Gender Representations - Females in Music Videos

We chose to look at feminist or empowering music videos that portray women in a more positive light than the typical rap/hip-hop videos where women are objectified and heavily sexualised.

In Paramore's Playing God video, the female singer (Hayley Williams) looks typically girly, with bright pink hair with a bow and a cute red dress. She is also carrying flowers and driving quite a feminine car - she is fulfilling the typical female stereotype. However, when she goes indoors it takes quite a sinister turn and we realise that she has the male members of the band tied up on the floor, giving her all the power and going against the stereotype of women as weak and vulnerable versus men as dominant and powerful. The fact that this one woman has been able to entrap three men, rendering them helpless, is empowering to women. This also keeps with their band image, as they are known as a male band with a feisty lead singer.

Jessie J's song is all about how girls can do whatever boys do, maybe even better. The video shows lots of women, including really good female dancers, dressing in masculine ways (but still looking cool and not completely androgynous). The women, especially Jessie J, look very aggressive and powerful, and they take control of the video. 

 

In No Doubt's song, Gwen Stefani is satirising how people think she is 'just a girl', patronising her. She is put into a separate room to her male bandmates, in a pretty, bright room with lots of flowers under the watchful eye of two female nurses. The men are put into a dirty, dull room with lots of instruments for them to play. Gwen is joined by other girls who play up to the stereotype by experimenting with lots of makeup, whilst the men make music, but in the end they all join up for one big party, showing how the whole gender divide is pointless and that they work much better together. Gwen is also dressed in a sporty, tomboy-ish way, breaking the stereotypical girly style.



Some women in music videos are empowering but still attractive, appealing to both male and female audiences.

This was a helpful topic for me to research as our coursework will involve a female rock group, meaning the way we portray women is very important. As girls, we definitely wouldn't want to show women in a negative light.