People watch, and they learn. It has become more and more acceptable to objectify women in music videos over the past few decades. If they see people using women as objects and sexualizing them, they will think that it is okay. There have been many different studies that all agree, especially in young adults,
that showing how to treat women, will influence their own opinions about women. In Kistler and Lee's study on how hip-hop music videos influence sexual attitudes of college students, people who watch the more sexualized videos, specifically young males, tend to have "expressed greater objectification of
women, sexual permissiveness, stereotypical gender attitudes, and acceptance of rape." We live in a society where sex sells and more often than not, it is a women selling it. We are supposed to be evolving as a world but instead we are perpetuating the notion that women are objects for men or women to look at and use for their benefit. Sexualizing women in music videos, and even other forms of media, such as magazine covers, will soon have women thinking that, that is all they are worth and good for and they will see themselves as sexual objects for people to play with. I am not saying it is not a bad thing to be proud of who you are, including your loving how you look and being proud of your own sexuality, but when men and even women are objectifying females for their own gain, it gives the wrong message to viewers.
What astonishes me the most is that in today's society, we will rarely see men being objectified in music videos. The occasional shirtless dude, or guy in tight pants, does not even compare to the nudity we can see when women are involved. The problem that I still come across, after all of my research is: Why is it okay to objectify women in music videos and portray them as nothing more than a sex object or something to ogle at, both by female and male artists, but when women start to point it out and why it is wrong, and do the same to men in response, it causes an uproar and people actually actually offended by it and say that is the wrong doing. For example, one of Robin Thicke's new songs, Blurred Lines, has a music video that features women dancing around in nude thongs, high heels and topless for most of the video. When they actually do have clothes on, they are wearing white and clear, skimpy outfits that barely qualify as real articles of clothing. The video, soon after its release, was taken down from YouTube due to the nudity and a censored version was put on the video viewing platform, where they still ran around in the skimpy white outfits. I thought I would not be able to find the unrated version on YouTube, but it was very easy to find the version with full nudity. As long as you say you are the age of 18 or older, you are allowed to view the original version in all its glory.
that showing how to treat women, will influence their own opinions about women. In Kistler and Lee's study on how hip-hop music videos influence sexual attitudes of college students, people who watch the more sexualized videos, specifically young males, tend to have "expressed greater objectification of
women, sexual permissiveness, stereotypical gender attitudes, and acceptance of rape." We live in a society where sex sells and more often than not, it is a women selling it. We are supposed to be evolving as a world but instead we are perpetuating the notion that women are objects for men or women to look at and use for their benefit. Sexualizing women in music videos, and even other forms of media, such as magazine covers, will soon have women thinking that, that is all they are worth and good for and they will see themselves as sexual objects for people to play with. I am not saying it is not a bad thing to be proud of who you are, including your loving how you look and being proud of your own sexuality, but when men and even women are objectifying females for their own gain, it gives the wrong message to viewers.
What astonishes me the most is that in today's society, we will rarely see men being objectified in music videos. The occasional shirtless dude, or guy in tight pants, does not even compare to the nudity we can see when women are involved. The problem that I still come across, after all of my research is: Why is it okay to objectify women in music videos and portray them as nothing more than a sex object or something to ogle at, both by female and male artists, but when women start to point it out and why it is wrong, and do the same to men in response, it causes an uproar and people actually actually offended by it and say that is the wrong doing. For example, one of Robin Thicke's new songs, Blurred Lines, has a music video that features women dancing around in nude thongs, high heels and topless for most of the video. When they actually do have clothes on, they are wearing white and clear, skimpy outfits that barely qualify as real articles of clothing. The video, soon after its release, was taken down from YouTube due to the nudity and a censored version was put on the video viewing platform, where they still ran around in the skimpy white outfits. I thought I would not be able to find the unrated version on YouTube, but it was very easy to find the version with full nudity. As long as you say you are the age of 18 or older, you are allowed to view the original version in all its glory.
