Parker Writesand stuff

Jhally’s Dreamworlds II: Desire, Sex, Power in Music Video discusses the portrayal of women as sexual objects in music videos (especially videos in the “main stream”). Although Dreamlands is a bit dated and the music videos presented are probably outside the realm of popular culture, the overarching themes presented are still very present in modern music videos, especially rap music videos, which seem to subscribe especially closely to gender norms. And it’s not just the music industry—contemporary music, film, and magazines, things that I call “popular media” all seem to share these same images. This is significant because in this modern age we are bombarded with media, and there is a strong relationship between the messages that those media send and the way that women act and are treated in our society. Pink’s music video “Stupid Girls” helps illuminate this relationship by describing the harmful effects of the prevailing image of women in popular media.

Pink uses satire to critique the portrayal of women as sexual objects in popular music videos, saying, in the first verse, “What happened to the dream of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 cent.” This sets up a stark contrast between the image of a woman of power and the image of a woman as a sexy extra in a rap music video. We’re all familiar with the female extras in rap videos who are often present in huge numbers, with their slim figures and ample breasts, dancing provocatively and wearing next to nothing. They are there as symbols of the success and power of the male rappers. Their huge numbers help cement their place as expendable extras. They have no independence and their definition of self is dependent upon the man’s. Firestone calls this “surrogate identity” (147). De Beauvoir describes this same phenomenon, saying, “She is defined and differentiated with reference to man”(4).

Of course, male rap videos are the most extreme example of objectification of women in modern popular music, but even when a woman’s role in a music video isn’t just to dance in the background and look sexy, there are noticeable differences between representation of the sexes. Men sing about how rich they are and how many girls are chasing after them. Women sing about how in love they are, how depressed they are that they’ve broken up with their boyfriends, and how beautiful they are. Here again we see surrogate identity—all these topics have to do with women relating to men. Of course there is complexity and overlap here, especially recently. Also, in a way, it makes sense that a woman would take a secondary role in the narrative of a male artist’s music video because, after all, he is the main character.

And yet, the music video that tells the story of the male artist being swept off of his feet by a woman who approaches him and makes all of the right moves is conspicuously absent. Instead, we tend to see the same power structure as is present in our fairy tales: man actively seeks woman, woman is swept off of her feet. The man’s narrative about romance with the opposite sex is often more about a macho display of an ability to “pick up chicks” than it is about finding “the one,” and here again the simple numbers devalue the individual woman, who is a “sweet hookup” for the night, but ultimately expendable. Notice the visual that the idiomatic expressions “pick up chicks” and “to be swept off one’s feet” create—the woman is physically raised by the man, but she is put on a pedestal, like a trophy, intended to sit there and look pretty. The man acts, and the woman receives. The woman’s narrative about romance is much more monogamous and focuses on emotional attachment, rather than skill with “picking up a guy.” Female monogamy and female objectification are not unrelated. As Firestone argues, “Women’s ‘clinging’ behavior is necessitated by their objective social position”(152). Women’s “surrogate identity” and “need for approval” (Firestone, 147), which both contribute to “clinging,” can be thought of as products of a system that, to a certain extent, paints women as objects to be possessed by men.

If a female musical artist brags about anything, it’s her body, which is not empowering in the same way that a male artist’s song about his wealth or his female groupies is. This emphasis on physical sexual appeal strengthens the image of woman as sexual object. Two scenes in Pink’s music video reference Paris Hilton, who became famous by modeling and being in a sex tape. Appropriately enough, Pink’s references to Paris include the sex tape and a popular TV ad for Carl’s Junior that features Paris seductively washing a car. In these cases, the body is used to appeal to male viewers, which can send the message to women that this is the way to communicate with men. And yet, some artists are able to take this fact and spin it in a way that is empowering. For example, Fergie in “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas, talks about her romantic life in a traditionally more masculine way, bragging about how many men chase after her and buy her gifts because of her “humps.” Though Fergie certainly enjoys a certain power over the men in this video, it’s important to note that it’s a power that involves exploiting her sexual appeal, which, as we see in other media, especially film, is the only type of power that it is really acceptable for women to have, and furthermore, it’s limiting. Think of the femme fatale and the female CEO. Notice first that the former is far more prevalent, and the latter is almost completely absent in popular media. Also, notice how the former involves an empowerment that is inseparable from femininity, while the latter doesn’t—the femme fatale is thought of as a powerful woman while the female CEO is just a powerful person. The female CEO (or, perhaps, the CEO who happens to be a woman) does more to combat the dominant paradigm of woman as “Other” (de Beauvoir, 4).

