), the third
shows a more positive representation of women (
Survivor by Destiny’s Child), however still possesses some negative
aspects.
R ‘n’ B music videos portray women’s identities to be based
on how desirable they are to men (Yousman
et al. 2007:15), however the music video and song by Destiny’s Child – Survivor, to an extent turns this idea
upside down. Narratively the three women are on a deserted island, and have to
find a way to survive, and these images and idea support the lyrics – all about
female empowerment and surviving on their own without men. With all this said
the video still has a hyper sexualisation of women to it. The costumes that the
three ladies wear are the most obvious sexual element – low cut, short dresses
all revealing stomach, and cling to the body. Even though they are “doing
things on [there] own terms, [they] are very much objectified and exist for the
male viewer”(Miss Representation 2012).
They are still portrayed in a sexual manor trying to lure and appeal the male
audience by being inadequately clothed, move in a seductive manner, being in
seductive positions (such as on their hands and knees, with dipped backs which
enhance their rears and breast) and frequently seen wet. And as “water is
frequently used as an erotic element just as in standard heterosexual fantasy
images” (Yousman et al. 2007:9) the
sexual element of the women is enhanced further. E. Ann Kaplan, 1987, suggests
the “postmodern feminist heroine” can be defined by the combination of
“unabashed seductiveness with a gusty kind of independence”. To begin with in
the Survivor video, them being in
water can be explained as it helps to show how they have become stranded on the
island, however as the video moves on, the women find dry clothes (that are
even more revealing than before – tighter, and less of it) but still insist on
re-entering water. This both brings the element of sexual desire to the video
and sacrifices the logic of the narrative for visual pleasure, but also helps
emphasis the survival element of the video, by showing them having made spires
and hunting for fish.
Being that music videos are a form of advertising for the
recording industry (Yousman et al. 2007:
5) they need to draw in a large and varied audience to increase sales. To
do this in the music industry a highly sexual aspect is require because “it is
harder to get men to watch television” (Miss
Representation 2012) and as “sex evokes a hardwired emotional response that is linked to the
species survival” (Reichert, 2007:
16) the “exploitation of women’s bodies sells product” (Miss Representation 2012) – Sex Sells. The song survivor is mainly
aimed at women, and female independence; this subject on its own is not a lure
for a male audience and so therefore limits the number of sales/views. Considering the male audience all of these
sexual elements and displays of male fantasy are vital, as they help to
increase the sells and views of the video and song broadening the target
audience. Without these elements or the added male attention it can be argued
that the songs success would have been decreased.
With the idea of advertising in mind a sexual and demining
viewpoint of women (portrayed by the over exaggerated wealth, power and status
that the men in three of the videos I have analysed (Tip Drill, Windowlicker and Lapdance), are shown to have) can
simply be seen as a ploy to attract a larger target audience. The music video
by Nelly called Tip Drill received a
lot of negative attention from many feminists. Asha Jennings,
student president from Spelman College said “[the college] can't continue to support
artists and images that exploit our women and put us out there as oversexed,
non-intelligent human beings." (Redeye, 2004). Although the attention
was negative this sparked peoples interest into why the video was so highly
viewed as derogative. This added publicity and interest would have
fundamentally increased the number of views and hits that the video received.
This idea of advertising can also be said for the Survivor music video. The song and
meaning behind the lyrics initially appeal to women, encouraging their independence
from men – the lyrics “Now that you're out of my life/ I'm so much better/
You thought that I'd be weak without you/ But I'm stronger” support this
idea. However by the video having a sexual aspect to it, presenting the women
as sexual and still beautiful (wearing revealing clothes and having perfect
make-up and hair) having just been stranded on a deserted island.
Additionally the same technique of “Sex Sells” can also be
applied to N.E.R.D’s song Lapdance.
When listening to and reviewing the lyrics of N.E.R.D – Lapdance I realised that the song was talking about the government
“While
the government is soundin' like strippers to me” and the effect of
society on their behaviour, “It's this society/ That makes a nigga wanna kill”. To
me the song makes a very good political statement about deprived Americans. Why
then are sexual ideas, references and visuals used? As mentioned previously, sexualized
visuals draw in the initial attention of an audience and satisfies a primordial
desire for pleasurable looking (Mulvey,
1975: 8-9), this along with the up tempo beat increases the appeal of the
song to people. The visuals, in this case, support what is being sung,
enforcing the meaning behind the lyrics – the group are not only singing about
the their view of the government but showing you how they feel. The visuals
very much so take away from what is being said.
