Representation In Music Videos

A Presentation On How Gender Is Portrayed in Music Videos

Throughout todays modern music videos we can see that each gender is portrayed quite differently through many, but not all, music videos. This can be seen throughout artist’s work such as Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ or Robin Thicke’s ‘Bluured Lines’ where all the women are dressed in thin, revealing clothes and the men are all either fully clothed, wearing suits or expensive clothes, or shirtless showing a muscly body.In these videos, women are usually seen straddling men or being near them as if they rely on them or ‘performing’ for them. This can be seen all throughout ‘Blurred Lines’ and in ‘Anaconda’ during the last half of the video. Other videos such as Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’ also follow this way of portraying themselves. This way of showing themselves is a way to sell their images as sexy, cool and appealing to the crowds they’re trying to attract. Bruno Mars is a good example of that as he’s often seen wearing casual clothes, rather than a suit, that helps present him in a way that would be more appealing as people may think that celebrities are out of their reach, but this helps close the gap.

Women In Music VideosWomen in music videos are repeatedly seen in skimpy costumes and showing a lot of skin, especially from mainstream artists such as Lady Gaga, Beyonce or Justin Bieber. This trend of using your body for visual appeal has been around for almost as long as music videos, but with less of an extreme look such as many of Lady Gaga’s costumes in her MV ’Telephone’ like her police tape costume which covers only the bear minimum.There are, however, examples of women who do not use their body in ways like mainstream artists do such as Adele, who is still a mainstream artist, but often uses her voice as her appeal, not her body. She does, of course, use her face somewhat for appeal as most celebrities and even just average people use lots or little makeup.Within the genres of music videos, there are MVs with large dances. Quite often, women will perform large and often seductive dances, whereas men would often either perform a simplified version or not dance at all. The artist Sia, who doesn’t show her face, has a recurring young dancer called Maddie Ziegler who in ‘The Greatest’ dances with many other young dancers which makes the video seem fun and dark at the same time.

Men In Music VideosThrough almost all music videos, men are portrayed either fully clothed or shirtless to show off their muscles, or wearing a ridiculous outfit. They are rarely hypersexualised like women are and when they are, it’s usually for comedic purposes. In mainstream music videos, men will, most of the time, not dance and simply perform their song. There are however examples of extreme dance choreography from K-Pop (Korean Pop) music videos from most artists in that genre and a lot of the dancers are male such as Bangtan Boys (BTS), however these groups usually have a lot of members. Another example of choreography for men in music videos would be Brendan Maclean’s ‘Free To Love’ where he dances with the dance group. Through both mainstream and less popular genres, conventions of men’s representation generally stays the same. They’re seen mostly as centre pieces of videos, and are often wearing big brands

Example of a Music Video That Breaks the NormsThe stereotypical situations seen from these music videos give lots of chance for artists to break stereotypes, which often gets the music video a wider range of views as people would either find it funny or ‘progressive’This again can be seen in Brendan Maclean’s ‘Free To Love’. The use of a highly choreographed dance routine is often unseen for men in modern music videos and more by women. Another broken stereotype are the costumes used, they are almost all the same regardless of gender which is often the opposite, helping show off the bodies of the dancers/artists, whereas in this case, the focus is more on the movements. The use of costumes also breaks gender stereotypes of men too as Brendan is seen wearing lipstick and large jewellery in many of the scenes. The Dance itself is also very intimate between all genders with Brendan and the other dancers pressing up close to each other with lots of skin contact.