Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
0512573
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Contents Page
Abstract i
Literature Review 1
Visual Culture and Representation 2
What is Femininity? 3
Popular Culture and ‘Images of Women’ 4
Post-Feminism? 7
Music Videos 9
The media and Social Constructionism 10
Women and Sexuality 11
Methodological Approaches
13
Data Gathering 13
Methodology 14
What is Textual Analysis? 15
Sampling 17
References 63
Appendix 67
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Literature Review
This section is a review of relevant background literature including literature on the politics of
representation, popular culture and feminist writing on women’s representations in the media,
which outlines their perspectives and findings and discusses the different stereotypes and
to the larger field of feminist inquiry has been the argument that
The recent and general resurgence of feminism and feminist theory has been apparent in the
growing interest shown by cultural studies and the sociology of culture in popular cultural
representations of women. Feminism as an intellectual activity and a political strategy has a long
It is possible to argue that there have been at least three strands of feminism which have
been significant: liberal feminism, which criticises the unequal and exploitative representation of
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women in the media and popular culture and argues for equal opportunities; radical feminism,
which sees the interests of men and women as being fundamentally and inevitably divergent,
regards patriarchy or the control and repression of women by men as the most crucial historical
form of social division and oppression, and argues for a strategy of female separatism; and
socialist feminism which accepts the stress on patriarchy but tries to incorporate it into the
analysis of capitalism, and argues for the radical transformation of the relations between the
genders as an integral part of the emergence of a socialist society. More recently in the study of
popular culture, these differences appear to have become blurred as attention has shifted away
from radical feminism and towards other theories such as postmodernism. Nowadays, feminism
consists of the argument that the inequalities in gender power relations are socially and culturally
constructed.
We live in a culture that is increasingly permeated by visual images with a variety of purposes
and intended effects. These images can produce in us a wide array of emotions and responses:
pleasure, desire, anger, disgust, confusion or curiosity. We invest the images we create and
encounter on a daily basis with significant power – for instance, the power to conjure an absent
person, the power to calm or incite to action, the power to persuade or mystify. A single image
can serve a multitude of purposes, appear in a range of settings and mean different things to
different people.
‘Representation’ refers to the use of language and images to create meaning about the
world around us. Over time, images have been used to represent, make meaning of, and convey
various sentiments about nature, society, and culture as well as to represent imaginary worlds
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and abstract concepts (Sturken; Cartwright 2001). Representation brings me to the subject of this
dissertation. From its beginnings, feminism has regarded language and images as crucial in
shaping women’s lives. From this beginning, there followed critiques of stereotypical
representations of women in films and advertisements, and studies of the ways in which
language and image defines and confines women. Before I go on to talk about the research that
has been conducted on female media representations and their findings, since the key overall
theme of the research is femininity and how it is represented in contemporary music videos, I
would firstly like to review ideas about femininity and how these definitions link to the research.
‘What is femininity?’
This is a question, which has exercised feminist writers for decades, and many feminist writers
have attempted to pin down the elusive concept of femininity. For example, Brownmiller (1984
nostalgic tradition of imposed limitations’. Wolf (1990 cited in Holland 2004:7) argues that
‘femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever a society happens to be selling. If femininity
means female sexuality…women never lost it and do not need to buy it back’. ‘Femininity’ as a
concept holds many shifting, subjective components and expectations and there can be no one
definition. It is a ‘curiously intangible and fluid term’ (Thesander 1997 cited in Holland 2004:
35). For many second-wave feminists, femininity was seen as fundamental to understanding
women’s oppression. Girls it was often claimed were socialized into feminine values and
behaviour, which were associated with passivity, submissiveness and dependence on males.
Smith (1988 cited in Holland 2004:10) refutes the idea of femininity as only an effect of
patriarchy or that women are merely the passive dupes of either mass media or male power. She
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argues that it is important to avoid “the treatment of women as passive victims…to recognize
women’s active and creative part…they are active, they create themselves”.
something lived by millions of women who are constantly changing and evolving. If we see
femininity as a discourse (that is, a set of ideas, rules and beliefs), we ‘shift away from viewing it
as a normative order’ (Smith 1988 cited in Holland 2004:35) and in doing so we see more
feminine woman include assumptions about vulnerability, physical strength, intelligence and
sexual availability.
By the mid 1970’s, the study of women and popular culture often centred on questions
about ‘images of women’ (Hollows 2000:21). In the US much of this research continued the
project started with Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique (1963), a foundational text of
second-wave feminism, which was an analysis of the position of women in Western society, and
examined how the media played a role in socialising women into restrictive notions of
femininity.
Popular culture has been the object of a great deal of feminist analysis. As John Fiske has
pointed out:
“Popular culture is always part of power relations; it always bears traces of the constant
struggle between domination and subordination, between power and various forms of
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Central questions to this research include how femininity is represented in music videos and
Much research has been conducted on female media representations. Advertising and the
representation of women are areas of popular culture, which have attracted the attention of
feminists. Baehr (1981 cited in Strinati 2004: 166) comments: ‘from its very beginnings the
Women’s movement has responded critically, often angrily, to what it has rather loosely called
“sexism in the media”. Gillian Dyer (1982: 97) in her analysis of advertisements notes:
housewives, mothers’.
These findings can be compared with Angela McRobbie’s analysis of magazines, which comes
to similar conclusions. McRobbie offers one of the most thoughtful analyses of gender and
popular culture. She observes patriarchal ideology at work in media products, in particular
magazines in the 1970’s such as Jackie. According to McRobbie (1991), Jackie magazine is
constructed in such a way as to depict female gender identity as based on romantic love, finding
Recurring patterns are found when analysing images of women in film. Laura Mulvey
(1975), in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, which is possibly the most frequently cited
piece of feminist film criticism, argues that dominant cinema speaks neither ‘for’ women nor ‘of’
women, but rather speaks a discourse of male Oedipal desire, a possessive, sadistic desire
haunted by the fear of sexual difference defined by the mother’s castration by the Father. Mulvey
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asserts that film represents women through a fetishistic visual process that simultaneously denies
and asserts their sexual difference. Woman is objectified by the male’s controlling gaze and has
placement and editing. She is fetishised into a part object with visual emphasis added through
perspective, angle, or lighting to the legs, buttocks, breasts, face. Film as an oppressive
mechanism fashions the female into a passive spectacle for the male look. The female can only
These conclusions support what Tuchman calls the ‘symbolic annihilation’ of women
(Tuchman 1981 cited in Strinati 2004: 163). Women are represented by stereotypes based on
sexual attractiveness and the performance of domestic labour. Tuchman (1981 cited in Strinati
2004:163) relates this notion of ‘symbolic annihilation’ to the ‘reflection hypothesis’, which
suggests that the mass media reflect the dominant social values in society. These concern, not the
society as it really is, but its ‘symbolic representation’, how it would like to see itself (Tuchman
The above findings can be compared with those from more recent studies of female
media representations, which come to different conclusions. McRobbie (1999), in her book In
the Culture Society, discusses the shifting representations of femininity in visual media and print
culture since the 1970’s, by analysing Just Seventeen magazine (which was launched in the
1980s). McRobbie’s recent approaches of feminism are her notions of the ‘changing modes of
femininity’ and ‘new sexualities’ (McRobbie 1999: 50). ‘New Sexualities’ refer to ‘images and
texts, which break decisively with the conventions of feminine behaviour by representing
females as lustful young women’ (McRobbie 1999: 50). According to McRobbie, women have
therefore departed the notions of ladylike behaviour and have entered a notion of sex. They have
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dramatically changed in their attitudes and have become sexual. The girl is no longer a slave for
love. Romance is an absent category in Just Seventeen. There is more of the self in this new
vocabulary of femininity, much more self-esteem and autonomy, which relates to what is called
‘post feminism’.
Post-feminism?
Post-feminism refers to an active process by which feminist gains of the 1970s come to
of contemporary popular culture are effective in regard to this ‘undoing’ of feminism (McRobbie
by sociologist Giddens (1991). He emphasizes the enlargement of freedom and choice, which
1991:75) allows females to be more independent and invent their own structures or in other
words be self-managing. Females now choose what kind of life they want to live. They have
become reflexive in many aspects of their lives: sexuality and leisure practices. McRobbie
identifies signs of ‘progress’ (McRobbie 1991:182). Females are being encouraged to achieve
their individual style and be creative. This ‘takes on a more confident edge’ (McRobbie
1991:182). This new individuality and confidence, McRobbie argues, is an advance on the
The roles females in recent decades are adopting are ‘take charge roles rather than usual
family roles’ (Demming 1992 cited in Lotz 2001:107). They are shaped within the roles of ‘new’
femininities and ‘new’ subjectivities located in a ‘girl power’ discourse (Jackson 2006:483).
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‘Girl Power’ girls know what they want and how they want to get it and are assertive, self-
inventive and sexual. This means subjectivity for women and ‘girl power’, not passivity and
objectification.
