http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2up_Eq6r6Ko
Pitbull - Hotel Room Service
I have always found this song to be way too vulgar for mainstream radio stations (for example, the New York-based station Z100 on which it can be heard). From the very beginning of this music video, multiple scantily-clad women throw themselves at the rapper and then proceed to serve him alcohol as if they were his servants. His lyrics consists mostly of him telling the women what he is going to do to them or what they are going to do together. In the middle of the music video, the song stops and a woman storms into the scene. Appearing to be his girlfriend, the woman is furious that Pitbull has not been answering her phone calls all day and that he is obviously getting very comfortable with three half-naked women. In this video the role of the women is to please the well-dressed, clean-cut man by any means possible, whether sexually or almost in a servant-like manner. The male gets to sit back and enjoy this "service," but he also has the power and dominance to tell the women exactly what he plans on doing when the time comes for him to not be so passive. I think the target audience for this video is young men and women ranging from teenage years to low-20s, people who are likely to be able to relate to this type of party atmosphere. I do not think it is necessarily all that effective in reaching this audience because I find Pitbull to be very tasteless and disrespectful in his blatant objectification of women, and I know I am not the only individual who feels as such.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGyQQUsNLsY
Bow Down - Beyonce
This video portrays Beyonce as a royal queen in the days of old, and throughout the video she is attended to and surrounded by men in her court. She is fully and appropriately clothed, which is contrary to the usual attire worn in such music videos; although the men in the court are, too, they look sort of foolish (there is even a jester or two among the men). This is different from stereotypical music videos in which fully clothed men are surrounded by scandalous but usually beautiful women. The men bow down to her and act childish in fighting to open the door for her. Beyonce as a female in this music video has the power and dominance over everyone else; she is majestic, strong, and beautiful. Defying stereotypical gender roles, the men are all beneath her in status and are even portrayed as slightly foolish in demeanor. I think the target audience is the broad fan base Beyonce has--both men and women, mostly ranging from teenagers to relatively young adults. I believe the video is effective in reaching the target audience because the video itself is not as egotistical as the lyrics are; therefore we are distracted from the bold lyrics that have the potential to turn off audience members and are instead drawn to a video that portrays this well-respected superstar as the strong woman she is.
Finding a video portraying stereotypical gender roles was a very simple task for me because these portrayals are so common among mainstream music and music videos these days. It was much more difficult to find a video that defies these gender roles, and that fact was quite unsettling to me. The media perpetuates stereotypes in an age when we are trying to achieve freedom and equality for all, so it is striking to think about how frequently I see music videos in which women are truly treated as the objects of men, smoking and drinking while enjoying the sexual obedience of their female objects.
No comments:
Post a Comment