Besides the nudity, there was another controversy over the song: the lyrics. "I know you want it, I know you want it." That doesn't sound like consent does it? Also, T.I's rap has lyrics such as "So hit me up when you pass through/I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two" and "He don't smack that ass and pull your hair like that." If I was T.I's girl I would not be too happy with those words. Daisy Wyatt, in her article Robin Thicke's Number One Single 'Blurred Lines' accused of Reinforcing Rape Myths, that Thicke has been "criticized by a UK rape charity and online commentator for trivializing sexual violence, objectifying women and 'reinforcing rape myths.'" I mean the lyrics "You the hottest bitch in this place/I feel so lucky, you wanna hug me/What rhymes with hug me?" don't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
In response to his music video, plenty of parody videos made their way onto YouTube. One of the most popular ones, with over 4 million views, is Defined Lines, a feminist parody uploaded by the account Auckland Law Revue, an account that consists of all law students. The three women in the video, Zoe Ellwood, Olivia Lubbock, and Adelaide Dun, are all completely dressed and have three men in briefs accompanying them. They have switched up the gender roles, and wrote completely new lyrics expressing how they feel about the Blurred Lines music video and lyrics, with some of my favorites including: "It's time to undermine/the masculine confines' cause we don't want to grind", "if you wanna get nasty/ just don't harass me/you can't just grab me/ that's a sex crime!", and "You think you're hunky (hey hey hey)/You wanna hug me (hey hey hey)/Don't you mean f**k me?"
In response to his music video, plenty of parody videos made their way onto YouTube. One of the most popular ones, with over 4 million views, is Defined Lines, a feminist parody uploaded by the account Auckland Law Revue, an account that consists of all law students. The three women in the video, Zoe Ellwood, Olivia Lubbock, and Adelaide Dun, are all completely dressed and have three men in briefs accompanying them. They have switched up the gender roles, and wrote completely new lyrics expressing how they feel about the Blurred Lines music video and lyrics, with some of my favorites including: "It's time to undermine/the masculine confines' cause we don't want to grind", "if you wanna get nasty/ just don't harass me/you can't just grab me/ that's a sex crime!", and "You think you're hunky (hey hey hey)/You wanna hug me (hey hey hey)/Don't you mean f**k me?"
The parody video pretty much mirrors Blurred Lines exactly except for the women dressed up and the men in their skivvies. This video was also removed from YouTube. The reasoning behind it being that it violated the video site's Community Guidelines that say basically say they do not permit hate speech against a certain group. The Bottom Line, a weekly student-run newspaper, published an article by Caley Seaton, titled Blurred Lines, Defined Lines, and Double Standards: How Our Mainstrem Media Remains the Biggest Enforcer of Gender Stereotypes discusses the controversy over the Blurred Lines video and how the Defined Lines parody came into view. Seaton writes that the "the removal initiated a huge uproar that included a petition on the popular website 'change.org,' which claimed a video containing a few fully clothed women teasing men in boxers with a few sex toys was no worse than one where practically naked women dance provocatively to a song that essentially alludes to rape." Why is it that women, standing up for the wrong doings against their gender, get accused of hate speech and being in the wrong, for pointing out the obvious? The parody was nothing worse than Blurred Lines, except for a few more cuss words and explicit sentences such as "don't want you to come on my face." The overall message is clear regardless: objectifying women is not okay, and females are starting to stand up for themselves and point it out. You can now find it back on YouTube for anyone to view.