If the song is really about politics and a serious
topic with regards to poverty in America, why is the lap dance metaphor used?
The lap dance metaphor has two beneficial uses. One. As said before sex sells,
and if viewing the video as an advertisement for the song, brands, production
company, etc. then using the age old
idea of sex to grab peoples primal attention is a good hook. Two. By
comparing the politicians/government to lap dancers and strippers demines the
American government, showing them to be nothing more than money grabbing
idiots. This statement shows the views of the people in the American slums and
deprived areas; N.E.R.D is giving a voice to them by releasing this song. With
all this said the video does still exploit female sexuality, showing women to
be kissing each other and each other’s body parts, using close up, slow motion
shows, lingering on the sexual acts performed in the video.
The women in Nelly – Tip Drill are exploited for there bodies for the males pleasure,
however some post feminist see this as empowerment rather than demining. They
believe that they for simple showing what “they’ve got” – their bodies – they
are getting money, and if the men what to give up their money, more fool them.
This idea is supported in the lyrics “I got you payin’ my bills and buying
automobiles” this line puts the idea across that the women are using the men
just as much as the men are using the women. Lyrically both males and female
are portrayed to be equals, however when the video comes into play this idea is
completely thrown out of the window, as the women are visuals scantily clad and
nothing more than sexual objects.
Tip Drill was written produced and directed for an
older audience and for a strip club called “””””” (Vibe, 2004). The older audience restriction at the time was
limited to those allowed to enter a strip club, so over 18’s. Still today there
is a viewing restriction when viewing the video on the Internet. YouTube will
not allow you to view the video unless you are logged in and over 18, and they
have a content warning that the video may be inappropriate for some users. When
you think about Tip Drill contextually the premise of the music video and the
highly sexualized female body, standing on the thin line between music video
and pornography, the images seen in Nelly’s video are entirely acceptable.
All of the mentioned music videos offer
a limited portrayal of women, showing them as objects, rather than the women they
are, and dehumanizing them. The women are repeatable shown with close up shots,
which linger on the curves of the body, or buttocks and breast. This can even
be said for the song, which is meant to be liberating women (Destiny’s child –Survivor). As for the music videos that
display male dominates (Lapdance and Tip
Drill in particular) the women have little “face time”, enforcing the idea
that they are only being represented as objects.
As the topic of sex has become less of a
taboo subject “the video form has gladly tapped into the taboo” (Davies, 2013: 50) the visuals used in
music videos have change from implicit to explicit, to boarder line pornographic.
With three of the four music videos (Tip
Drill, Lapdance, Windowlicker) satisfying the “heterosexual male fantasy of
‘girl on girl’”.
It is clear to see that female sexuality is exploited in many
different forms when it comes to R ‘n’ B music videos. Both technical and
visual techniques are used to objectify, de-humanize and fragment women and
their form – such technical aspects as close up shot, camera movements that
roam the female form (guiding the audience and mirroring the heterosexual
viewing) and such visual techniques as scantily clad dressed females, and
narratives that encourage self touching and fondling of other women. Although
the use of sex can be justified to an extend, because of the age old use of sex
in advertising, the extend of sexual visuals caused the ‘advert’ no become
‘pornography’ and can no longer be seen as promoting instead seen as
stimulating pleasure.
Bibliography
Books
·
B. Yousman, J. Earp and J.Geissman,
2007,Dreamworld 3: Desire, Sex, & Power in Music Video (Study Guide)
·
E. A. Kaplan, 1987, Rocking
Around the Clock: Music Television, Post Modernism and Consumer Culture. 1st
edition, New York, NY Methuen Inc.
·
T. Reichert, 2007, Issues
in American Advertising: Sex, politics, and viral 1st edition, Copy
Workshop.
Newspaper
·
Redeye, R, 2004. Nelly Feel the Heat.