However, McCabe and Akass have come to different conclusions. They (2006) have
offered a critical response to one of the most talked about show on contemporary television:
Desperate Housewives. They argue, Desperate Housewives, a classic soap opera format, echoes
the suburban dystopias and reinforces the ideas of a dated version of suburbia and a version of
male-female relationships that have long past. Yet, in spite of the fact that the five female
protagonists have far more choices than women in previous generations, all are suffering from
the gap between ideals and reality. No less than for earlier generations, their lives fail to live up
to the brochure. Their relationships with men are unsatisfactory and their relationships with their
children are difficult. McCabe and Akass argue that despite the women’s movement efforts to
liberate women from the exile of the domestic sphere, Desperate Housewives, like domestic
reality television, returns women to the home. As in the domestic reality television series in
which housewives are taught traditional concepts of gender, and in which wives and not
husbands are swapped, Desperate Housewives puts forward the assumption that domesticity is a
female-orientated sphere and comes close to a feminist critique of patriarchy and the unequal
division of labour.
become clear that more recent research, such as the research conducted by McCabe and Akass,
does not necessarily mean ‘progress’ in female representations and the femininities that are
represented are not consistent. This lies primarily in the fact that the term ‘femininity’ is a
concept which refers to a set of gendered behaviours and practices, which are fluid and not fixed,
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and can mean as many different things. As Butler argues, it is a ‘stylised repetition of acts’ and is
fragile, shifting, contextual and never complete (2006:198). These shifting representations found
in the above research conducted, echo some of my own findings when analysing music videos. It
is now vital to talk about the medium I will use for my analysis: music videos.
Music Videos
Music video is one of the most important emergent cultural forms in contemporary popular
culture (Frith, Goodwin, Grossberg 1993). Since 1981 when MTV (Music Television) was
launched, music videos have made ‘image’ more important than the experience of music itself.
In watching a video, the visual plane tends to dominate our attention right away. “The song is
Considering the popularity of the genre little academic work has been carried out on the
music video. My interest towards this study stemmed from the lack of writing on female
representations in music videos. This lack arises from the fact that postmodern critics see MTV a
mirror image of the ideal postmodern text: ‘fragmentation, segmentation, superficiality, stylistic
jumbling, the blurring of mediation and reality…’ (Tetzlaff 1986 cited in Frith; Goodwin;
Grossberg 1993: 45). This addresses some visible issues such as the simplicity and low cultural
status of the music video and that this has meant that academics have chosen to focus on more
‘serious’ and complex concerns. Marxist writers Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer notice
the above recurring themes in many contemporary media texts. Adorno (1991 cited in Strinati
2004: 54), uses the term ‘culture industry’ to describe the processes and products of popular or
mass culture. They argue that the culture industry produces a culture of ‘standardisation’ and
‘sameness’, which in turn prevents critical thought (1991 cited in Strinati 2004: 56). For Adorno:
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“the total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment” (1991 cited in Strinati
2004:57). It ‘dumbs down’ the people. Therefore, as popular culture helps loose critical worth it
becomes non-artistic and devalues authentic or ‘high’ culture. Adorno makes the distinction
between popular and high culture, where ‘high’ is viewed as ‘serious’ (Adorno 1991 cited in
Strinati 2004).
Despite their frivolity, music videos, and in particular the dominant Pop form that I will
be analysing, stresses on style and artifice and one could argue that it ‘advertises’ the female
body. As Watson and Railton (2005: 52) note: ‘perhaps, more than anything, pop music videos is
a fruitful resource for examining representations of sexual behaviour’. They argue that
performance of sexual attractiveness and availability are imbricated in the generic codes of the
component in our understanding of music as erotic’ (Frith 1996 cited in Watson; Railton 2005:
52). Therefore I feel Pop music videos deserve serious attention in terms of female
representations, as the female body becomes central. The use of music videos will build on
existing work, as there has not been much work in this form of media text before and therefore
my research will have touched on the wider media in terms of female representations. As post-
feminism has come to be of importance in the way representations are shaped in contemporary
culture, I will also look at whether or not post-feminism can be applied to music videos.
Popular culture and the media have seen the female body become central in representations of
femininity and sexuality. The female body has been used in the creation of social order; therefore
female bodies are conceived and depicted depending on the dominant discourses of the mass
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media. Contemporary social theorists have found that ‘social constructionism’ has been used to
denote those views that the body is somehow shaped and controlled by society. Michel
Foucault’s work is in many ways, is the most influential social constructionist approach and it
goes well beyond seeing the body as a receptor of social meanings. For Foucault (1974 cited in
Shilling 1993), the body is not only given meaning by discourse but is wholly constituted by
discourse. In effect, the body vanishes as a biological entity and becomes instead a socially
constructed product. This approach has proved especially popular with feminist scholars who
have used Foucault’s work to argue against the notion that the natural body is the basis on which
individual identities and social inequalities are built and to support the argument that the
gendered identities are fractured. Foucault’s approach on social constructionism is useful for my
research, as it helps to acknowledge the fact that femininity is constructed in the media in order
As an undeniable powerful presence in contemporary popular culture, women are often upheld as
theory of The History of Sexuality. In The History of Sexuality (1990), Foucault attempts to
disprove the thesis that Western society has seen a repression of sexuality since the 17th century
and that sexuality has been unmentionable, something impossible to speak about. In the 70s,
when the book was written, the sexual revolution was a fact. The ideas of the psychoanalyst
Wilhelm Reich, saying that to conserve your mental health you needed to liberate your sexual
energy, were popular. The past was seen as a dark age where sexuality had been something
forbidden. Foucault, on the other hand, states that Western culture has long been fixated on
sexuality. We call it a repression. The repression of feminine sexuality centres on the female
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body and the history of power relations that have acted upon it. Woman is always other, her
social relations, or sexuality. However, in discussing power relations, Foucault erases the binary
opposition between the oppressor and the oppressed; one cannot simply argue that males have
been the oppressive power force dominant throughout history. Nevertheless, women’s feminine
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Methodological Approaches
This section reflects on the method I used in order to conduct my research and it includes
Data Gathering
As I have already mentioned and justified in my introduction, the data I have gathered for my
analysis consists of Pop music videos of the US, where I will be analysing the performance of
the female artist of each video. I have chosen to analyse three music videos from the 1980s and
three from the 2000s. The reason why I have chosen these particular decades rests on the
following:
By the 1980s women had reacted against second-wave feminism and this produced what
was called ‘post-feminism’, which I have already mentioned in the literature review. Post-
feminism indicated that feminist activism was no longer needed (Faludi 1991:50). A number of
media scholars writing in the US began to apply similar definitions of post-feminism to various
media texts. Faludi (1991) uses post-feminism to describe the attitude that women no longer care
about feminism, a perspective she finds particularly evident in news media representations of
women’s attitudes towards feminism in the 1980s. Press (1991 cited in Lotz 2001: 112) uses
post-feminism to define the anti-feminist spirit she finds in the 1980s fictional television,
suggesting that post-feminism indicates ‘a retreat from feminist ideas challenging women’s
traditional role in the family’ and instead marks ‘an increasing openness toward traditional
notions of femininity and feminine roles’. Finally, Modleski (1991 cited in Lotz: 2001) suggests
that post-feminism assumes that the goals of feminism have been attained, a discourse she finds
in 1980s films. Post-feminism has prolonged and it has reached the 2000s; therefore the
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significance of the 1980s and 2000s lies within post-feminism. What is of interest to me is to
unpack representations in Pop music videos of both decades, compare them and discover
Methodology
The methodological approach I will use is the qualitative method of textual analysis and in
Saussure developed a systematic understanding of how language works and he argued that the
sign was the basic unit of the gauge. The sign consists of two parts: The signified is a concept or
an object, let’s say ‘a very young human unable to walk or talk’ and the second part is the
signifier, which is the sound or image attached to a signified, in this case the word ‘baby’.
In order to be able to find the appropriate signs for my own analysis, Gillian Dyer (1982)
in her analysis of ads, points out that the photographs of many adverts depend on signs of
humans, which symbolise particular qualities to their audience. Dyer has a useful checklist for
• Dress. Women and dress may work especially well in order to keep women in
• Body. Which bodies are fat and which are thin? Are we shown certain parts of the
2) Representations of manner
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• Expression. Are women shown happy, sad, seductive and so on? Facial or other
• Eye contact. Who are women looking at (including audience) and how? Are these
• Pose. Are women standing or sitting? Are they in control or are they passive?
3) Representations of activity
• Settings. Settings range from the ‘normal’ to the ‘exotic’. What effect does the
Using Dyer’s list as a framework for my own analysis provides a good way of specifying in
some detail how visual images of women produce certain signifieds. However, this kind of
interpretation clearly requires the kind of extensive knowledge of images. This is a matter I will
Semiotic textual analysis begins by attempting to assess how realistically a text represents the
world through codes. Semiology demands detailed analysis of images, and its reliance on
elaborate analytical terminology create careful and precise accounts of how meaning of
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particular images are made. This requires looking at the music videos, not as representing ‘the
manifest actuality of our society’, but rather as reflecting ‘symbolically the structure of values
and relationships beneath the surface’ (Fiske 1978 cited in Bertrand; Hughes 2005: 185). The
• It can be applied to very small samples, such as 3-5 min videos, and it does not require
• Provided the sample is small enough, it can deal with complex systems of significations
like film or television, analysing both moving and still images and sound (Bertrand;
Hughes 2005). As music videos are moving images, semiotic analysis will be
appropriate. Rakow and Kranich (1991 cited in Bertrand and Hughes 2005) successfully
used semiotic analysis to look at moving image such as television and particularly
• Category definitions and unit measurements can be developed to suit the material being
analysed, such as Dyer’s checklist for exploring signs, and notions of the reliability and
validity of measurement are not appropriate (Bertrand; Hughes 2005). Similar categories
have been used by Machin and Thornborrow (2003) in order to uncover female
• Textual analyses will allow me to deal with subjects that are very current. I can work
with the latest music videos, which are from the 2000’s and compare it with the ones
from the 80’s (Silverman 2001). As my aim is to examine the representation of women in
two different decades, this method is suitable and I will be able to detect any changes in
female representations.