Even the music videos by celebrities trying to make a statement about the objectification of women are getting backlash for their efforts. Jennifer Lopez's new music video for her song "I Luh Ya Papi" is one of those criticized videos. It doesn't have, so called, "hate speech" like Defined Lines, but it does make a statement. It literally just mirrors other pop and hip-hop music videos but switching up who is being objectified. It created a lot of uproar due to the fact that even thought they try to make a point about the objectification of women, JLo still objectifies herself by dressing herself in very little clothing, and dancing provocatively around the half naked men. It opens to JLo and her friends discussing how men are allowed to shoot their music videos on yachts and at mansions with half naked females running around and dancing but it isn't socially exceptable for female artists to do that with men as their choice of backdrop. The music videos goes into her singing her new song with the stereotypical gender roles of man, dancing, most of the time fully clothed, and half naked men gyrating around.
| The issue with Lopez's video is plain and simple: That she can't even stop objectifying herself when she is making a statement against the objectification of females. You can see her still is dancing around the men in scantily clad outfits and making sexual gestures, such as pouring a drink down herself. She is not sending a very good message. One of the friends at the very end of the video asks why “the guys gotta have all the fun?” Casey Kovarik made a very good point in her article about Lopez’s video, Second Take: Objectification in Jennifer Lopez's Music Video Perpetuates the Issue. Kovarik states, “Objectification is never fun. The solution to men objectifying women is not to retaliate.” |
Kovarik's article shows the difference between standing up to the objectification rather than enabling it more. She also points out that the " song is about sex and has no mention or underlying message about equality or feminism." If you are going to have a song all about sex, why are you trying to make a statement about the objectification of your own gender? In another article appropriately titled Gender Role Reversal in Music Videos can Only be Achieved by Objectifying Women by Amanda Hess it is pointed out that "while Lopez takes on the role of objectifier to these men—she snaps screenshots of the guys with her tablet and pours a drink down one of their swimsuits—she herself functions as an object for the video’s viewer." So while they try to switch the gender roles, it isn't a full 180 switch, just the men being objectified as well as the women. Kovarik would call this "faux-feminism", JLo is trying to make a statement about the treatment of women, but in reality what she is really doing is enabling the act even more. |
This is a continuous problem. Women want to make a change and take a stand, but instead are just objectifying men AND women, instead of ending it completely. Two young girls, Maddie & Tae recently came out with a video for the song "Girl in a Country Song" making fun of the gender roles just like JLo's except it is a tad on the ridiculous side with the objectification of men. Unlike the parody song of Defined Lines, and the hip-hop/pop song "I Luh Ya Papi" this is a country song. It may not be a genre that is known for having half naked women dancing around, but those kinds of country videos are becoming more and more popular in today's society. It has fantastic lyrics, such as, "Being the girl in a country song/How in the world did it go so wrong/Like all I'm good for is lookin' good for/You and your friends on the weekend, nothin' more/We used to get a little respect/Now we're lucky if we even get/To climb up in your truck/Keep our mouths shut, and ride along/And be the girl in a country song." They are pointing out that in new country music a lot of the songs are about looking at pretty girls, and nothing more. The lyrics send a great message about the objectification of women in music all together, but instead of sending out the same message in their music video, they do the same thing that JLo does, but in a more kidding around way. JLo was all seriousness about her video, making the males look hot and sexual, and Maddie & Tae had a little more fun in objectifying the men.Watch full video here and acoustic version below.
As you can see in the video when they flip the switch, the men come out dressed in short, cut off jeans and tied up flannel, yet the women are still shown in bikini tops and cut offs and, as Hess says, didn't get a "masculine wardrobe change". It isn't a complete role reversal . The stereotypically hot women stay in the video, in their half dress, to "satisfy the straight men in the audience" as Hess puts it. This video is, in my opinion, is the one with the best message. The Huffington Post article, These Girls In A Country Song Aren't Going To Wait Quietly In Your Pickup Truck, by Casey Matthews talks about how this song can be used to fight back against today's objectification as an anthem for a new generation. In a time of "Bro-Country" - country music sung by guys all about beer and women in cut off shorts and bikinis - this shows that there are people out there who don't agree with that. It straight up says what is wrong with the music industry in the lyrics, unlike JLo's song lyrics that are all about sex.
