Challenging the representation of women in pop videos....
According to Andrew Goodwin’s theory women are portrayed as an object for male satisfaction in pop videos. What I have done is found a video that goes against the typical conventions of pop videos.
In the video irreplaceable Beyonce plays the role of the observer, Narrator and participant. This video challenges the norm of pop video and flips the role. We see exactly how this is done at the start and all the way through to the end of the video. The video starts off with a Beyonce leaning against the door frame and watching a man packing his things out of her house. This is where she plays the role as the observer. It is quite obvious that she calls the shots because the lyrics tell us this as well as what we see in the video. This definitely challenges the conventions of a pop video because it is usually the other way round, the man telling the woman to leave his house.
In this video Beyonce represents women as dominant, in control and head strong and men as cheating and pathetic. We see this in the video when he tries to put his hands on her she pushes them off. This is where she acts as a participant. She emphasises on the point that she is in control e.g. ‘If I bought it please don’t touch’. There is a bit in the video where she grabs hold of his arm and pulls him close only to take off the necklace and jumper he had on which am guessing she bought.
Although Beyonce challenges the normal representation of women in this video, she at the same time represents herself as an object of male desire by showing herself under dressed in her dressing room. So what does this mean?
In conclusion I feel this video challenges the normal representation of women but at the same time contradicts itself in a good way. What I mean by that is although Beyonce goes against the conventions of pop video and represents women as independent, head strong and in control she shows women off in a sexy way.
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