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Apart from the strengths of semiotic analysis, there are limitations that should be addressed:
system, not easily broken down into measurable units Bertrand; Hughes 2005).
Regarding the limitations of this method, by using Dyer’s checklist I will be able to break down
the images into units that I can focus on and this will allow me to analyse in more detail.
Therefore, in consideration of the above, I believe textual analysis is appropriate for my research.
Sampling
1980s:
2000s:
I will gain access to these videos through the Internet, specifically through ‘Youtube’.
As I stated earlier, semiological studies require extensive knowledge of the type of image the
study will examine (Rose 2001). Goldman (1992 cited in Rose 2001) was watching ads for over
a decade before writing his book. Since I can remember, music videos have been of interest to
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me and this is a television genre I watch frequently. Semiologists, such as Goldman and
Williamson (1978 cited in Rose 2001) however, neither suggest a rigorous sampling procedure is
required, as content analysis would. Nor do they say how they chose their data. This, according
to Rose (2001), is because semiologists choose their data on the basis of how conceptually
interesting they are. As there is no content analysis, there is no concern among semiologists to
find images that are statistically representative of a wider set of images, for example. Images are
interpreted in close relation to semiological theory, and the discussion of particular images is
often directed to exemplifying analytical points. Thus semiology often takes the form of detailed
studies of relatively few images and the study stands or falls on the analytical integrity and
interest rather than on its applicability to a wide range of material (Rose 2001). Therefore my
reason for choosing the particular music videos is not only because I was very familiar with these
but they also they stood out for me in terms of concept and I thought it was necessary for these
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‘Lights…Camera…Action!’:
Findings & Discussion
This section offers a detailed analysis, using the methodological approach of semiotic textual
analyses and in particular Dyer’s checklist, of six selected pop music videos. Three videos from
the 80s: Cyndi Lauper-‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, Whitney Houston-‘I Wanna Dance With
Somebody’, Madonna-‘Express Yourself’ and three from the 00s: Pink-‘Most Girls’, Christina
femininity, sexuality, beauty and independence. Apart from Dyer’s checklist, I will also be
In order to illustrate the points I make on each video, I have provided images from the actual
music videos. I would like to inform you that all images you are about to see within this section
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‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ – Cyndi Lauper (1983)
The video begins with Lauper dancing her way home from her neighbourhood to her house.
Looking at dress, she is wearing a sleeveless, golden peach colour, knee-length dress with
different types of belts around her waist: a studded belt and waist chains. She is adorned with
accessories such as numerous colourful bangles and necklaces. Her hair is ginger coloured and it
is cut very short on the one side of her head, making it fall to one side of her neck, which reveals
a wild look, distinct from mainstream feminine looks. Lauper’s image is more an ode to the
adolescent discourse, enacting an alignment girls make in an attempt to counter the restrictive
femininity discourse. She represents a rebellious, anti-feminine image. Her display of odd
accessory combinations, her hair cut, her wearing of colourful, fake jewellery mock socially
Lauper’s fashion is distinct from mainstream fashion. As Simmel argues (1971 cited in
distinction runs across a wide plane of social identities. In particular, youth subcultures employ
dress to mark out distinctive identities both between themselves and mainstream culture. Their
use of style and their distinctive patterns of life marked them out as different, exotic, or even
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deviant and violent. This leads me on to the next point, which is touch and I will be examining
The next scene is set in her house. It is in the middle of the night and the phone rings.
Lauper, in her pyjamas, attempts to pick up the phone; however her father stops her furiously, as
he is aware that her friends are calling. Her father yells ‘what are you gonna do with your life?’
She then forcefully grabs his arm, twists it and pins him against the wall and sings ‘girls, they
want to have fun!’ Her father then runs off frightened, Lauper laughs and calls her friends. Here,
Lauper is being represented as controlling and ‘unruly’. According to Rowe (1995 cited in
Creeber 2001:68), the unruly woman is one who does not conform to her ‘proper place’ and
questions the primal social dichotomy between male and female through excess and
outrageousness. In Lauper’s case, the unruly woman is characterised by her control over her
father and this exceeds the norms of femininity. Although, Lauper is presented to us in a
dominating way, allowing male authority to be challenged, the sequence with her father is
portrayed in a comedic way. This demonstrates how dramedy fosters the weaving of comic and
dramatic elements, creating a complex text that lends itself to the articulation of ideological
discourse (McCabe & Akass 2006). My contention is that dramedy demolishes a politically
progressive text regarding the female gender. How and why does dramedy achieve this?
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The term ‘dramedy’ first appeared in the 1980’s and was applied to series like
Moonlighting and The Wonder Years. Dramedies blend the comic and the serious together
(McCabe & Akass 2006) and often in dramedy, incongruity is used. Something is humorous
when it is odd, abnormal or out of place (Stott 2005). It is the bringing of one thing into a
taxonomy in which it is not considered to belong. Although Lauper in that particular scene of the
humorous from the displacement of order. It acknowledges the disruption of order and then, by
using humour, reveals its absurdity (Stott 2005), which in turn makes the situation appear trivial,
What is constantly repeated throughout the entire video are the lyrics ‘girls just want to
have fun’ and this is distinguished by Lauper’s continuous dancing in the corridors of her house,
in the kitchen and while on the phone to her friends. Before observing the theme of dance, I
would like to explore the central theme of this music video, which is fun and is observed through
expression and body movement. Throughout the video Lauper adopts happy facial expressions
by constantly smiling and laughing. She also dances her way around the surroundings she is
situated in, raising her hands high and moving them about, signifying playfulness and enjoyment.
Myra McDonald, (1995: 129) poses the question: ‘What do women want?’ She adds that
in media representations and in historical myth, women rarely had the opportunity to pose the
question. As Warner (1987 cited in McDonald 1995: 130) points out, Eve who was forbidden
from tasting the fruit from the tree of knowledge becomes the ‘agent of fatality through the
desire she inspires, not experiences’. Eve, by breaking the rules that were given to her by God,
was punished for her overbearing curiosity. However, what I found very interesting is that this
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particular video answers the question posed by McDonald, which is fun and the media
acknowledges the existence of female desire, therefore in this music video it is possible to detect
what McRobbie calls ‘progress’ (McRobbie 1991 cited in Hollows 2000: 171). I will expand the
In this video however, fun does not include romance. McRobbie argues that by the late
1980s and early 1990s, magazines shifted away from the docile sensibility, replacing it instead
with a much more assertive and ‘fun-seeking’ female subjectivity (1999: 50). She adds that this
is signalled in the disappearance of romance. This is what is happening in Lauper’s video. There
is no sign of a romantic male figure in order for the text to include romance and she is not
dependent on a male in order to have fun. It is about Lauper wanting to have fun without the
The next aspect I would like to look at in the video is settings. Towards the end of the
video, the bouncing Lauper leads her band of girlfriends through New York City streets in a
frenzied snake dance that turns women’s experience of foreboding streets upside down in a
carnivalesque display. Her hands reaching out for more space, she pushes a group of male
construction workers who function as symbols of female harassment on the street. The lyrical
refrain ‘girl’s just want to have fun’ enacts a powerful cry for access to the realm of male
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Sub-cultural theorists in their emphasis on deviant youth have tended to see ‘the street’ as
‘the home’ of the sub-culture (Hollows 2000: 163). Three key cultural critics have heavily
influenced the agenda for work on youth subcultures within cultural studies: Stuart Hall (1976
cited in Hollows 2000), Paul Willis (1977 cited in Hollows 2000) and Dick Hebdige (1979 cited
in Hollows 2000). These critics created a cultural distinction between members of youth
subcultures and the mainstream, the majority of young people. For these critics, youth
subcultures are valued positively because, it is opposed, they are ‘actively produced’ by young
people themselves (Hollows 2000: 162); they are defined by their distance from mainstream
culture; they are therefore authentic; they are a means by which young people express their
difference and they are deviant, resistant and oppositional. However, the characteristics
associated with youth subcultures are ones that are commonly associated with masculinity and
the characteristics associated with the mainstream are associated with femininity. This is
compounded by the ways in which sub-cultural theories have tended to see youth cultures as
inherently male (Thornton 1995 cited in Hollows 2000). Females are socialised to avoid streets
for fear of harassment or rape, to expect to become objects of the male gaze. Girls are
discouraged from participation in sub-cultural formations associated with male street culture
(Frith; Goodwin; Grossberg 1993). McRobbie argues whether it is necessary to explore whether
girls are totally absent from subcultures (McRobbie 1991). Lauper’s video shows evidence of
female presence in subcultures by the use of the street, which reworks the ideological stance of
male privilege and gender inequality. In the video, Lauper takes over the streets, pushes men
aside, there are equal exchanges of looks and co-participation in leisure practises among boys
and girls. This suggests the role-reversal and utopianism for equal rights and recognition.