Besides the fact that it has become the norm to objectify women in music videos, and no one seems to have that big of a problem with it, it has come up recently that these sexual music videos are changing the viewpoints of young adults everywhere. Like I said at the beginning of my post, people who watch the more sexualized videos, specifically young males, tend to be okay with the objectification of women and have greater acceptance of sexual permissiveness and acceptance of rape. This isn't for all people who watch the videos, but a very large amount. In a study done by Jennifer Stevens Aubrey, a professor at University of Missouri, and Cynthia M. Frisby, an associate professor at Missouri School of Journalism, titled Sexual Objectification in Music Videos: A Content Analysis Compairing Gender and Genre, they argue that "music videos provide fertile grounds for examining how gender and sexuality are portrayed in media because not only are love and sex predominant as themes, but the visual nature of music videos make shortcuts and sexual stereotypes commonplace." Aubrey and Frisby point out that while the objectification of women in music videos has already been proven in different studies, the goal of their study was to measure how sexual objectification is used in music videos, find out how the sexualization varies between genders, and see which genre tends to objectify the most. They found that even in dated music videos, "permissive sexual attitudes, exploitation, objectification, and degradation are prominent in music videos." Why is this? Why do we let our society treat each other this way? And while people, most of the time would think that men are the ones objectifying women the most, it turns out that while men tended to be more violent than women in music videos and show themselves being wanted by females, women also were putting an emphasis on their own "sexual appeal" and showing themselves off as objects just like in the Jennifer Lopez video.
Aubrey and Frisby used the objectification theory, created by Barbara L. Fredrickson, of the University of Michigan, and Tomi-Ann Roberts of Colorado College, as their outline. The objectification theory states that "sexual objectification of women's bodies bu the media teaches women to internalize an outsiders' perspective on the self" and they the women will see themselves as objects as well, which is called "self-objectification." You will start to treat yourself the way people treat you, thinking that is all you are worth, but that is not something a person should think about themselves. That is why women in the music videos that they are trying to make a statement about their gender's sexualization, are still objectifying themselves. The study researched, and measured, how much skin would be shown, how long the camera stays fixated on a certain body part, the use of people as "decorative objects", facial attractiveness, what the ideal body shape is, the act of sexualizing the artist, provocative dress, and promiscuous dancing, depending on the gender of the artist and what the genre of music is. The used songs from the Billboard Hot 100 charts from over a year time span as their test subjects. They came to find that female artists were more sexualized than male artists, and that women were also more likely to be used as "decorative objects." It all came down to the fact that the female was always the one being sexualized and were held to different appearance standards than their male counterparts.
Aubrey and Frisby used the objectification theory, created by Barbara L. Fredrickson, of the University of Michigan, and Tomi-Ann Roberts of Colorado College, as their outline. The objectification theory states that "sexual objectification of women's bodies bu the media teaches women to internalize an outsiders' perspective on the self" and they the women will see themselves as objects as well, which is called "self-objectification." You will start to treat yourself the way people treat you, thinking that is all you are worth, but that is not something a person should think about themselves. That is why women in the music videos that they are trying to make a statement about their gender's sexualization, are still objectifying themselves. The study researched, and measured, how much skin would be shown, how long the camera stays fixated on a certain body part, the use of people as "decorative objects", facial attractiveness, what the ideal body shape is, the act of sexualizing the artist, provocative dress, and promiscuous dancing, depending on the gender of the artist and what the genre of music is. The used songs from the Billboard Hot 100 charts from over a year time span as their test subjects. They came to find that female artists were more sexualized than male artists, and that women were also more likely to be used as "decorative objects." It all came down to the fact that the female was always the one being sexualized and were held to different appearance standards than their male counterparts.
