A fight involving two women and an unfaithful lover may seem like an eventful but otherwise ordinarily entertaining plot in an alternative rock or indie-pop music video, but this scene that takes place in alt-J 's music video, Breezeblocks, is more than simply attention-grabbing. The fight scene shown in the video is striking as it is slowed down and shown in reverse order instead of chronologically, which intensifies the events that play out. Directed by Ellis Bahl, the Breezeblocks music video connects the viewer to the somber message of the song 's lyrics which describe the sometimes destructive lengths that love may drive people to, but also brings attention to how flawed the assumptions we have of others are when we base our opinions …show more content…
Showing the order of events in this way first allows the viewer to assume that the man murdered the other woman in a fit of rage, and may even invoke sympathy for the woman who might be recognized initially as a familiar victim of domestic abuse. But as the video continues, the viewer realizes the man 's deadly actions were a form of self-defense and it was, in fact, the murdered woman who seems to have brought about her own tragic fate by tying up the man 's wife and attacking him with a knife. This altercation is shown in this unique order to make the viewer aware of how easily society 's gender roles may affect our initial perception of actions like we see in the music video. At first glance, the viewer most likely assumes that the man is the perpetrator and the woman is the victim because men are often associated with violence and power in society, while women tend to be associated with vulnerability and submission. The music video acts as a dark reminder of how flawed these assumptions might be, and that society 's ideas about how people ought to act are not always accurate. By revealing the problematic nature of society 's idea of gender, the music video separates itself from the traditionally hyper-sexualized or gender specific expectations that many images exemplify. The music video directly intends to make the viewer aware of society 's gender norms, while it 's absence of sexuality purposefully fails to follow many of society 's expectations; this has
Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex & power in music video The film I have chose is Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex & power in music videos. There are a few directors of this film; they are Andrew Killoy, Jason Young, Jeremy Earp, Sut Jhally. The directors’ argument is that pop culture presents stereotypes about men and women in society that reflects a negative view upon the individuals. In the film Dreamworlds 3: Desire, sex & power in music video, the directors use an audience appeals to ethos, pathos and logos when they argue their case about the way men and women are portrayed in pop culture through unrealistic gender roles, exploitation, and fantasy lives through music videos which makes for a strong case. In the film Dreamworlds 3:
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
Martina McBride's song titled “Concrete Angel” is a powerful and emotional ballet that projects a powerful message about child abuse to the viewers through many rhetorical strategies. The music video along with the song itself includes a lot of pathos rhetorical strategies as well as logos and ethos in an odd and faintly manner. The content presented in the video correlates with the lyrics of the song and combined create a powerful piece of art. Logos, ethos, and pathos are incorporated in this heavenly compelling artwork in a odd manner in order to convey a story dealing with child abuse and its effect.
In the article “Two Ways a Women Can Get Hurt,” by Jean Kilbourne she writes about how women in our society are depicted as a sex other than a human. According to Jean, it’s the fact of showing women as objects in the media, which generates most of the violence or mistreatment women experience in our current society. Kilbourne later mentions recognizes that the role given to men and women in advertisement is such a representation of what is a norm “the popular culture idealizes a template for relationships between men and women that is a recipe for disaster: a template that view sex as more important than anything else, that ridicules men who are in control of their women”. Proving that Jean believes that if women are abused today, its only
This proves that half the demographics do not see the importance of sexual attraction or making themselves centre of attention while with the opposite sex. The girls that I surveyed were older teenagers between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and these people were all for Lily Allen’s campaign for slamming the sexualised music videos. This shows that the older girls realise, the ideology of being ‘perfect’ does not exist, and these women shown in these videos are not ‘realistic”.
Robin Thicke’s music video to his song “Blurred Lines” avidly contributes to the patriarchy, while portraying sexism, gender standards, and beauty standards. His music video can be analyzed from a feminist theory approach, as it’s evident that his song and video contribute to a patriarchal society and its inherently sexist and sexualized ideologies. The ideology behind the song and music video is purely sexual and about male dominance. The lyrics to the song and actions in the video exhibit extreme over sexualization and objectification of the women. Analyzing this piece of popular culture through a feminist approach opens up a provoking conversation about how popular culture functions in a patriarchal culture. Analyzing pop culture though a feminist theory can allow for a larger variety and more in-depth analysis about the social aspects and political agenda within popular culture.
In the film Dreamworld 3, it examined how females in music videos are portrayed, the role women have, and want they desire. It focuses on the dreamworld that one would want and what they desire. These music videos shown in the video are an exaggeration or honestly a fantasy, that can only happen in one’s dream. It promotes sex, butts, and lust. In the film, women were portrayed as sex objects and not even part of the plot, just extras to attract men to the videos. All the roles women had were sexy nurses, sexy police officer, sexy anything to show that they only had limited roles in these music videos. Also, these videos showed the dream of being with various women and that women are always ready for sex. Music videos are all about sex and
If any woman did not meet the requirements, she is often cast aside and is labeled ugly. This essay will analyze Beyoncé’s music video “Pretty Hurts,” by summarizing the video, applying rhetorical and gender analytical methods, and discussing a source, which strengthens the claim that this video ultimately defies American hegemony. This video constantly demonstrates the way women try to conform to society, even though they seem to be miserable. At the beginning of the video, Beyoncé is presented getting ready for a pageant.
Beyoncé Knowles’s Lemonade video album brings the words of Beyoncé into a visual media and shows the viewer a deeper meaning behind the album. After this video came out many articles came forward analyzing Lemonade. One article, in particular, that was intriguing is Bell Hooks “Moving Beyond Pain.” Hooks starts her article saying that the Lemonade video was created as a money-making, business strategy, but as the text continues the reader can conclude that “Moving Beyond Pain” is actually about African American women, and women in general, standing up for themselves.
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.
Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments of queer theory through Gilbert Herdt article Same Sex Different Cultures (1997). I will then discuss Queen’s portrayal of drag within the music video and how it can be seen as queer rather than heterosexual. Lastly, I will argue that
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
Since the explosion of music videos in 1981, a large portion of their popularity has been due to the objectification of women and their sexuality. “Early content analyses showed that anywhere from 40% to 75% of music videos contained sexual imagery”(Arnett, 2002). Hip-hop music videos especially have a reputation of degrading women. In these videos “women are often depicted in positions
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.
The video material that I chose to view for this assignment were music videos, which was an unsurprisingly easy decision to make for writing about gender stereotypes. Music videos are watched by millions every day, and many of these provide misogynistic visual media that has been regulated and accepted by society. These negative connotations for women showing them in highly gendered roles mainly doing medial things such as dancing around in lingerie or fawning over a rich, famous, and/or successful man are dangerous towards equality for genders. Young girls and boys seeing this kind of harmful content could lead them to grow up believing they have to conform to these stereotypes and gender roles instead of living how they would prefer.