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As I mentioned earlier, throughout the entire video, Lauper is seen dancing. This next
point, which is also the last point I will be looking at for this music video is associated with body
movement and it is dance. McRobbie (1984 cited in Frith, Goodwin, Grossberg 1993: 140)
describes dance as an ‘activity of control, pleasure and sensuality’ for girls and offers girls ‘a
positive and vibrant sexual expressiveness and a point of connection with other pleasures of
femininity such as dressing up and putting on make up’. Lauper and her girlfriends are shown
chatting on the phone in a shot of long duration. The video summons up the pleasure that many
girls find in choreographed movement with a shot of Lauper and friends swaying rhythmically to
the music, wrapped in intimate arm embraces. Dance is the mode through which Lauper and her
female followers accomplish their symbolic take-back on the street. Dance, here, carries within it
the possibility of some transformative power. Its art lies in its ability to create a change, escape
or achievement for girls who are surrounded by more mundane and limiting leisure opportunities
(Desmond 1998 cited in Boyd 2004). Although women have traditionally been silenced in the
literal forms of communication, women comprise the majority of dance communities (Desmond
1998 cited in Boyd 2004). Dance is a medium where women and girls can actively express
themselves and in the video, Lauper is not only expressing herself but is dominating the dance
world.
In this video, not only has Lauper answered McRobbie’s question that girls are present in
subcultures but her willingness to shout out what she wants, fun, gives her a ‘presence in a male
dominated public space’ (Lemish 1998 cited in Jackson 2006:471). Lauper has demonstrated
female independence and confidence and refutes passive and dependent representations of
femininity.
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‘I Want to Dance with Somebody’- Whitney Houston (1987)
The video starts off with Houston performing in a black and white concert arena. She walks
backstage and the scene is intercut with vivid and colourful images of her. The entire video is set
in a studio setting, which is a confined and restricted area. I will talk about the setting feature
shortly. First, I would like to look at dress, which is an attention-grabbing feature throughout the
video. Houston is shown wearing different fashionable and colourful short dresses and skirts,
Along with dresses and skirts, the colours pink and red potently communicate
‘femininity’ in the west. The skirt or dress helps to maintain a crucial gender distinction
(Entwistle 2000). Distinctions of gender drawn by clothes, often become fundamental to our
‘commonsense’ readings of bodies and in this respect, fashion ‘naturalises’ the cultural order
all, it is used to demarcate gender, so that although the symbols change with fashion the
The dresses Houston wears are stretch fabric, which form a tight fit and vary in style: sleeveless,
one sleeve, polo sleeveless and low cut displaying cleavage. Identifying a fashion style – one that
accentuates breasts and hips with tight fittings and stiletto heels - implies ‘a renewed celebration
of woman as about intimacy, sex and reproductive destiny’ (McCabe & Akass 2006: 83). In his
discussion of male and female dress, Laver (1995 cited in Entwistle 2000: 159) suggests that
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women are ‘naturally’ narcissistic than men and their dress exhibits what he calls the ‘seduction
principle’, the aim being to enhance sexual attractiveness. What does this mean? Do women
Some women are presumed to be concerned to the point of distraction about the way they
look and what they wear to please and attract men. According to Berger (1972 cited in Gaines &
Herzog 1990) a woman sees herself from the point of view of two constituent but distinct parts
of her identity: the surveyed and the surveyor. As the surveyed, she is the person being looked at
and as the surveyor she plays the part of a man looking at herself, judging and criticizing herself.
Surprisingly this theory does in fact apply to the video, when Houston is standing in front of a
mirror and looking at herself while moving to the beat, where we could argue that Houston is
judging herself in order to attract the males. But I thought the video was about Houston being the
surveyor and looking for the perfect dance partner! Considering the lyrics again, Houston sings:
‘I want to dance with somebody…with somebody who loves me’. Houston is not only looking for
the perfect dance partner, but also someone who loves her and this is where the tables turn. In
order for someone to love her, she has to be the one surveyed and therefore needs to look her
best in order to please that someone. It could be argued that this is why she is constantly
changing her outfits throughout the video. It is almost as if she is trying to find the outfit that
looks best on her. This illustrates that women view their bodies as objects ‘to be looked at’ and
informs the choices women make when getting dressed for certain situations (Berger 1972 cited
cultural and punk dress with baggy fittings, flat shoes and not in need of a man or romance.
However, Houston is not only dependent on love and romance, which is a theme I will be
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looking at further on in the dissertation, but her dress and fashion sense also illustrates that the
boundaries of gender are tangibly still in place and that post-modern society still remains
Throughout the video, certain parts of Houston’s body are emphasised with the use of the
camera focusing in on them. I will explore hair, looks and body in the video and look at what
they signify in terms of the wider female issues. In the beginning of the video Houston’s body is
fragmented into a series of fetishized parts via a montage of close-ups: her red luscious lips, her
dazzling big brown eyes, her thin hands, her buttocks, which is outlined through a tight fitted
dresses and a close up of her facial profile. Throughout the video we are shown close-ups of her
face, which is sealed with bright coloured make up and each time matching her dress.
In the video, Houston possesses brunette, long and curly hair, which certainly enhances her
beauty and femininity. Women’s hair has had a powerful effect and has been used in images,
stories and fairytales throughout history. Medusa’s hair was made of snakes; Rapunzel, locked in
a tower, let down her hair for a prince to climb up and rescue her. Bryer (2000 cited in Holland
2004:59) points out that long hair has embodied Western beauty and femininity for centuries: for
example ‘the length and abundance of the woman’s hair is the prime feature of Botticelli’s
evocation of beauty’. Through her tight fitted dress we also see her model like figure: thin yet
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curvaceous. Houston is represented as a beautiful, slim woman, just like the ones you see in the
It is clear, that Houston’s agency in the video is linked to beauty and sexiness. Mulvey
(1975 cited in Penley 1988:58), argues that woman in film narratives ‘acts as a signifier for the
male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions
through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her
place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning’. Mulvey (1975) goes on to say that the image
of the woman in cinema becomes fetishistic. Fetishism turns women into an image that is
enjoyable by turning some part of her body into a fetish - that is, by focusing on some aspect of
her that can be made pleasurable in itself. Using Houston’s video as an example, her lips, her
buttocks, her eyes and curvaceous body become objects that are fetishised. According to Adorno
(1991), when describing the processes of popular culture, humans enter a state of fetishism when
they start to worship a cultural product or commodity such as music or television. If we apply the
fetishised commodity to the fetishised woman, she automatically becomes devalued to a product,
a commodity and looses her intellectual and human worth. Earlier work on women and popular
culture concentrated upon what Tuchman (1981 cited in Strinati 2004: 162),) has called the
‘symbolic annihilation’ of women. This refers to the way cultural production and media
representations ignore, marginalise or trivialise women and their interests. Women are
represented by stereotypes based on sexual attractiveness (Tuchman 1981 cited in Strinati 2004),
and this is illustrated through Houston. Therefore, for Mulvey, woman as an image in
mainstream cinema is produced as a spectacle for the ‘male gaze’ and she can only function as
an object and product of the narrative, which signifies passivity (Mulvey 1975 cited in Penley
1988: 62). Whereas Lauper, who, through her unruly actions and her oppositional looks and
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dress, represented an attempt to challenge certain stereotypes, Houston shows no resistant
Moving on to my next point: setting, the video is set a studio setting, which is a confined
area with a minimum of props that index a bar area (table, chair, drinking glass). Houston
appears in empty settings with empty but colourful backgrounds that evoke a de-territorialised
simplicity. The empty bar and settings, could signify the emptiness in her life, the lack of a man.
This is the reason why she is looking for someone to dance with her and that loves her, so that
her life would be fulfilled and she would not be alone. As Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996 cited in
Machin & Thornborrow 2003) have shown in their analysis of magazines, the absence of setting
lowers modality, moves it away from naturalistic representations to more schematic and
idealised representations. Colour plays a key role in the modality of theses images. Rather than
embracing natural settings in the outside and real world, as Lauper did with the use of the streets,
Houston is restricted in an area that reinforces the constraint of challenging female agency.
There colours of the settings are vivid and bright such as purples, pinks, blues, and
yellows, which makes them sensual and enticing and the colours of Houston’s clothes are closely
coordinated, which produces an impression of high stylisation and a further remove from reality,
The whole feel of this video, is that of fashion. It is as if one is looking at the glossy
pages of women’s magazines. As I am being drawn back to the fashion theme, I feel it is
significant to make a last point about it. Tseelon (1997 cited in Entwistle 2000) suggests, women
have historically been defined as trivial, superficial and vain because of their association with
fashion have therefore represented women as the object of fashion, even its victim (Veblen 1953,
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Roberts 1977 cited in Entwistle 2000). Dress was not a matter of equal male and female concern
and a woman’s disposition to decorate herself served to represent her as silly or weak. The things
associated with women tend to have lower social status than the things associated with men
Although I argue that the fashion perspective reinforces Houston as a passive and weak
object, in the beginning of the section, she was observed as the surveyor, monitoring herself in
order to improve her image through fashion. Fashion becomes the ultimate expression of an
body’ (Foucault 1979 cited in Featherstone 1991: 54) is a way to explain disciplinary practices of
femininity. Houston monitors herself by looking in the mirror and improves herself through the
use of fashion. This self-surveillance allows women to exert control over their bodies and make
Houston’s video is very different to the one previously analysed. Overall this video
attributes. Love, romance and the beauty myth are all subjects this video embraces, which
counter poses Houston against a heroic feminine figure. Rather than offering transgressive
possibilities in which alternative views of female subjectivity are offered, disrupting women’s
traditional position, the video reinforces the domestic containment symbolised by the fantasies of
romantic love.