The Chicago Tribune, April 2nd, 2004
Magazines
·
Davies, S, 2013, Eye Tunes. Sight
& Sound. 50-54
·
Mulvey, L, 1975. Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16.3, 6-18.
·
2004. What's the World on Nelly: Pop
Star, Pimp or Gangster?. Vibe, November 2004
Documentries
·
Miss Representation, 2012. [DVD]
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, USA: Virgil Films and Entertainment.
Websites
· http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/destinyschild/survivor.html
· http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nelly/tipdrill.html
· http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nerd/lapdance.html
·
www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2008/03/does-sex-in-adv.html(HASHTAG).UcgIsvIQF1Y
· http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=R'n'B
Critical
Evaluation
I found that when researching the topic of female
sexuality, I found a lot of interesting facts and my research expanded a lot,
giving me a larger basin of fact, theorist and people to refer to. However this
did cause me to steer away from the question when trying to answer it. I
feel I did not successfully do was answer the question fully. I found myself
more than often veering of topic from the question, and when reading back over
it I feel that some points could have been more concise and/or answer the question
more directly. To avoid this in the future I will continuously refer back to
the question. Also to avoid this before hand I will make a list of points that
directly refer to the question, and include only these, so I stay on track.
To begin with I looked at and analyzed the four
chosen music videos that represented the stereotypical female sexuality. From
this I created a table (hard copy available) with the different topics I wanted
to talk about in my essay. I didn’t manage to talk about them all however, for
example the editing, as I became intrigued with the idea of music videos being
a form of advertisement, and decided to expand on this topic instead. Although
I would have liked to cover the entire topics in my analysis table I feel that
I was able to make good points and justification on the topic of advertisement
instead.
For my research I began by looking at the research
suggested to us. This helped me to gain a basic understanding of the topic, and
from this I expanded my research. One theory that was mention was the theory of
the male gaze. I searched on the Internet for more information about the male
gaze. I looked at the published books available online, before looking at
webpages with no viability – as a published book has a lot more credibility.
I was able to find resources that were created
recently, dated this year even. I am glad about this as I found what was being
said support the points I was making, about videos that were 10 years old and
over. The fact that information today supports music video from so long ago,
shows the unchanged female form in R ‘n’ B music videos. I did comply a primary
questionnaire to understand how the viewing public sees the representation of
women in the music videos, i had planned to distribute this around the college and town centre however i was not able to, therefore i did not manage I managed to include some of my finding. Much of my
research was made up from secondary sources, I would have liked to include more
primary resources, but the secondary one play a large part in supporting points
I have made. For future research task I would like to include a variety of
secondary resource, for example, more audio, or interviews, rather than the
majority text based.
When i began my research i was given several secondary sources to analysis and use, one of these was the book Music Video and the politics of Representation by Diane Railton and Paul Walton. From this book i read that music video were a form of advertising, which was a new way i looked at music videos, as i had never consider them to be a form of adverting before. From this i used google to search for music videos as advertising, this search gave me both qualitative and quantitative research. I gained a lot of information from the PQ Media website (a well know, highly rated and widely used research website) which broadened my research further, leading me down the root of product placement. All of the ideas about music video as advertising caused me to looked at the music videos in a different light; changing my opinion from seeing them as stereotyping female sexuality to seeing them as competing for attention in a large industry of adverts. PQ Media Global Product Placement Spending Forecast 2012-2016 report was a good research basis for stats and figures, enabling me to prove comments i had made with figures and quantitative research.
When i decided to look at the music videos as adverting i felt that the context of the music videos (why they were made, who directed the video, etc) would help deepen the basis of my information and hopefully support my arguement, which i found it did greatly.
I was able to argue Mulveys point of the perspective literally being from a male point of view, being behind the camera, by my contexual research, as i knew that the music video Lapdance by N.E.R.D was directed by a woman, Diane Martel. this fact helped to introduce the idea of the female gaze, the pst feminist and female empowerment.
I also read an article from Vibe about Nelly. the article included a discussion about Nelly's controversial Tip Drill video. from this article i obtained contextual information about the production of the music, and solidified my point about music videos being advertisments, however in this case not just for the sale of the record. Nelly's Tip Drill song and video were produced at the request of a stripe club.
