Case Study: Representation of women in pop videos

Women today in the music industry are objectified, esepecially in hip hop and rap genres, they come across extremly provocative in their tiny outfits and exotic dancing - the exact portrayal of women being seen as sex objects. Sometimes in music videos, the woman’s face is not shown. Instead, her body becomes a showpiece and is put on display to be viewed by members of the public, including young maels and females. It depicts females as not having an identity or a sense of individualism.

Very recently in the BBC News, there is a very striking news article about Charlotte Church's opinion on the way in which women are represented in the music industry. Charlotte has experienced a negative influence on image herself when she was at the young age of between 19 and 20. She was encouraged to wear very revealing clothes everytime she performed, shot a music video and took part in a photoshoot. Church stated that she felt extremly uncomfortabl however was forced to dress and act this way as the recor dlabel executives kept reminding her was "just whose money was being spent."  The music business is "a male dominated industry with a juvenile perspective on gender and sexuality" and increasingly wants "sex objects that appear child-like", Church claimed.
Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24528022

Miley Cyrus (birth name Destiny Hope Cyrus) born in Tennessee is a singer/actress seen as a teen idol after being cast in the Disney Channel television series 'Hannah Montanna'. In 2007, Miley released 'Hannah Montanna 2' along with a soundtrack. It was a debut album and it sold three million copies in the United States, and produced Billboard Hot 100 top-ten single. From all of this success as a disney star, Miley evolved a huge and obsessive fanbase of young girls from ages as young as 6 to 16. 'Hannah Montanna' is still an obsession today for young girls. Below is a link to a video of a recent Miley Cyrus performance with Robin Thicke. In the video, Miley is seen repetitively thrusting her pelvic region, sticking her tongue out and 'grinding' sexually against Robin Thicke. Miley is an idol to many young girls, and her drastic change from a sweet American singer/actor to a rebellious, half-naked rapper/singer that sings about sex and drugs is being viewed by young girls that still look up to her.

http://www.celebuzz.com/2013-08-25/watch-miley-cyrus-and-robin-thickes-awkwardly-inappropriate-vmas-performance/ -miley cyrus performace

Rihanna in her latest music video 'Pour It Up' spends most of the video dressed in nothing but a jewel-encrusted bikini and platformed stiletto heels. She sings about strip clubs, alcohol and money and is seen sliding provocatively and pulling various 'racy' positions upon a gold thrown. She repeatdelty referes to 'strip clubs and dollar bills' with woman dancing on poles. With such a young female fanbase, many parents are concerned with what their daughters are watching and being influenced by. Rihanna has sold out completely to the commercialisation and objectification of women’s bodies and their sexuality. Rihanna appears to be showing off her body in extremly raunchy and axposing outfits. At 1:25 and ocassionally at other points, shots of Rihanna are shown with notes of money hanging out of her kickers; exposing her bottom. The image of the money surorunding her crotch and bottom area greatly amplifies the theme of women becoming sex objects that can be sold.... later on in the music video, Rihanna is seen in an outift that strongly serves a prostitute i.e. her wearing a fishnet outfit with just her underwear underneath. Not only does the outfit that she wears illustrate this particualr character but the way in which she erotically dances on the floor, throwing money over herself,  suggesting it's the money in which she has sold herself for. And now she’s promoting it to girls as well as boys. The illegal motion of prositution and strippers is always throwned upon in the media and is always exposed as a negative exertion. However,  Rihanna, an idol to many young females, exposes this particular behaviour so that this postitution/stripper enterprise is seen as acceptable and the new 'classy'. Whether this new image is forced upon my executives and producers of the record label, it nonetheless objectifies women and therefore demeans women by casting them in this way. (Below is the music video in which Rihanna expresses the 'whore' like image)
 


In other music videos, the way in which men view women in strongly showed and not in a positive way. Rapper 2 Chainz wrote the song titled “Birthday Song” featuring Kanye West. This song was place number 7 on Billboard’s top 100 rap songs and has its music video has over 30 million views. “All I want for my birthday is a big booty (girl)” are lyrics from the song and are clearly degrading towards women, judging them simply by their looks and body features. Not only do these lyrics give unrealistic examples to young men who listen to this kind of music, but it also gives young women a chance to feel insecure about their bodies and strive to be the impossible dream woman.

Music videos like these show hip-hop/rap men that are looked up to by young males all around the globe. The rappers views towards women in chart music today are seen as stereotypes, created by the media producers. The rappers' have a stereotypical view of what their ideal woman should look like. Women are passive and acted upon, like objects to be gazed at by males. Although this behaviour in songs attracts a widers audience, especially of young males, it gives girls a sense of insecurity as they feel they will not be attract male attention as they don't look this paricular way. Music involvinig woman objectification also influences young girls to act a certain way, believing that this is the new norm.

Storyboards

 

Both me and my other group member were certain on what particular scenes we wanted. However, we were unsure of what order to put them into so we decided to make two different stroyboards to help us. From this we will put our footage onto the software and arrange the clips in these two different ways but with the music to see which storyboard would be more realistic and which one would look better. These storyboards are like a template for our montage music video and we will use them during the making of our video.

 

The Pitch

Goodwin's Theory

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
Andrew Goodwin states that music videos will often demonstrate characteristics that are specific to certain genres. To make the video more appealing to the target audience the producers make the video as relatable as possible as well as including popular characteristics of the stereotypes which are included in the target audience. This way the music video suddenly becomes effective. In this music video of Rihanna's song the scenes on the beach strongly illustrates the 'girly' pop song genre. the shots are often repeated and become slightly repetitive, similarly to the lyrics. The video contains typical shots of girls dancing on the beach in bikinis and skirts. This is to attract the target audience of young girls between the ages of 16-25.



