Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Shadow Project

Title: Clothing Worn by Females and Males in Music Video

Two Sentence Summary: For female artists physical appearance and sexuality tend to be emphasized more than musical abilities, as close-ups and revealing clothing are required components of their roles in videos.

Summary of previous study: From Page 36 in Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing, Reichert & Lambiase (editors), 2006, Erlbaum

TABLE 3.2
Clothing Worn by Females and Males in Music Video
A)Study
B)Year Videos Aired
C)Networks Sampled
D)Females in Alluring/Sexy Clothing
E)Males in Alluring/Sexy Clothing

Study #1: A)Sherman & Dominick (1986)
B)1984
C)MTV, NBC, WTBS
D)50%
E)10%
Study #2: A)Seidman (1992)
B)1987
C)MTV
D)36%
E)4%
Study #3: A)Signorielli, McCleod, & Healy (1994)
B)1991
C)MTV
D)55%
E)7%

Study #3: A)Seidman (1999)
B)1993
C)MTV
D)33%
E)7%

Study #4: A)Andsager & Roe (1999)
B)1997
C)CMT
D)41%
E)5%


Its most important foundation literature and how it relates to your own project: Gow, J. (1996) Reconsidering gender roles on MTV: Depictions in the most popular music videos of the early 1990s. Communication Reports, 9, 151-162.

Corpus and Method: Four music videos selected from Launch Top 100 music videos (Yahoo.com). Content analysis (desription) of clothing worn by females and males in popular music videos (2 male artists Bubba Sparx and T-Pain; 2 female artists Shakira and Destiny’s Child)


Findings:

Clothing Worn by Females and Males in 4 Music Videos on Launch (Yahoo.com)

Video: “Ms. New Booty” by Bubba Sparx
All female dancers are wearing short shorts so that their buttocks are showing, tight shirts so that cleavage is exposed, midriff tops to expose stomachs, and they are wearing boots and high heel shoes.
All the men are fully clothed wearing suits, baggy jeans and t-shirts.

Video: “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira
Shakira is the prominent female character for most of the video. She exposes her back, and stomach. The female dancers at the end of the video also bear their stomachs.
All the men are fully clothed wearing baggy jeans and t-shirts.

Video: “I need a Soldier” by Destiny's Child
The three group members wear fitting clothing that reveals midriff, cleavage, buttocks, legs, and thighs.
Male characters are fully dressed in baggy jeans and t-shirts.

Video:“I’m in Love with a Stripper” by T-Pain
The women are wearing tight jeans, midriffs, short shorts, panties, bras, short dresses, boots, and stilettos. Cleavage and buttocks exposed.
All of the men are fully clothed in baggy jeans and t-shirts.


Conclusion: In all four videos used in this shadow study, all of the men were fully dressed. Not one male was dressed in alluring/sexy clothing. On the other hand, in all of the videos, all of the women were dressed in some type of alluring /sexy clothing. What I noticed is that the message that the video is supposed to convey is lost by the distraction of women barely dressed. I could not follow the plot of the videos because I was distracted by the way the camera zoomed in on the breasts, legs, midriffs, backs, thighs, and buttocks of the women. From this shadow study, I conclude that women are still objectified as sexual objects placed in music videos to sell products, or in this case to sell more records. In all the videos it seems that dressing in alluring/sexy clothing is a trend for women in this small sample of music videos.

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