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Negative portrayal of women in the media
Negative portrayal of women in the media
Representation of gender in media
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The purpose of this Application Assignment is to analyze media representations of gender. For this, I chose to examine music videos by popular female artists. I chose two different music videos by two very different female artists. I chose to analyze "Stupid Girls" by Pink, and "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift. "Stupid Girls" has over 68 million views on youtube, while "Blank Space" has over 1.6 billion views. I observed many things in these particular music videos. I chose these videos in particular because I thought that they were good examples of the various ways that the media portrays women. These two videos approach views of women from two completely different angles. In the Taylor Swift video for "Blank Space", Taylor wears mostly dresses and always has her hair styled neatly and femininely. She wears highly stylized and …show more content…
She shows two different types of girls in the video. In one set of scenes, she is the ditzy, stereotypical blonde with a fake tan. This "stupid girl" buys a chihuahua which advertises to "stay younger longer". She also gets a spray tan, and applies makeup and talks on her cell phone while driving. The video also shows the "stupid girl" type dancing in a music video next to 50 cent, practicing binging and purging activities, filming home pornography, and sexualizing herself as she washes cars in a sensual manner. Much less shown is the "smart girl" type, who is shown running for president and playing football. Pink herself portrays all of these roles and more. In other scenes, she shows herself on an operating table preparing for plastic surgery to be the "perfect woman". In a bowling alley scene she uses a "emergency bra" which makes her breast appear bigger in order to get her date to look at her instead of the girl a few lanes down. Lastly, in a gym scene, she takes off her shirt, also to get a male's
She has got tall slender body with slim legs and nice feet. Due to her body structure, every dresses flatter her appearance and make her look adorable. She is usually seen wearing skirts and pants. She is also seen wearing informal like jeans when she is not working. She usually wears high heels that suits her dresses and feet.
I. Introduction Gender plays a big role in music, I became aware of gender role in music when noticing how most songs talks about women and how they are being either exploited or empowered. Most music videos even in the 80s either objectified women or respect sexuality. Women are usually sexually alluring in music videos, stage performances and even in the song lyrics. Most music video uses video vixens or video girls that are usually dressed or performing sexually. For example, “Siouxsie Sioux frequently performed wearing black leather and rubber bondage attire, as well as heavy eye make-up, making overt statements about her sexuality.
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
Signorelli, Ph.D., Nancy. A CONTENT ANALYSIS: Reflections of Girls in the Media A Study of Television Shows and Commercials, Movies, Music Videos, and Teen Magazine Articles and Ads. Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now, Apr. 1997. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
The documentary Miss Representation identifies the numerous ways women are misrepresented in the media, including in news, advertisements, movies, and television. The title Miss Representation emphasizes that the way we portray women in the media is a misrepresentation, as in it does not do women justice and oftentimes, has a negative impact on the perception of women. Frequently in the media, women lack leading roles and complexity, are held to an unrealistic standard of beauty, and are subject to objectification and beautification (Newsom, 2011). These misrepresentations lay the groundwork for gender socialization, and therefore, shape how women perceive themselves and are perceived by others.
In society today, media such as movies and music share huge roles in the dynamics of culture especially concerning communication. In Dream Worlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video we see how famous singers and producers in the making of their music videos have the power of illustrating our language and beliefs. From the music we listen to and things we watch, we are constantly gaining new knowledge by the message that is being presented to us. The main focus of this specific documentary was how women in the music or media industry all together are treated. From this documentary and lectures in class we see that media objectifies, stereotypes, and degrades women and their bodies as advertisements and money makers. Themes in the film discussed
Misogyny and degradation of women is present in almost every genre of music, yet the one genre that completely revolves around demeaning women is rap. Over the years rap and rap music videos have continually become more sexual and degrading towards women. Rap has been criticized numerous times for this reason, and that is because rap is one of the most popular genres of music for the younger generations. It is more than a genre of music, it is a complete industry filled with clothing and other merchandise. The reason this constant demeaning of women exists is because rap as a genre that rewards the objectification of women. The excuses used to justify the misogyny in rap are incomplete and lack accurate support. The most effective way for this continuous cycle ends, is if the fight and protest comes from the women themselves. Men are the problem in the objectification of women but in order for it to stop, women need to step up and take control of the situation.
Most generations have been influenced by a trend of music that inspires them to dress, behave, and talk in a certain way. There are people who have the special talent of making others relate to their emotions, thoughts, or ideas by creating music. In current society most artists decide to create videos to make their lyrics visual for their listeners and to earn more profit. The negative thing about the creation of music videos is the way in which females are stereotyped. In a lot of music videos, especially hip-hop/rap, females are portrayed in a negative way, which causes a harmful influence on the people who view them.
A common trend in the entertainment industry today is the objectification of women in society. Sexualizing women are seen in media such as; movies, advertisement, television show and music video, where their main focus is providing the audience with an image of women as sexual objects rather than a human. This is detrimental to society since the media is producing social stereotypes for both genders, which can further result in corrupted social habits. Objectification in media are more focused on females than male, these false images of women leave individuals with the wrong idea of the opposite sex. As media continuously use sexual contents regarding women, the audience starts underestimating women. Specifically movies, it allows media to shape the culture’s idea of romance, sex and what seems
Music videos originally served the purpose of creating an outlet through which artists could generate publicity for their work, broaden their popular appeal, and reach wider audiences with interesting audio-visual content (Berry & Shelton, 1999). Over the years, the visual imagery in music videos has increasingly become as significant as the music it represents, as music videos have now become major outlets for propagating views and stereotypes that influence popular culture.
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
...s herself and her true identity. She realizes that she isn't always going to be the girl that everyone wants her to be but as long as she is true to herself that all that really matters (MTV, 2011).
Viewers can then deduce the role of women in modern pop culture as injustice for the women and start to discard the pop culture that limit women’s role to sexual beings. To support, Cara Wallis, professor of communications at Texas A&M, published a content analysis of men and women in music videos by having individuals watch different music videos to determine individual roles. The results conclude, “[I]mages of female lead performers dancing suggestively or touching themselves in a sexual manner drive home the point that
The lyrics of music play an important part of interpreting the meaning of the song. The roles which women have been allowed by the society to embody have changed drastically. Women may question their roles because of what they see portrayed by popular culture or media. Change in female’s identity can be seen in how women are viewed or how they portray themselves in popular culture specifically through music. In general, music continues to...
Mar, Tyler, Tyler Mar, and View profile. "Typed Into Our Heads: Gender Inequality In Media". Tylermar.blogspot.com. N. p., 2015. Web. 18 Apr. 2016