Depiction of Women in Music Videos (Paper)

After viewing a Top 10 music videos program on FUSE TV in a qualitative and quantitative manner, women were depicted in a sexual way 50 percent of the time in the rock genre videos. Most of the women with leading roles were white and were showed to have a way of demanding attention from those around them in a sexual way.
The previous study by Julie Andsager (Seduction, Shock, and Sales: Research and Functions of Sex in Music Video, 2003) in Chapter 3 (Sex Appeal in Music Videos) of the book Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing (Reichert & Lambiase, 2006) shows how researchers have attempted to capture sexuality in music videos that was difficult to measure and sexual content in videos since the 1981 inception of MTV. Andsager expanded on typology, which regards to how artists’ images are sexualized through music video in order to shape their careers and target their intended fan base.
The most relevant study used was a research thesis by Redelia Shaw (African-American Women in Rap Music Videos: A Visual Formal Analysis, 2004), which discussed how black women were sexualized, and Chapter 10 (Beer, Sex, & Ads) of the book Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing (Reichert & Lambiase, 2006), which discussed how women were being portrayed in media outlets.
I teamed up with Star Ford, Haley Hazard, Holly Smith, and Lindsay Wilson with the goal of finding out the depictions of women in today’s most popular music videos. We used music video outlets such as MTV, BET, VH1, CMT, and my outlet study, FUSE TV to see how women were used and displayed in the videos. During the week of Nov. 12, we took the top 10 videos from each media channel and studied each video for research on our topic.
By monitoring the top 10 music videos on these different outlets, we were attempting to see if:
1. There is a difference in the way woman are dressed?· Low- fully dressed, little to none of body parts showing.· Moderate- appropriate clothing, legs, midriff, or cleavage is barely visible.· High- cleavage is showing, shorts/skirts low cut, body parts showing.
2. There is a difference in the ways which females in videos are portrayed? Their roles: · The victim- reliance the man, sad, hurt etc.· Sexual- sexually interested, experienced, etc.· Party girl- fun, social, club girl, etc.· The other woman- home wrecker, sexualized to tempt the man, etc.
3. There is a difference in the role and race of the leading lady.
4. What is the different genre of music within the media channels chosen?
Each of these questions will be broken down into different categories and defined by the music channel. If there weren’t any leading ladies or females in the music video, then the response in each category was N/A.
I covered the FUSE TV channel outlet. There wasn’t a host for their top 10 countdown. The show just started on cue and went into the #10 video. All the videos on this program were of the rock and pop genres. After a close analysis, I conducted information about how the women in the videos were being depicted.
The No. 10 video was “Empty Walls” by Serj Tankian. This was a rock video that didn’t have a leading woman, but instead had children playing joyfully. Everyone was dressed very low.
The No. 9 video was “Big Casino” by Jimmy Eat World. This was a rock video that didn’t have any women in the video and everyone else was dressed low.
The No. 8 video was “Everything We Had” by The Academy Is… This was a soft rock video that had a white woman playing the role of the victim. She was dressed in both a moderate and highly fashion.
The No. 7 video was “Southern Weather” by The Almost. This was a rock video and there wasn’t any women present in this video.
The No. 6 video was “Woke Up Next To You” by Fall Out Boy. This was a pop video that had a African woman playing the role of an independent woman. She was dressed real poor and low.
The No. 5 video was “Pretty Handsome Awkward” by The Used. This was a rock video that had a white dressed as a transvestite. He was dressed in a high manner.
The No. 4 video was “Your Guardian Angel” by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. This was a rock video that didn’t have any women in it and everyone was dressed low.
The No. 3 video was “Crushcrushcrush” by Paramore. This was a rock that had a white woman playing the role of a sexual, demanding woman. She was moderately dressed.
The No. 2 video was “Almost Easy” by Avenged Sevenfold. This was a rock video that didn’t have any women in it. The men in the video were dressed in a moderate fashion.
And finally, the No. 1 video was “You Are the One” by Shiny Toy Guns. This was a rock video that displayed the women in the video to be independent and free-spirited. They were dressed highly.
When one compares the previous study to this study on music videos, one might find the same patterns of how women are depicted. With FUSE TV, only 50 percent of the videos had women in them and 3 of the 5 videos within that 50 percent had the women dressed in a sexual manner. It was no surprise to see that the No. 1 video had women it displaying themselves as sexual icons. That’s what sells in today’s world. When will it change or better yet, should it ever change? Society will only have the answer to that.








References
FUSE TV Top 10 Countdown. Retrieved: November 12, 2007.
Lambiase, Jacqueline & Reichert, Tom. (2006). Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media And Marketing. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.Shaw, Redelia. (2004). African American Women in Rap Music Videos: A Visual Formal Analysis (Research Thesis, Georgia State University, 2004). Retrieved from ProQuest.