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‘Express Yourself’- Madonna (1989)
Looking at dress, she is wearing a pale green, long, satin dress, she has
short blonde hair that reminds us of the Marilyn Monroe look and she is
residing with her black cat, high above the masculine world of hard
work and steam. The importance of the cat is underscored at the end of
The next scene shows Madonna in a bathroom wearing nothing but a corset. The corset is dress
Entwistle 2000) however, goes further and argues that it is a garment that asserts sexual and
social power. For Kunzel (1982 cited in Entwistle 2000:196), although ‘the history of tight-
lacing is part of the history of struggle for sexual expression, male and female’, he goes on to
analyse Victorian women who were tight-lacing fetishists and did so because they enjoyed the
feeling of constriction produced by the corset to the extent that they might become sexually
aroused by it. He sees this practise as sexually expressive. This sexual expression that Madonna
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is presenting goes further with body movement of a striptease that takes place in the bathroom
behind a screen and reduces her figuration to a cartoon like silhouette. Swafford (1997) has
found, that some American cartoons, such as Jessica Rabbit show females with unrealistic body
shapes and in tight, short, revealing clothing. They are depicted as ‘bombshells’ and as objects of
(2002:61) calls ‘porno chic’, which is the representation of porn in non-pornographic art or
culture and the postmodern transformation of porn into mainstream culture. Movies such as
Striptease (1996) and Showgirls (1996) are examples of ‘porno chic’ and according to McNair
(2002), with the release of such movies, feminists were prepared to view strippers as feisty
striptease scene? Among constructions of gender is ‘femininity’ itself, which can be regarded as
masquerade. Psychoanalyst Joan Riviere (1986 cited in Padva 2006) has been influential in
suggesting that gender is performed through dress and body style. She notes that ‘womanliness
therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and
to avert the repercussions expected if she was found to possess it’ (Riviere 1986 cited in Padva
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2006:26). This exaggerated performance allayed some of women’s anxieties about their
Judith Butler (2006:200) and Mary Anne Doane (1982 cited in Schwitchtenberg
which woman ‘plays’ at herself, playing a part. This suggests a reflexive shift to the surface
Schwitchtenberg 1994: 133) notes that ‘this type of masquerade, an excess of femininity, is
aligned with the femme fatale’. Madonna performs the femme fatale in the striptease scene,
where Madonna knows that the voyeur is watching; thus she bears the devices of femininity,
thereby asserting that femininity is a device. ‘Madonna takes simulation to its limits in a
deconstructive maneuver that plays femininity off against itself-in a meta-femininity that reduces
gender to the overplay of style’ (Schwichtenberg 1994: 134). Film performances by Marlene
Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932) have also been characterised as so excessively feminine that the
audience ‘is watching a woman demonstrate the representation of a woman’s body’ (Bovenschen
What are the representational implications of these arguments about masquerade? Doane
(1982 cited in Rose 2001) raises the possibility that masquerade may provide a way of thinking
about how women see themselves and each other. Femininity can be seen as a mask, a
masquerade, performed by mimicking what being a woman is meant to be about. Irigaray (1985
cited in Rose 2001) has taken this argument further to suggest that masquerade-or what she calls
‘If femininity is an excessive performance on one side of the divide, then gender play
marks the play of signifiers across the bar’ (Schwichtenberg 1994: 134). Gender play is
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highlighted by the play of differences signifying cross-dressing or ‘drag’ (Schwichtenberg 1994:
134). In the next scene, Madonna is staged against the futuristic, intertextual backdrop of Fritz
Lang’s Metropolis (1927) (the film that the video was based on). Madonna has entered the
masculine world of work and steam. Madonna’s dress is a man’s suit. She adopts various body
movements:
she is dancing, punches the air, grabs her crotch and spreads her legs. She teasingly opens and
closes her jacket revealing a black lace bra in interplay of difference. The dress Madonna adopts
is quite striking. She references both genders simultaneously, signified by the combination of the
business suit and the bra. Madonna parodies gender roles. Butler (2006) argues that through
parodic play, binary constructs are challenged and this notion of challenging binary constructs
through parodic play with gender stereotypes is attractive. In many ways, Madonna would seem
to embody what Butler believes is the most useful future strategy to avoid oppressive binary
‘engendering’ (Butler 2006: 153). Pleasure is found in the confusion of boundaries and as
described by Donna Haraway (1990 cited in Schwichtenberg 1994: 177), the postmodern body
becomes that of a cyborg, ‘the disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and
personal self’, whose mode of expression is ‘a powerful infidel of heteroglossia’ that replaces a
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common language. Postmodern theory, therefore promises feminists a means of cultural critique
that does not depend on generalisations or categories, a perspective that does not set boundaries
The next sequence shows Madonna, lying naked on a bed, which is the prop in the
setting, wearing an iron collar attached to a heavy chain. These elements suggest one thing:
represented as sexually insatiable, seeking and enjoying sexual victimisation and humiliation
(Itzin 1992). They are often reduced to their sexual body parts, dehumanised, pieces of meat.
They are reduced to animals and Madonna, like a dog or wild animal, has to be chained and
male dominance. When the master of the male workers is watching Madonna he becomes
aroused. The arousal of pornography, by objectifying women, induces sadism and misogyny,
which underpins the oppression of women and therefore reinforces gender inequality. According
to McKinnon (1985 cited in Itzin 1992: 128) ‘pornography makes hierarchy sexy’ and is ‘a way
of seeing and using women’. As Faludi expressed (1991 cited in McNair 1996:97), the
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‘explosion’ of sexually explicit imagery represents nothing less than a patriarchally inspired
‘backlash’ against the gains of women since the 1960’s. Applying Gramsci’s (1971 cited in
Strinati 2004: 147) theory of hegemony, the dominant groups in society, in this case males,
maintain their dominance by securing the ‘spontaneous consent’ of subordinate groups, in this
case females. This is achieved by the negotiated construction of a political and ideological
Although the elements in the sequence suggest vulnerability and victimisation, Madonna
appears to be aroused by this. She is making eye contact straight into the camera and her self-
possessed gaze suggests as if aroused by and desiring her spectators. Unlike sadism, which
demands a true victim, masochism is a ‘contractual alliance’ and masochism achieves sexual
gratification through physical abuse (Gaines & Herzog 1990:235). The willing victim, in this
case Madonna, provocatively inspires and goes so far as to chain herself and sexually express
herself through her actions. It is argued that pornography offers women the chance to express
their sexuality in ways, which would have been socially unacceptable prior to the sexual
revolution. This has included acknowledging the existence of ‘active feminine sexuality’
At the end of the video, the significance of the black cat shown in the beginning of the
video is established. This importance of the cat is underscored by Madonna’s cat masquerade.
Madonna, wearing tight black clothing, crawls on her hands and knees across the floor. This
scene adds emphasis to the fetishistic filming of her body in erotically angled and fragmented
shots. Her performance here is sexual and dominant and brings to mind the fictional character of
‘cat woman’, which signifies a dominatrix-style and presents a more demeaning version of
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female sexuality. McDonald (1995) argues that these sequences aim to satisfy males’ obsessive
Madonna, throughout the entire video, is expressing herself. This is not a surprise
however, as the title of the song is ‘express yourself’. Despite the fact that the expressions are
sexual, I probe how they still allow her to be part of what Habermas (1991) calls the ‘public
sphere’. Habermas’ (1991) original and well-known formulation of the public sphere concept
promotes a participatory democracy grounded in the free exchange of ideas in the formation of
the will of the sovereign public. Madonna therefore, is able to re-question her role as a female
With this video, not only has Madonna made sex the subject of popular culture, she has
also subverted dominant gender categories. She has represented an image of a woman in control
of her own sexuality, playing patriarchal society’s stereotypical model of female beauty back to
itself in a parodic form which endows it with new meaning. Incorporating victimisation and
displaying her body without inhibition, Madonna has challenged ‘the codes that patriarchy relies
upon’ to represent instead ‘a highly visible and successful image of power and control’ (Lloyd
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‘Most Girls’- Pink (2000)
The scene opens with Pink in her hotel room, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a white vest,
exercising by doing push-ups, using one hand and with the other behind her back. She also
performs karate and boxing moves by punching and kicking the air. This is part of her body
movement. From the beginning of the video we are emphasised her muscular and more male like
body. The muscular woman disturbs dominant notions of sex, gender and sexuality and
transgresses established notions of what a woman is ‘supposed to look like’ (Gaines & Herzog
1990: 59). What is generally referred to as the ‘fitness phenomenon’ indicates a shift in the
definition of the ‘ideal body’ of the 1980’s (as we have seen in Houston’s video) to a more
muscular body. Women are now using sports such as boxing and karate to ‘strengthen their
muscles and to develop rounder contours’ (Gaines & Herzog 1990:60). The new female ideal of
beauty is now taut, toned and possessing strength. There have been similar films that embrace
this type of female representation such as Million Dollar Baby (2004), which features Hillary
Richard Dyer (1972 cited in Gaines & Herzog 1990: 70) observes that ‘muscularity is the
sign of power-natural, achieved, phallic’. Ascribing ‘natural’ physical superiority to the male is
one of patriarchy’s primary supports. Although the ‘naturalness’ of muscles legitimates male
power and domination says Dyer, visible muscle is not really ‘natural’ at all but ‘achieved’ and
goes on to say that when we look at the beauty queen, we may acknowledge that she has dieted
and used cosmetics to achieve her appearance, but these are ‘things that have been done to the
woman’ (Dyer 1972 cited in Gaines & Herzog 1990: 70). In contrast, it is impossible to read the
visible muscle as ‘something that has been done to the woman’. The muscle, strength and power
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Pink’s body displays, is clearly an achievement, the product of years of intense, concentrated,
deliberate work in the gym, which is a sign of activity and not passivity. Her strength and power
is not only shown through her muscles but through movements such as dance, where some of her
choreographed moves are punching, kicking and moving quite firmly and robust, which signifies
environment. It is indoor, industrial looking, with steam coming out of pipes. This reminds us of
Madonna’s video in the 80’s, when she enters the masculine world of work and steam.