2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals
In many music videos, it is very important that the music video relates to the lyrics in the song. In the song "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys the song strongly refers to New York. The music video is set in New York throughout. The opening of the music video shows a montage of stereotypical images of New York as well as famous locations (such as the Brooklyn bridge) that the audience would recognise and would relate to New York straight away. The most powerful in the video, to me, is when Alicia Keys performs the piano in the centre of Times Square amplifying the lyrics 'New York'.



3. There's a relationship between music and visuals
The sound of the song and the effect is has on the listener should definitely be reflected in music videos. For example, a fast paced song should have a fast cutting rate and a slower song should have the opposite. A good example that's strongly illustrates this is Paramore's song 'Brick By Boring Brick' The song is very fast paced but is slower in sections where the song starts to create a steady speed. At the beginning of the song when it's very faced beat, the little girl is running which amplifies the fast paced theme. Before the chorus, when the song becomes a slower pace, the girl has stopped running and the leaves fall slowly so the music video seems to flow more steadily.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

 

 The amount of cose-ups used are to show off the artist. In this music video of Lana Del Rey singing 'Blue Jeans' the first extreme close up of her is shown at 0:45 and close ups are continuous throughout the video. The close ups of Lana represent her emotion and passion for what she's singing about. It also makes the audience familiar with her voyeuristic like self. Close ups strengthen the music video as it focuses on the singer and just their voice.

 

 

 

 5.There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
This is strongly represented in the 'Blue Jeans' music video also as it shows close ups of Lana looking glamorous and lustrous in an old noir style. Another music video that illustrates this voyeuristic treatment and exposure of the female body is 'Deja Vu' by Beyoncé and Jay-Z. throughout the music video she dances erotically in very revealing outfits. This is done in most of her videos such as 'Upgrade U', 'Dance For You' and 'Baby Boy'. This notion of looking 'sexy' attracts attention to a wider audience.

 

6.There is often intertextual reference
Intertextual references is a common feature of a music video, however, not all music videos use obvious ones. Lana Del Rey's song 'Carmen' can be described as a metaphor used by Del Rey for her "synthetic life experience". The video ends with the Erik Satie's song "Gymnopédie No.1." and a woman dancing in a field until the word “fin” graces the screen. The opening of the music video shows snapshots of New York City, spliced together with scenes of old Hollywood paparazzi, a rose, and shots of Lana herself. Once the song begins, we see a dressed woman working a pole, then Lana sitting on a city porch, possibly in New York. The song goes on to feature black and white photo stills, animated food scenes, Lana riding the back of a motorcycle and multiple references to drugs and troubled youth. In one scene, Lana is behind the camera interviewing Rachlin, asking him about his dream girl and giggling. These could be seen as flashbacks of Lana's life.

Target Audience Research

By finding our final song 'Boat Song' I was able to type in various artists of the same genre (Indie/Pop) into Amazon. From this it would come up with suggestions for other music and artists which were bought from the same audience. For example, I typed in the band Little Comets into Amazon and it came up with many other albums that the same customers bought.

 

From finding out similar artists and albums I was then able to research further into these specific bands and watch their music videos. Not only did I gain information on generic conventions of the band and their music video but I found out where the bands tend to perform, whether it being festivals or gigs (or both). From this I can receive information on what audiences these bands attract to. For example, the band Dog Is Dead is performing this year at the festival 'Bestival'. This band could be seen as a similar band to 'Jungle Doctors' as it's a similar genre with similar sounds. Bestival is a festival with a wide mixture of genres ranging from indie, reggae, hip hop etc.

Lowestoft Broad - Second Day of Shooting

Below are stills from when myself and Zoe visited Lowestoft for the second day of shooting. This time, however, we visited the Lowestoft Broad as there was a wide variety of boats and dinghies. Similarly to the first day of shooting, we managed to capture footage at sunset time as the reflection of the sky on the water was magnificent. Just after the sun set, when it started to become dark, the lights surrounding the boats bought the scenery to life. We, as a group, thought that these scenes would be ideal for our theme of boats as it gives a relaxing and calm feel.

 

Shooting Schedule UNFINISHED

Sunday 29th September 5:30pm - 6:30pm

I decided that it would be good to visit Lowestoft beach around this time to capture some sunset footage before it reached winter so that we could record it whilst the weather was nice. This was advantageous to us as we managed to gain some impeccable footage. I also had to consider a few days before what time the sun set so we could get there on time to gain the best results. We, as a group, were planning to have the ending of our music video set during the end of the day so scenes in the sunset perfectly represent this . During our visit to the beach, I also managed to take some stills with a camera to show evidence of the location and how we interpreted it.


Sunday 6th October 5:45pm - 6:45pm

A week later, myself and the other person in my group visited the same location, however, we took footage of a slightly different area. The area of our primary focus, was preferable as it contained a wider variety of boats which strongly reflects our theme to our song 'Boat Song'. We managed to reach our location just after the sun began to set so we could gain scenes of twilight lighting in the early hours of the evening. This was ideal as the broad, neighbouring the beach at Lowestoft, had many lights that began to light up just as the twilight hour began. These lights made our footage very

idyllic as it gave liveliness and theme to the scenes. Me and my opposing group member compromised and agreed that next time we visit the beach (whether that be Lowestoft or elsewhere) we will go earlier on in the day so we can capture daytime scenery which will come before our other footage. Not long before visiting Lowestoft for the second time, we had decided that Zoe would be the main character in our music video as our other character we had in mind wasn't particularly reliable. This second time upon visiting to shoot , I managed to film Zoe amongst the boats at the broad. We, as a group, thought having a girl as the main character for the music video (instead of our original male actor) would be more suited than a boy as the song is sung by a male to a girl, to which we decided that girl would be Zoe.