Sexism In Pop Videos

In 2013, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus provoked controversy due to the way they portrayed women as sexual objects. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the treatment of women within the music industry, with many seeing it as being sexist against women.

·Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory tries to explain why this is the case by suggesting that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance.  The theory suggests women can more often than not only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a man’s perspective.

·However, the presence of women in mainstream film texts is something that is vital, often a female character has no real importance herself, it is how she makes the male feel or act that is the importance; females only exist in relation to the male character’s choices and actions.

·The male gaze leads to hegemonic ideologies within our society, seeing men as the dominant or ruling group in society.

The music video for "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke is considered controversial due to the way the women in the video are treated by the men, the men seem to be the ones in control, dominant in their own right, treating the girls, who are almost naked, as little play dolls and making them perform their every command. The song itself has been a controversial topic as it has claims of being misogynistic and promoting date rape. 

This video does tie in to Mulvey’ theory, as the women are seen as objects of sexual desire for the men within the video and the audience consuming it. To further support this claim, there is an original version of this music video, one with the girls fully naked, this one shown above being the edited version due the original being removed form YouTube due to it violating the website’s terms of service.

The music video for “Wrecking Ball” also caused outrage due to sudden change of the artists’ image. Miley Cyrus was once known to the world as the sweet and innocent star of Hannah Montana, a very popular children’s show on Disney Channel, and was looked up to by girls from around the world. This video however was a huge contrast to the character she portrayed on that show as it seems she has ditched that image to take on a more sexualised one, I think she used this video to send a message to those who saw her as that Hannah Montana, saying she is now an independent woman, capable of making her own decisions.  Although others see it as being a publicity stunt, with her trying to gain more mainstream popularity and in turn, more revenue. 

The video itself is an amplified one, mostly consisting of her swinging on an actual wrecking ball, sometimes scantily clad or just naked. She is also makes use of props such as a hammer, performing what could be seen as sexual acts with it.

Lily Allen parodies the way women are treated in music video for “Hard Out Here”, especially the way black women are ‘showcased’ and reduced to ‘lurid props’ in most rap and hip-hop music videos. She wants society to be more feminist but with this video she seems to contradict herself as she still sexualises women in the video, maintaining the male gaze theory suggested by Mulvey. Although the actual song is quite feminist, as it promotes female empowerment.