Throughout the video, Pink reveals and flexes her biceps and stomach muscles in a way
as if to show them off to the viewer. This may lead to what is called ‘sthenolagnia’, which is a
(2006:472) however, talks about, ‘girl power’ for the emergence of ‘new’ sexual subjectivities.
Although Pink takes on the element of the fetishised image, her subjectivity also embraces
strength, self-assertion and independence, which defines ‘girl power’, and therefore can be seen
as a movement forward for feminist politics. I will elaborate on ‘girl power’ in a video to come.
Pink, however, adopts a somewhat sub-cultural style. She does not subscribe to the
traditional feminine dress and adornment. Starting with her hair, it is cut short and boy like and
it is dyed fuscia pink. Pink colour hair is different from mainstream culture colour hair and
assumes unconventional femininity (Holland 2004). Although it is a ‘girly colour’, you do not
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often see girls in pink hair. The cutting of women’s hair has been the arena of much debate and
protest, not least since women’s hair has been closely associated with women’s beauty,
femininity and sexuality. By the time of the Great War (1914-18) women’s desire and right to
cut off their hair had become a matter of public debate and it was more than simply a matter of
independence and rebellion. It also became chic and fashionable but the arguments raged on
about this ‘frightening challenge to the masculine-feminine polarity’ (Brownmiller 1984 cited in
Holland 2004:61). Hair loss can therefore become a signal of freedom and self-government.
As for dress Pink, throughout the entire video, wears black leather trousers (baggy and
tight). Not once is she shown wearing a skirt. The adoption of trousered and masculine dress
rejects both feminine values and the practical constraints of feminine dress (Hollows 1994).
Brownmiller has argued that ‘trousers are practical…They cover the lower half of the body
without nonsense and permit the freedom of natural movement and therein lies their unfeminine
danger to patriarchy’ (1984 cited in Hollows 1994: 141). However, this strategy reproduces the
idea that masculinity is the norm by privileging masculine values over feminine ones (Wilson
1985; Barnard 1996 cited in Hollows 1994). Furthermore, by asserting the ‘practical’ merits of
masculine over feminine dress, this approach distinguishes between feminist and non-feminist
clothing on the grounds of how functional and practical they are (Wilson 1985; Barnard 1996
cited in Hollows 1994). In Pink’s case, trousers are indeed more practical, as she is dancing,
boxing and performing karate, which therefore implies that masculine dress can be the ‘rational’
dress (Wilson 1985; Barnard 1996 cited in Hollows 1994: 141). Apart from the trousered dress,
Pink adopts a punk look, as did Lauper in her video. Pink wears black leather wristbands and
chokers (around the neck) with spikes. In the beginning of the video she wears black PVC
trousers and a black top with holes in it. Firstly, black clothing is often associated with resistance
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and opposition (Holland 2004). Female punk dress
Looking at other adornment, Pink possesses tattoos and a tongue piercing. Sweetman
A tattooed female body is a resisting body because as DeMello and Govenar note, ‘tattooed
women overstep the physical boundaries of femininity by embodying a formerly masculine sign’
(1996 cited in Holland 2004:104). This creates a significant tension between the position females
occupy in regard to femininity: ‘there is a pulling back with the traditionally feminine items they
use; but there is also a pushing forward of having more body modifications’ (Holland 2004:106).
Pink is represented as ‘alternative’ (Holland 2004: 105) and distinct from the mainstream.
McRobbie (1994: 157) revisits sub-cultural theory and ‘changing modes of femininity’ to
assess what, if any advances have occurred for the girls within subcultures. She asks if girls are
more visible in subcultures, more involved in creative practices. Hence the acceptability of
Pink’s tattoos and bright pink hair. Generally girls are more visible and more accepted.
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McRobbie suggests a ‘dramatic unfixing’ and explains that the ‘state of flux in relation to what
now constitutes feminine identity offers girls more opportunities and choices’ (1994: 157).
Pink, through her body movement and actions has demonstrated that she is not in need of
a man to take care of her, as she is capable to look after herself. Within her lyrics she tells us that
‘most girls want a man with the bling bling…but I’m not every girl and I don’t need no G to take
care of me’ (‘G’ meaning guy). Pink is not economically dependent on men. However, what she
does want is ‘real love’. Is not love and romance stereotypically what every girl wants?
Romantic fiction is the genre that tends to be most commonly associated with women and most
of its readers are women. In the 1960’s and the 70’s romance novels were seen as a seductive
trap which justified women’s subordination to men and rendered women complicit in that
energies from more worthwhile pursuits (Jackson 1995 cited in Gill & Herdieckerhoff 2006).
Pink is another reader of romance, as she acknowledges what love is and desires it. As Jackson
notes, ‘love was seen as an ideology which legitimated women’s oppression and trapped them
into exploitative heterosexual relationships’ (1993 cited in Hollows 2000:72). Traditional notions
of the domestic, that are premised on the desirability of romantic love are evoked. Pink is
This is why second wave feminist antipathy and dismissiveness toward romantic fiction took
place, because it situated women in subordinate positions. Modleski (1982) however disrupted
the commonsense feminist critique of romance. Modleski doesn’t necessarily condone the way in
which romances help women accept patriarchy, she acknowledges that they help women cope
with it (Modleski 1982). For example, there is a scene in the video where Pink leaves her hotel
and heads to her car and she realises that it had been ravaged. A guy passes by with his car and
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offers Pink a lift, but she doesn’t accept it and he is left wondering why she resisted him. This
challenges the assumption that she is passive, childlike and dependent on men.
Throughout the video, Pink has shown to be consistent in her quest of challenging
traditional notions of femininity and displays an independent and assertive female that adopts
masculine attributes such as physical strength and a more muscular body. The muscular woman
disturbs dominant notions of sex, gender and sexuality and redefines the idea of femininity.
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‘Dirrty’- Christina Aguilera (2002)
bike with her tousled hair flying behind her. This image encoded female sexuality in a modern,
bold and abrasive way. This was an image therefore at odds with conventional femininity and
suggestive of sexual deviance. At the same time this image was utilised in advertising and in soft
women have always been located nearer to the point of consumerism than to the ‘ritual of
resistance’ (Hall 1976 cited in McRobbie 2000:19). Arguably, Aguilera uses the motor-bike to
represent an oppositional type of femininity, which signifies roughness and violence. While
gearing up, her facial expression is almost expressionless and suggests feminine abnormality,
unlike Houston and Lauper in the 80’s whose facial expressions were that of happy and joyful
females.
Aguilera has driven her motor-bike to the nightclub setting where the majority of the
video is located. Subcultures which are located in clubs and where dance is a central focus of the
subculture may offer opportunities for girls and empowers them (Thornton 1995 cited in Holland
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2004). Youth subcultures are ‘masculine’ spaces and the fact that a girl, becomes involved in
Aguilera is then seen being lowered from a cage into a boxing ring. Arguably, here,
(1990 cited in Schwichtenberg 1994: 28) believes the female body is put on display and the
‘containment, sexualisation and objectification of the female body’ continues. However, it could
be argued that the objectification of women is represented in a more ‘progressive’ way. Rather
than being ‘girly’ (Holland 2004: 37), which brings to mind images of a 1950’s and 60’s type of
femininity: passive and conformist, Aguilera embraces a wild and sexualised objectification,
When Aguilera eventually is set free, out of the cage, accompanied by several female
dancers, they perform choreographed dance. Before I say a few things on dance, I would like to
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her underpants. It is not surprising that underwear is the focus of intense erotic interest. ‘It is the
last staging-post before the naked body is revealed, an intermediate position between the clothed
and naked body, which serves to invest a greater erotic charge to the process of undressing’
(Steele 1996 cited in Entwistle 2000:203). Underwear can become the focus of male obsession as
a result and is associated with seduction and eroticism (Holland 2004). Although bikini tops
provide a highly sexual dress and appearance, in club cultures they provide the basic wardrobe
(McRobbie 1994). Aguilera, as part of a club culture does not provide a ‘fashionable’
appearance. Houston, in her video was engaged in the ‘fashion’ element, which connotes
‘frivolity’ and ‘flightiness’ (Holland 2004:47). Aguilera however, does not follow ‘fashion’ as
such and she is able to evade the label of ‘frivolity’ or ‘flightiness’. Despite this, she continues to
‘flash her femininity’ (Holland 2004:47) through the use of her underpants, her long, blonde,
extended hair and later on her micro-skirt, which is an extremely short skirt that reveals her
crotch area.
