Blog 13 - Sexism in Pop Videos

There have been many many pop videos that have recently been released that have somewhat "Sparked" controversy within the media and more specifically sexuality and sexism within the media and how certain people are portrayed in new days pop videos. Some of these include, for example, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus. 

This video in particular is incredibly sexist as the nature of the video as well as its synopsis consists of the main character in this somewhat "Story" is seen as a huge misogynist, who is portrayed in this video as someone who uses women and thinks himself higher than they are. All of the women in this video are wearing next to nothing and some of them are even wearing nothing!! while he walks about in a suit and sunglasses looking like the source of their power. 

In short, these women are reflected as mere sexual objects made for nothing but his desire. In terms of Goodwins characteristics of pop videos, this is heavily correlating with that of the women being the point of erotic desire, as that is practically all the women are used for in this video. 

If we were to consider this as the base of all pop videos then yes pop videos are extremely sexist, however this is not the case because however the case may be that yes most pop videos are similar to this one and because of this, sexist. There are still some that fight that image.

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This pop video in particular cause a massive outrage in controversy for many different reasons but with all the same issue. The main reason that most people had an issue with this video is because before this video was released the only thing Miley Cyrus was known for was being the lovable pop star Hannah Montana and then sh randomly cuts off all of her hair and goes from being the little goody two shoes pop star that little girls idolize to this rampaging harlot on construction equipment. Miley Cyrus apparently made this video to showcase the fact that she apparently was "Not a girl anymore" she wanted to tell her audience that she is all grown up and is now a woman. 

This video does not get any close to the idea of the Male Gaze. however their is one main difference betwen this video and that of Robin Thickes video, being that Miley is choosing to exploit herself in this video, it was her choice to make the video and the idea behind as well as what she wanted to do with it. She chose to take on this new image and therefore she is not being exploited but instead she is choosing to exploit herself. 

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Most people think this is a video from a "Feminists" point of view, however i would like to start off by saying that i disagree with this statement. Although the main point of the video may be to "Mock" the new age pop videos hat objectify women, the video still does so itself, it has countless scenes of women showing their posterior to the camera as well as the lyrics being very crude. This video contains some of Goodwins famous characteristics, for example, the girl group with a dance routine , Goodwins 1st characteristic of pop videos is used frequently throughout this video as very revealing dance moves are amplified over and over again throughout the video o help express the videos main point. Because of this Allen original objective of exposing the new style of pop video and all the nastiness that comes with it has not worked out and it instead looks like she herself is being a bit of a hypocrite by defeating her own objective. 

Laura Mulveys Male Gaze:

Laura Mulveys theory of the male gaze suggests that the male gaze through media consumption, i.e music videos or films etc, disallow women to have anything close to a human identity, they are only objects through this gaze. The theory also suggests that more often than not, women can only watch a film from a secondary perspective as the male gaze is what is used as the "Visual" in which we see the film. 

A female character in a film is more often

than not seen as a "sidekick" to the main male protagonist and because of this they have n real importance within the film other than to be seen as eye candy by the main character and the audience who are watching the text through the "Male Gaze".

Laura mulvey states that women in media texts will ONLY have one of two functions or in some cases both: 

1. As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view.
2. As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinemas to view. 

The term scopophilia means "Love of watching" and was frequently used throughout Laura Mulveys explanations of gender roles within films and general media text.

Female objectification is related and very similar to that of the male gaze, as the person who is being gazed at, is known as objectified as they are simply being treated as an object and nothing more. Just like Laura Mulveys previous views, objectified characters have their identity and humanity removed from them. 

Laura mulveys representation of how she thinks women are seen through movies and media texts looks something like this abomination *Pre warning.....it isn't pretty*