How it impacts our society
Music videos are one medium where values and ideals are commonly presented to kids and young teens today. The music videos give viewers ideas of what’s normal in terms of sexuality, gender, and even race. As viewers watch these music videos, they learn what they should look like or what they should do to fit in and determine who they are supposed to be.
What is a woman’s role in many music videos?
When a woman’s physical appearance and sexuality is emphasized in music videos, it gives implications for how women should be viewed by society at large. The implications of music videos usually are that women are one dimensional, sexualized characters lacking agency, with little to offer besides their bodies. Basically, it implies that women are only valued for their physical appearance and ability to please and entertain the men in the videos. When girls and women watch these music videos, it sends them confusing messages that to be female is to be alluring yet passive, sexy but also submissive. For example, often the camera is panned up and down a woman’s body or zoomed in and out on one part of her, such as her cleavage or legs. Many times, their face is not even shown.
Women are mostly shown to be dancing and posing to encourage men to watch them. The women in many music videos are portrayed as passive objects rather than being shown as independent individuals. This is a huge contrast to how men are shown in music videos, often portrayed as powerful and aggressive. This objectification of women occurs when women are just treated as bodies that are only existing for the use and pleasure of others. A woman’s body and sexuality doesn’t represent their entire being, but sadly this is the underlying message in many music videos. Due to this constant objectification, Women begin to treat themselves as objects to be looked at and evaluated, leading to various mental health risks. This also contributes to the problem of men not knowing exactly how subconscious and harmful viewing content like this are. Increased exposure to sexual content in popular music can impact gender ideals and identity development, self-objectification and female sexualization, permissive sexual attitudes and risky sexual behaviors, as well as acceptance of sexual and gendered violence.
Media Literacy
This is where have an urgent need for media literacy. Viewers need to be able to think critically, speak confidently, and make thier own judgments and choices. For this to happen, a starting point to recognize the extreme stereotypes that are commonly associated with music videos would be to sensitize the area of symbolic interpretation of non-verbal language and pictures to understand how women and men are actually portrayed. Another thing is that the primary school education system doesn’t provide enough information on this. The curriculum for primary schools should be encouraged to provide education regarding media influence and literacy. There should be an understanding, analysis, and reflection on media content that is associated with negative ideals concerning sexuality, gender, ethnicity, etc.
For music media literacy targeted at young children, topics like the difference between reality versus fantasy, and celebrity stage persona versus real-life persona should be discussed. Information on how parents and educators can take steps to increase media literacy among the children and youth should also be discussed. Being able to understand these various forms of information presented in media and music videos with an ability to make sense of what is presented is key.
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