Throughout the video, her body movement consists of powerful, choreographed dance. Her
dance however is seductive, as she constantly moves in a way as to reveal her genital parts and
buttocks: she kneels down and opens her legs, shakes her buttocks, shakes her breasts and within
her dance performs sexual positions. Men dance on her and she dances sexually on men. And her
dress, as we saw earlier, facilitates the revealing of her fetishised body parts. Aguilera’s body is
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the staple of this video, just like Madonna was in her video. By showing us the human body in a
quite explicit way, it would be accurate to say that it represents pornographic images. Feminists
such as Dworkin (1981: 72) define pornography as ‘the graphic sexually explicit subordination
of women through pictures or words’. Women are reduced to their sexual body part,
dehumanised and are objects of men’s lust and desire. As Faludi (1991 cited in McNair 1996:97)
expresses, ‘the explosion of sexually explicit imagery represents nothing less than a patriarchally
inspired and directed backlash against the gains of women’. Friedan (1963) however, argues that
sex has acquired symbolic significance for women. Her comment that ‘sex is the only frontier
open to women who have always lived with the confines of the feminine mystique’ drew
attention to its role as a vicarious magnet for women’s unfulfilled aspirations across a range of
My final thought on Aguilera’s sexual body is related to what Machin and Thornborrow
the ‘fun fearless female’. Women are no longer represented in domestic settings. Women now
have needs and desires outside of the home and family sphere. The goals of the ‘fun fearless
female’ are to feel sexy and confident and to get what she wants.
What does Aguilera want in the video? As she says in her lyrics: ‘I wanna get dirty,
wanna get a little unruly!’ Comparing these lyrics to Houston’s lyrics: ‘I wanna dance with
somebody…who loves me’, they have totally different implications. Whereas Houston evokes
traditional notions of the domestic that are premised in the desirability of romantic love, Aguilera
In the video Aguilera has gotten dirty and the unruliness has been reinforced with the
scene, where Aguilera is seen in the boxing ring, boxing with another woman. By looking at this
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as touch, the other woman punches Aguilera in the face and she nearly falls down. Aguilera then
punches the other woman several times until she falls down. Aguilera has won and her spectators
in the club are cheering. Apart from the fact the she
Rowe (1995 cited in Padva 2006:25) adds the ‘unruly woman’ is a prototype of woman as
subject rather than object; one who expresses her own desires and who makes a spectacle of
herself. Clearly Aguilera has accomplished these features. The unruliness of the video recalls
Bakhtin’s (1984 cited in Stott 2005) theory of carnival. He argues that carnival is the vehicle of
an authentic proletarian voice answering the oppressions of the ruling classes. As a fixture of the
medieval calendar, carnival was a special holiday that permitted the suspension of social rules
and codes of conduct. ‘The inversion and suspension permitted and legitimised by carnival
dissatisfaction’ (Bakhtin 1984 cited in Stott 2005:34). In the case of Aguilera’s video, carnival
illustrates the androgynous character women adopt today, which transgresses normative
formulations of womanliness.
Looking at TV Characters such as Xena the Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, they are strong, independent embodiments of the feminine ethos: they know what they
want, they go for it and they get it. This is what Jackson (2006:471) calls ‘girl power’. It may be
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that Aguilera is shown as a sexualised image; however I can positively say Aguilera embraces
In the last scene I will look at, Aguilera and her female back-up dancers are dancing and
splashing, while being sprayed with water in a room containing several urinals. This scene may
Aguilera becomes aroused by this and is shown touching her female dancers sexually and them
touching her. Urolagnia implies perversion: the violation of the norm, a turning away from the
proper feminine path (Haeberle 1981). This perversion could be rendered by an excessive sexual
urge, called erotomania, which is the obsession with sexual activity (Haeberle 1981).
recuperated into male fantasy’ (Becker 1995 cited in McNair 2002:142). It was argued that the
perspectives of the male gaze, which represented women as the objects, structured most
mainstream images of lesbians. However, looking at the film Basic Instinct (1992), the U.S critic
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Hoberman (cited in McNair 2002:143) considered that the lesbians are ‘the film’s most positive
characters’ and that ‘Stone is the ultimate bad girl…in every instance she flaunts her trangressive
power’. In Aguilera’s case, she is a positive representation of homosexuality. Not only is she an
expression of the minority community of homosexuality, but she also transgresses heterosexual
Although Aguilera is aggressively sexual and provocative in this video, she entirely
resists passive, compliant versions of femininity and accords with notions of ‘girl power’:
agentic and powerful. The girl power subject knows what she wants, goes for it and gets it and
there is no dependence on a male. Despite the fact that Aguilera is being stripped down to her
sexual essence, she is able to express herself, which reflects the needs of an independent,
sexually assertive woman. ‘Women are agents and not merely victims, who make decisions and
act on them, and who desire, seek out and enjoy sexuality’ (Duggan 1988 cited in McNair
1996:97).
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‘Hollywood’ – Madonna (2003)
This video differs from the others I have examined. There is one major theme in this video that is
worth talking about in depth and is: cosmetic surgery. Madonna’s video deals with the shallow
and superficial world of Hollywood. There is a scene in the video, (the scene I will mainly
inspect) which features Madonna receiving botox injections, which is a form of cosmetic
treatment and helps to abolish wrinkles. Madonna is posed sitting back on a chair, which
suggests her positional communication is inferior, by allowing superficiality take over. Allow
me to elaborate.
‘Cosmetic surgery is the cultural product of modernity and of a consumer culture which
treats the body as a vehicle for self-expression’ (Giddens 1991:198). By engaging in a wide array
of available body maintenance routines, individuals are encouraged to seek their salvation
through altering their appearance. Bodies no longer have to be damaged or impaired to merit
surgical alteration. Growing older, gaining or losing weight, or simply failing to meet the
transitory cultural norms of beauty is now sufficient cause for surgical improvement. Beauty now
requires a new form of discipline in order to abolish the wrinkles on your face.
Foucault’s notion of discipline can be applied to cosmetic surgery. Firstly, I would like to
summarise Foucault’s social philosophy. Foucault (1979 cited in Featherstone 1991) in his
investigation of disciplinary power, discovers that the body was seen a highly visible target of
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penal repression. Foucault also talks about modern society and the body and Jeremy Bentham’s
Panopticon scheme, which provided systematic control and surveillance of the inmate world.
Being under the constant gaze of an overseer, this disciplinary technique encouraged prisoners to
monitor themselves and exert self-control over their behaviour. This was Foucault’s concept of
the ‘disciplined body’ (Featherstone 1991:158). Therefore the idea of the Panopticon scheme can
be applied to the way in which Madonna in the video is maintaining her body. In turn, cosmetic
surgery becomes a form of control exercised over the body with the aim of establishing a
discipline.
and young, especially if you want to be successful in Hollywood as well as life. ‘Shine your light
now, you know it’s got to be good…cause you’re in Hollywood’, as her lyrics say. The attractive
person is happier, more successful and generally better liked. In the video, Madonna is part of a
‘Beauty and the female body go hand in hand’ (Davis 1995:39). The cultivation of
shown in the video, when Madonna has just had the botox
pain. Beauty hurts and it appears that modern women are willing to go to extreme lengths to
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improve and transform their bodies to meet the cultural requirements of femininity. Women
believe that beauty is important in their everyday social interactions and relationships, while men
are more likely to find their attractiveness important in intimate relationships alone (Lakoff &
Scherr 1984 cited in Davis 1995). It is difficult to explain why most of the females I have looked
at in the selected videos, who have managed to defy social conventions in other areas of their
inferiority, which produce and maintain practices of body maintenance and improvement.
Chapkis (1986:37) treats the beauty system as a repressive collection of structures and practices,
which are referred to as the ‘politics of appearance’ and work through the mechanism of
internalised oppression. Power here, is primarily a matter of male domination and female
subordination. Women are lulled into believing that by controlling their bodies they can control
their lives. They are compelled to conform to standards of feminine beauty, which are not only
impossible to meet but have to be met, paradoxically that is without effort or artifice.
Despite women’s entrapment in the beauty system, Chapkis is convinced that there are
possibilities for change. She illustrates the optimism with instances of women who manage to
find ways to beat the system, for example by dressing to please themselves or celebrating their
wrinkles. The key to liberation lies in women casting aside the oppression of femininity and
along with it, their own obsession with beauty and accepting themselves as they really are. There
is no point in going into depth with this however, as Madonna shows no sign of trying to beat the
dominant norms of feminine beauty. However, it is possible to argue for the beauty system and
interests (Wolf 1991 cited in Tait 2007), many scholars examine the desire for surgery and the
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inherent contradiction that submission to hegemonic standards of beauty enables the experience
of liberation (Bordo 1993; Gillespie 1996 cited in Tait 2007). Rather than produce a critique,
Davis (1995) focuses on the subjectivity of surgical consumers and this enables the
domestication of cosmetic surgery with feminist scholarship. Davis’s work with surgical women,
leads her to argue that cosmetic surgery is not about subscribing to prevailing standards of
Cosmetic surgery rests on the conception that women are viewed as oppressed victims of
consumer culture. Cosmetic surgery, as it is seen less as a medical procedure and more as a
beauty product or commodity, women are being involved in mass consumption by buying
themselves a new body/look through surgery. According to Adorno (1991) mass consumption is
a negative activity. They used the concept of the culture industry to describe the products and
processes of mass or popular culture. To summarise their arguments: mass produced culture
maintains social authority, or in other words promotes dominant ideology. The culture industry
produces a culture of standardisation and manipulated consumer goods. It shapes the tastes and
preferences of the masses, thereby moulding their consciousness, by instilling the desire for false
needs. If a society becomes obsessed with the purchase of cultural goods-in this case beauty
practices such as cosmetic surgery-then humans enter a state of fetishism with products and
almost worship them. This concept of commodity fetishism is based upon false ideological wants
creates the process of mass consumption and discourages the masses from being critical. As
beauty has become an imperative for women, and in this case Madonna, they become enticed in
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Modleski’s (1986 cited in Strinati 2004:171) account of the relationship between gender
and mass culture goes beyond saying that women have been ‘annihilated’ by popular culture.
