Measure Up: Degradation of Women in Music Videos (A Personal Essay)

With the advent of reality television and a budding interest in music artists’ lives rather than their music, music videos have been pushed out of the spotlight. When Justin Timberlake shouted, “I challenge MTV to play more videos!” into a camera at the 2007 VMAs, MTV-haters supported Timberlake’s dare. However, music videos not only represent the musician as an artist and add depth to their music, these videos define stereotypes by heavily influencing public opinion and beliefs. More often than not, women are used solely for the sake of mass-audience appeal, and become the victims of bustiers and five inch heels. This image of women is not only false, it is degrading.

Music videos are the proper medium for addressing this social issue because the possibilities for a music video are endless. The lyrics of a song may sound innocent, but the video may be raunchy, and vice versa. There are also those songs whose lewd videos match lascivious lyrics. A good music video combines original music and lyrics with the musician’s artistic visions, usually translated by the director whose goal is to capture the band’s essence in three to four minutes. A song can share a riff with another by a different artist, but no two music videos can be alike; it is up to the band to decide whether or not to shoot their video in strip clubs on the Sunset Strip à la Motley Crue, who were all about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.

Music videos are mash-ups of space and time, taking the literal and combining it with the figurative and philosophical to create a storm of symbols and music. They are not edited like cinema films or television shows where things are clearly spliced, straightforward, and filtered. In Rufus Wainwright’s video for his cover of Across the Universe, he floats between apartment buildings while Dakota Fanning clutches a red balloon. Had Fanning been fifty feet off the ground in I Am Sam, the movie Wainwright did the Beatles cover for, critics would have gone crazy because floating is nonsensical in a non-fantasy/sci-fi film. Music is ambiguous and Wainwright got away with his art.

The degradation of women cannot be addressed as well in any other medium as it is in music videos, including music itself. Listeners connect what they hear to what they know, and they know by seeing; hearing Vince Neil sing, “Long legs and burgundy lips” is not as effective as seeing a scantily clad woman slide down a pole while Girls, Girls, Girls plays in the background. No matter which side of an argument is being presented in a music video, the artist is going to make an impact because they have celebrity status and naïve individuals support what their favorite singer stands for. On the contrary, it does not matter how many appealing visual effects a film has, it will not set the mood of the film – the soundtrack does.

Other social issues have been mentioned in music videos, the most common one being war. There is no inappropriate topic for a music video, as both music and film are forms of art. Although less people watch music videos today in favor of networks constantly cycling seasons of America’s Next Top Model for thirteen consecutive hours every day, these music videos are still being watched and rewarded every year.

Despite Timberlake’s sexed up music videos, he does have a very excellent and strong point. If musicians realized the power they have as performers in the spotlight, they could change the world. Every time a man expects something from a woman, he should stop and think where that opinion came from; chances are it was from pornography or a music video.

Watch the video.
Starring myself, Karen Donaldson, John Davis, Peter Greenberg, and Chris Donaldson. Special thanks to the Donaldson family (for their hospitality and patience) and Eric Everett (for the mic stands).

Originally posted on my blog: Punch Me So I Can See The Stars.

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