Event Title
Subversion of Female Stereotypes in Music Video
Location
Diamond 123
Start Date
30-4-2015 2:45 PM
End Date
30-4-2015 3:55 PM
Project Type
Presentation
Description
Neoliberalism shapes a media culture in which the emaciated, disciplined body is the glamorized feminine norm. These ideologies become our social ideals due to their pervasiveness in contemporary mass media. The media ensures that images of thin female bodies are everywhere and inescapable, with little alternative body types shown. With these body types come gendered implications about sexuality, assertiveness, and ownership. These ideologies are seen particularly in celebrity culture, as celebrities are constantly in the media and idolized by the public. Through this paper I look at contemporary popular female musicians who are staging controversies regarding body image issues and their implied power relations through various means in their music videos. Artists such as JLo, Nicki Minaj, Lily Allen, and Mariah Carey use various tactics to directly comment on, and often challenge, contemporary body image ideology. I analyze the different ways that these music videos make the viewer question typical common sense notions that the current thin female body ideal and the subordination that comes with it is the only way that women should look and act in our society.
Faculty Sponsor
Laura Saltz
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. American Studies Program
CLAS Field of Study
Interdisciplinary Studies
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1460
Subversion of Female Stereotypes in Music Video
Diamond 123
Neoliberalism shapes a media culture in which the emaciated, disciplined body is the glamorized feminine norm. These ideologies become our social ideals due to their pervasiveness in contemporary mass media. The media ensures that images of thin female bodies are everywhere and inescapable, with little alternative body types shown. With these body types come gendered implications about sexuality, assertiveness, and ownership. These ideologies are seen particularly in celebrity culture, as celebrities are constantly in the media and idolized by the public. Through this paper I look at contemporary popular female musicians who are staging controversies regarding body image issues and their implied power relations through various means in their music videos. Artists such as JLo, Nicki Minaj, Lily Allen, and Mariah Carey use various tactics to directly comment on, and often challenge, contemporary body image ideology. I analyze the different ways that these music videos make the viewer question typical common sense notions that the current thin female body ideal and the subordination that comes with it is the only way that women should look and act in our society.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/211