Her concern is that women have been held responsible for mass culture and its affects, while
men are privileged to have the responsibility for high culture, since mass culture is identified
with femininity and high culture with femininity. Modleski shows how the terms used to assess
mass culture and define its inferiority to high culture are derived from the sexist constructions of
femininity and masculinity in the wider society. Femininity and consumption are both associated
with mass culture, and masculinity and production are associated with high culture. Therefore,
while masculinity is active, femininity is passive (Modleski 1986 cited in Strinati 2004). These
assumptions are built into Friedan’s Feminine Mystique (1963) where the female consumer was
portrayed as passive, dependent and gullible, while the world of work was seen as the key to
fulfilment.
‘feminised’ and any product consumed within popular culture is a false ideological need (Adorno
1991 cited in Strinati 2004:70). In this case, Madonna’s consumption of beauty practices such as
botox injections is recognised as a false need. Why should this however, be defined as a false
need? The desire for a false need rests on the assumption that if people were not satisfying these
needs, they would be doing something more worthwhile. But what would this entail? The idea of
what people should or should not be consuming and what they should really want to consume
assumes a particular model of cultural activity influenced by the position of the elite intellectual,
According to Baudrillard (1998 cited in Fraser; Greco 2005:279) ‘the body is simply the
finest of these physically…consumed objects’. The body has become an ‘object of salvation’
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(Baudrillard 1998 cited in Fraser; Greco 2005:277). Madonna’s body in the music video is
represented as a fetish and consumer object. However, I argue that the female consumer,
Madonna, should not be represented as passive. For Gilman (2002 cited in Tait 2007:123)
feminine beauty, is the ultimate expression of an individual rights and a kind of empowerment.
Cosmetic surgery also functions as a significant example of Foucault’s ‘disciplined body’. When
a female, in this case Madonna, undergoes cosmetic surgery, she enters a state of self-
surveillance and self-monitoring. This self-surveillance allows Madonna to exert control over her
body and make it her own, which enables the experience of liberation.
to patriarchy’
Having looked at this video, it is safe to say that Madonna adopts a female consumer identity.
This consumer identity affords what is called ‘power femininity’: an empowered or powerful
feminine identity in contemporary culture (Lazar 2006: 505). Madonna by adopting ‘power
femininity’ incorporates feminist signifiers of emancipation and empowerment and indicates that
‘women of today can have it all’ (Lazar 2006: 505). The video implies that it is becoming a
woman’s world, with a celebration of all things feminine, including the desire for self-
aestheticiation.
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To Sum Up
Now that I have completed my analysis of the six music videos, these are my main findings: it is
observable and therefore possible to argue, that each video from the 1980’s corresponds with a
video from the 2000’s and vice versa. Lauper’s video ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ brings to
mind Pink’s video ‘Most Girls’ from the 2000’s, as they both adopt the sub-cultural theme. With
Pink’s punk look, her piercing and tattoos and Lauper’s dance in the streets of New York City,
both women in the video are represented as rebellious and anti-feminine. Dancing, streets and
bodily adornment offer scope for play and experimentation with identity that is liberating. In
these practises of the body, postmodernist optimism comes into its own. Angela McRobbie
(1994:168) has written persuasively of the ‘upbeat’ case to be made for seeing those aspects of
females as breaking down old oppositions between femininity and feminism, and allowing new
forms of self expression to emerge for women, challenging previous starched polarities of
gender.
Madonna’s video ‘Express Yourself’ and Aguilera’s ‘Dirty’ video, both comprise the
overt display of sexuality and the desire for control. Although these women are represented as
actively enjoying sexual pleasure and although their female sexuality is being fetishised and
commodified, by Madonna being chained naked to a bed and Aguilera dancing sexually with
both males and females, they are women in control of their own sexuality. Sexually explicit
material, otherwise known as pornographic iconography offers women the chance to express
their sexuality in ways, which would have been socially unacceptable prior to the sexual
revolution. This has included acknowledging the existence of ‘active’ feminine sexuality
(McNair 1996: 95). Both women also use post-modern strategies of representation to challenge
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the foundational truths of sex and gender (Schwitchtenberg 1993:120): Madonna’s drag scene
The last pair of videos that can be joined in terms of their similarities are Houston’s 80s
video ‘I Want to Dance with somebody’ and Madonna’s 00s ‘Hollywood’. Both these videos
occupy an agency linked to beauty and consumerism. Houston’s video is centred on the fashion
theme, which suggests triviality, superficiality and women as the object of fashion, even its
victim (Veblen 1953, Roberts 1977 cited in Entwistle 2000: 22). The same can be said with
Madonna, but instead of fashion, beauty practices such as cosmetic surgery is the core theme.
What these videos say about women is that the things associated with them tend to have lower
social status than the things associated with men (Modleski 1982, Radway 1987 cited in
Entwistle 2000: 146), which therefore represents them as passive, mass consumers. However,
there is indeed room to argue that consumer feminism is a reflexive, modern dimension of
‘commercial femininities’, a term McRobbie (1996 cited in Lazar 2006:505) uses to feminine
subjectivities produced by popular culture. Consumer feminism and power femininity (a term I
appropriation of certain post-feminist currents as espoused by Wolf (1993 cited in Lazar 2006),
who offers a summary of the discussion around the term post-feminism, and argues that post-
feminism is skewed in favour of liberal humanism, embracing a flexible ideology which can be
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‘That’s a Wrap’: Conclusion
While a limited amount of research can hardly be relied upon as a guide to possible social
change and transformation, what is important are the recurring themes throughout the two
decades, which produces a reading that picks up new and emergent modes of femininity.
With my attempt to unpack some of the representations in the selected music videos, I
can safely say post-feminism exists in this type of media text. The women in the videos reflect
‘choice’, and have become subjects who make their own decisions. This is a ‘more
independently minded female generation’ (Rabinovitz 1999 cited in Lotz 2001:107). Feminist
disourses in these popular media texts tend to correspond to ‘take charge roles rather than usual
women’s embourgeoised family or domestic roles’ and the ‘new woman’ role (Deming 1992
cited in Lotz 2001:107). Post-feminist attributes that have been detected while analysing the
selected videos start from Lauper and move to Houston to Madonna to Pink to Christina, who
deconstruct binary categories of gender and sexuality through sub-cultural style, transgendered
bodies, bisexuality and most importantly individual choice. I do not wish however, to suggest
that these are the only attributes of post-feminism evident in contemporary media culture but
they seem the most significant for my own analysis and findings.
My analysis of women in music videos has indeed tied in with and moved along, existing
work, I have observed in the literature review. The main feature that has been added on my
behalf is the music video television genre. I was able to tie this media format with findings from
existing work and conclude in a way in which to support the fact that post-feminism has
Reflecting on the research process, some of the main points are as follows.
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I feel that one of the strengths of this study was that my fascination with music videos gave me
motivation to carry out my research. For this reason, I was enthusiastic while analysing the
music videos, which helped in completing a sufficient analysis. Another strength was the fact
that I was very familiar with the particular videos I was analysing, which facilitated to detailed
analyses. Semiological studies need extensive knowledge of the type of image the study will
examine. Williamson (1978 cited in Rose 2001) tells her readers that in order to write her book
on ads, she had to watch ads for over a decade. I have been watching music videos since I can
remember, which has made me very familiar with this type of image and was to my advantage.
An additional strength was my easy access to the selected music videos. Internet is simple way
of getting the information you want, when you want it. ‘Youtube’ was the medium
I used to watch the music videos, and was able to rewind and forward them at any time
necessary. Anything I missed when observing the videos, with a click of a button, I was able to
Dyer’s checklist of features to use when analysing female bodies. Although my methodology of
semiotic textual analysis allowed me to look at texts in depth and although Dyer’s list breaks
down images into components, I could not use all of her features in every individual video. The
analysis and findings were too many and lets not forget that the word count of the dissertation is
limited. Therefore, I decided to use the features I felt were appropriate and significant for each
video. This worked very well and I was able to elaborate more on my findings. Overall I believe
that my ideas have been adequately warranted with respect to the methodology employed, the
data collected and the observations that were made. Amongst the most obvious limitations of this
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Future research however, could expand my research by using all of Dyer’ s features in
one individual video, which would require a more thorough examination of female
representations. In addition, it would be interesting for future research to look at women in other
genre’s of music video such as rock, rnb, hip hop and uncover and compare the representations
of women within the wider range of music video. Another way my research could be developed
is by looking at males and females together in music videos and observing whether or not men
are positioned superior to women. Music video is with no doubt an increasingly popular
television genre, which definitely offers opportunities for some interesting pieces of research to
be conducted.
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Modleski, T. (1982) Loving with a Vengeance, London: Methuen
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Film References
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Striptease (1996) Andrew Bergman
TV References
Images
All images that were used within the findings and discussion section come from Google Images:
http://images.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi
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Appendix
In this appendix, I include the School of social science research ethics checklist.
69