So what is significant about all of this? Representation of women in popular media plays an integral role in the behavior or women in our society. We get our image of femininity and female beauty from popular media. It gives us a goal to strive for. Of course, there is more complexity to this relationship—society must influence media in the same way that media influences society. However, what can be said for certain is that images in media and actions, behaviors, and ideals in society perpetuate each-other, increasing the influential power of social norms. Similarly, because this strong relationship between society and media exists, an effective way to create change in society is to change media.

Pink’s “Stupid Girls” speaks directly to these ideas. The narrative of the music video is framed around a young girl watching television, with a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other. The imagery on the TV starts with a classroom where a teacher is showing students how to act “ladylike,” instructing them on how to flip their hair back and reprimanding one girl for picking at her teeth. The little girl watching TV immediately imitates the girls on TV by flipping her own hair. This is a clear statement about the fact that girls, especially young ones, take their definition of feminine behavior from the images that they see on television. I described earlier how music videos perpetuate the same imbalanced power structure that we see in fairy tales. We’ve discussed in class the way that these fairy tales have a large impact on peoples’ characters because they’re heard during the early, formative years of peoples’ lives. I’d argue that images of women in popular media are just as impactful, and perhaps even more so because they are so much more culturally relevant, making them more real to the people viewing them. Also, let’s not underestimate the number of young girls who watch MTV over the shoulders of their big sisters, who want desperately to be older and are searching for what it means to be a mature woman.

The image of woman as passive sexual object places an emphasis on physical appearance. This is especially problematic because popular media presents a very limited view of feminine beauty; only skinny women with big boobs are seen as sexy. A huge burden is placed on women when the message is sent that success involves being physically attractive (and worse, attractive according to a very limiting definition), especially because physical appearance is largely genetic and difficult to change significantly. Most women end up feeling like they have“failed,” which is incredibly psychologically damaging.

Pink’s music video describes how this burden is incredibly destructive for women. The character undergoing cosmetic surgery and the one getting a spray-on tan both show the desperate (and expensive) lengths that women go to in order to be like the women they see in music videos and on magazine covers. Also, the scene with the bulimic girl throwing up in the bathroom speaks to issues of negative body image and eating disorders. There is a sense that women need to compete to have the skinniest body or the biggest boobs in order to get the attention of men. Both the character on the treadmill and the character in the bowling alley experience a lack of attention because other girls around them have more prominent breasts, and they have to be more showy in order to compete. These characters are obviously impacted by popular media’s image of beauty. These are characters that we have all met. The girl who runs over a guy with her expensive car and looks into the rear view mirror to see if he’s okay and ends up getting distracted in adjusting her lip gloss very accurately depicts several women that I grew up around, especially as a person who grew up in the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles. The same goes for the very last character that is shown on the TV—the trophy mom standing outside of her expensive house with her fancy car, Juicy Couture sweats, and her lifted face framed by long, blond hair. These are people that we have all met in our lives, and the fact that these characters are so real and relevant to us makes the viewer much more able to relate the absurdity of the “stupid girls” on screen to the absurdity of the women around them, and perhaps even themselves.

Here Pink gives us some hope for the future. The noticeably different character in the music video is the female president. She represents the opposite of the “stupid girl”—a woman with ambition and power that is unrelated to appearance and sexuality. There is also a brief image of a woman playing football. When the music ends, the little girl watching TV is presented with a choice between playing with a football or playing with Barbie dolls. Barbie represents an obsession with female appearance and an unattainable image of beauty. The girl listens to the good angel and chooses the football, showing the viewer that there are “smart people” out there.

In “Stupid Girls,” Pink not only illustrates the issue of objectification of women in media and its impact on women and girls around the country, but also to propose a solution. As mentioned before, the relationship between media and culture means that the two perpetuate each-other, but it also means that they have the power to change each-other. By getting this music video on MTV, Pink has taken affirmative action in questioning and changing the imagery of women as objects with which we are bombarded daily. With some luck, this change in the media that we consume may help our society form a new image of femininity that involves personal empowerment and is not dependent upon sexual appeal.

Works Referenced
Jhally, Sut: Dreamworlds II: Desire, Sex, Power in Music Video
Pink (Alecia Beth Moore): “Stupid Girls”
Firestone, Shulamith: The Dialectic of Sex
de Beauvoir, Simone: The Second Sex (introduction)*

* page numbers taken from printout of this electronic version:

http://marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm

Originally written Oct 30th, 2008, for Bronski’s WGST10 at Dartmouth College