Jennifer Lopez Rhetorical Analysis

COMM498V

Jingyi Xu

Visual Analysis

April. 13

Visual Analysis on Jennifer Lopez’s music video: Hyper-Sexualization and gender performance.

It may be unimaginable that the whole world is performed as a reverse sex parody on objectifying men. It is always a lazy day for her. A woman wakes up in her huge queen bed in late morning, surrounding with several half-naked, submissive men; the woman walks out of the lavish mansion in a gentle pace, rest of her boys in the yard stop their work, watching her like a queen, within adorable and respectful eyesights. Those dreams all come true in Jennifer Lopez’s music video “I Luh Ya Papi”.

The video starts with a scene that JLo and two of her backup dancers are discussing with the director about the

concept of the video. “Why do men always objectify the women in every single video? Why can’t we, for once, objectify the men?” They are doubted that why always man objectify the woman in the video and they plan to challenge that norm. Utilized the gender reverse parody on treating male as an objectified figure, the music video successfully obtains the effectiveness on suggesting the ridiculous social phenomenon of hyper sexualization and objectification of female’s body in modern society.

Music videos play a major role in music industry due to the popularity of personal computer. The prevalence of World Wide Web and smart mobile also provide a platform such as Youtube and other APPs for watching and downing , which makes those videos more available online. To increase competition and attraction, it is more common to see sexual objectification of women in music videos in past decades. We lives in a society where sex sell is one of the best marketing strategies. According to Wallis, objectification in the music video is phenomenon that “Images of female lead performers dancing suggestively or touching themselves in a sexual manner drive home the point that women are sexual objects, ready to be consumed by men”.(Wallis)

[加一段 JLo也是被objectified而出名的对象]
[methods]

I will combine Sonja Foss’s visual rhetorical method and Rhetoric Film Analysis to study the music video.

In my visual analysis paper, I will use Sonja Foss’s rhetorical method to analyze this influential music video. Sonja Foss suggests “visual rhetoric has two meanings in the discipline of rhetoric. Firstly, he defines visual rhetoric as an artifact, which is an “actual image or object rhetors generate when they use visual symbols for the purpose of communicating”. For examples, artifact can be a photo, a painting or an advertisement. As artifacts, they require three elements. They are symbolic representation, which are human-created and can be describe as a carrier to convey message and emotion from creator to audience. Secondly, Foss also suggests that when viewing visual rhetoric as a perspective, it becomes an approach to study visuals rhetorically. According to Finnegan, visual rhetoric is “a mode of inquiry, defined as critical and the theoretical orientation that makes issues of visuality relevant to rhetorical theoretical orientation that makes issues of visuality relevant to rhetorical theory”. When watching visuals, audience generate not only aesthetic response but also rhetorical response. Aesthetic response focuses on the physical appearance, such as color, texture or form. Rhetorical response refers to what message does this artifact convey or how it influence audience’s mind, finally leads to behavior change. There areas of focus to study visual rhetoric are nature, function and evaluation. Nature includes presented elements and suggested elements. Presented elements are “physical features, such as space, medium and color”. Suggested elements are what meanings does the artifact convey. Ross names the function of a visual artifact is “ the action it communicates”. For a war memorial, the function is to commemorate the war effort and martyrs who sacrifice in the war. Evaluation is how the artifact fulfill its function.
When analyzing the aesthetic response and the presented elements of music video “I Luh Ya Papi” , I am going to use “Mise-en-Scene” to make a brief analysis on the stuff in the frame and how the scene arranged to solidify the concerned issue on objectification of female body in music videos.

Rhetorical Analysis

Production of music videos is not only an artifact acted by artists but also several pieces linked together as a marketing strategy to increase sale of their song album. According to Foss’s definition of visual rhetoric, when viewing JLo’s music video “I Luh Ya Papi” as performing of her excellent vocal and brilliant dance in different scenes, the music video is an communicative artifact. The music video of “I Luh Ya Papi” is human-created，symbolic action with a purpose to communicate with viewers. Thus, the video meets the three requirements of being a artifact.

However, when conducting a study on the content of “I Luh Ya Papi” and how it brings out rhetorical response, the music video can be viewed as a perspective. Visual rhetoric consists of two aspects of response, which are aesthetic response and rhetorical

response.
Obviously, when viewers watch the video, they are directly impressed by the bold dancing posture, lavish costume and dazzling transitions. However, key to success in analyzing visual rhetoric is to focus more on its rhetorical response.

Released in March 2014, the unique directing style of of gender exchange attract public’s eyes immediately, not only for surprise, but also for curiosity. The video racked up 9.5 million views on Vevo during its first week of release. Due to its audacious content and bold expression on hyper-sexualization and male objectification, “I Luh Ya Papi” meets Questions, comments and critiques came one after another. [此处要有评论]

The comparison and between Jlo’s music video of “I Luh Ya Papi” and the normal music videos which objectify female can be told by several examples.

Firstly, the imbalance number of men and women in the video reinforces that JLo’s stay at a higher status in the music video. Additionally, the age difference between JLo and her boys is huge in a way; the men are muscular, energetic and much younger than JLo.

Men in the video always act themselves in a degraded and submissive manner. JLo and her friends are fully-clothed, surrounding by the men only dressed in underwear. For examples, JLo and the backup dancers pour the drink into a man’s shorts. In one scene, a man who is washing the car, pours the soap and bubble on his naked body in a seducing way. Following the rhythm of music, the setting of the music video switches scene by scene quickly and dazzles viewer’s eyes. Because the music video was taken in Miami, the using of natural sunlight makes a bright and lavish atmosphere to increase the effect of gender reverse

parody.

Here are some comments from the official youtube video. “What is this video for?” “Is JLo a feminist?” “The best video ever.” “Love the objectifying of men here, maybe finally they’ll realize that we aren’t objects to be played with when they feel like it.” JLo held a natural attitude and gave an easy reply, “For me it was like, I just wanted them to see what it feels like. I wasn't trying to have some big political conversation about it, but I am trying to say think about what you do.”

The function of music video changes if it is viewed from different perspectives. Based on Jennifer Lopez’s interview above, her purpose of releasing this video is just for fun. However, for the whole public, the music video of “I Luv Ya Papi” functions as an arousal to concern with
Conclude

The video successfully capture audience’s attention either for its maverick directing method or for its use of role reversal parody to the fact that over objectified female should be taken into concern in music industries.