female representation

Female representation in music videos

One of the most obvious areas of representation in music videos is gender. When planning my music video, my group and I will need to take this into account and decide how we will choose to represent both males and females.
In 1992, Laura Mulvey described males as 'active' and women as 'passive' when it comes to music videos. 'The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly" suggesting women are portrayed as the males personal sex objects.
Andrew Goodwin also had a theory simply saying that 'voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially in treatment towards females'.
To extent I believe this is correct, that women are styled to look a certain way, generally wearing very little/revealing outfits and made to behave very naive and sexual. This is shown mostly in hip hop videos where women are seen as props in bikinis to create the complete rapper image, and seen less in genres such as rock and indie, where artists are more interested in drums than women.

One example is the American pop-rock singer P!nk who challenges all stereotypical representations of women in music videos. In 2006 P!nk released a track called Stupid Girls which basically inspires young girls, with her humourous yet meaningful video. The narrative encourages girls not to tan, or have plastic surgery, or feel like they need big breasts and little clothing to be attractive.

P!nk's song So What also challenges typical views when it comes to males 'dominating' females. Most female artists write lyrics about being down or hurt over a guy, however So What is about the breakup with her ex-husband, saying 'I'm alright, I'm just fine' while cutting down a tree engraved with her and ex-husband's real name with a chainsaw. I think this tests stereotypical views towards women and shows a different side to the usual voyeuristic image we're so used to. I like that she's shown women in a better light and very happy that the video and song was such a big hit!

Stupid Girls


So What