This study physically measured the sexualization of the music videos and their content. The fact that someone has thought of a scale to determine how much a person is shown as a sex object, should show the reader that there is something wrong with the music video industry and what is being shown to the viewers. Another study, which varies from the topic of music videos and focuses on magazine covers for the very popular music magazine, Rolling Stone, also came up with a point system on how to measure how sexual one of the magazine covers are. The study, Equal Opportunity Objectification? The Sexualization of Men and Women on the Cover of Rolling Stone, done by Erin Hatton and Mary Nell Trautner, wanted to find out who was more sexualized (males or females), and how much they were sexualized, just like the study above. They started with the first issue of the magazine back in 1967 and continued with every single issue until 2009. This included 1,046 covers including both male and female. They tested how sexualized the celebrities on the cover were using a point system that differed depending on the category. They gave points for what the person was wearing, nudity, sexual touch, their pose, whether the mouth was open or closed, and many other factors along the same lines. Hatton and Trautner compared a two separate covers, one with the band Blind Melon on it and one with model Laetitia Casta:
The Blind Melon cover above, that shows 5 completely naked men all kneeling around each other facing the camera, scored at the top of their sexualized category with a 9, while Laetitia Casta scored a 15, putting her in the hypersexualized category. While they both feature people kneeling, completely naked, the difference is their pose and how they carry themselves. Blind Melon is posing, boringly, in front of a white background with no sexual touching and just staring at the camera, while Casta's cover shows her "kneeling on a bed of pink rose petals. Her body faces away from the camera, but her head is tilted back and is turned so that her eyes can meet the viewer’s gaze. Her lips are slightly parted. Her arm is raised over her head and touches her hair, which falls down her back. Her skin glistens, as though it has just been oiled." This makes a huge difference in how they are sexually perceived by the readers. Yes, men are also being sexualized, but women tend to be hypersexualized, being posed and styled in very different ways than the males are accentuating their attractiveness. This study shows that 74% of the women's covers they tested scored in the hypersexualized category, while only about 2% of men cover's were hypersexualized. You don’t have to be completely naked or doing something overly sexual as long as you are giving the impression that you want sex. They discuss a lot of touching of the body such as lifting up of breasts and pulling down of pants that insinuate a certain sexual thing, as well as giving the impression of simulating sex acts in some ways. These acts cause sexual thoughts in the reader and that is exactly what the magazine is going for. They imply the act of fellatio by having this certain picture on a cover starring Blake Lively and Leighton Meester with them liking an ice cream cone.
Most of the other pictures from Lively and Meester's photo shoot for this cover showed them with something in their mouth, whether it was candy or their fingers, or the actual picture they put on the cover of them sharing an ice cream. These pictures all imply sexual acts which hypes up the sexuality of the photo, and promotes the thought that this is what they want to be doing to whoever the viewer is. By having the celebrities pose in these ways and show themselves off like this, it isn't gaining the public's respect for what their talent is, whether it is acting, singing, modeling, or something else, but it is just promoting them as a sexual being and that is how they are getting more and more attention. Why would you want to be known for how sexual you were on the cover of a magazine? |
The covers of the magazine and the music videos are all doing the same thing: showing women off for their bodies and their sexuality, rather than for them as a person. Okay, so It isn't completely the music video industries fault, or Rolling Stone Magazine's for that matter, it society's view on women and people thinking it is okay to treat people like this, and to treat your own body like this. If people women treated themselves how they wanted to be treated, and didn't let the current social norms affect how they perceived themselves, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But because people everywhere want to see women as "hot" and "desirable" we are demeaning our women to sex objects and people to ogle at instead of respecting them for their personality and who they are. With it being show that teenagers and young adults all over are being influenced but what they see in their music videos and hear in the lyrics, it should show that there needs to be a change. We can't have young men thinking that all women want to do is have sex and that's it. We can't have young women going around thinking all they are good for is for someone to have sex with. Standing up for what you believe in is a great thing, but as we have seen in Jlo's music video and Maddie & Tae's music video, saying something and doing something are two different things. Jlo says she wants to objectify the men for once, yet stills dances around in low cut tops and bathing suits gyrating on men, while Maddie & Tae want to do a gender role reversal with the men in short shorts and crop tops, yet leave the women in cut off shorts and bikini tops. The fact that people are speaking out is showing that there will be a change in the future for the right reasons.
You can see more examples of pictures from these music videos and more here.
You can see more examples of pictures from these music videos and more here.