Gender and Sexuality in Music Video

In the third iteration Dreamworlds, Sut Jhally critically examines the representation of women, men, and sexuality in music videos. Jhally’s primary argument is that music videos, not unlike other forms of advertising and popular culture, represent the pornographic imagination by offering a degraded and limited view of female sexuality based on narrowly defined adolescent heterosexual male fantasies. Locating the stories and images of music video in a wider context, the film explores how American popular culture, more generally, encourages and excuses men’s violence against women, and argues that we need a wider range of stories about femininity, masculinity, and sexuality.  While this video features images of graphic, sexualized violence, it is important to note that the images of music videos are strikingly similar to those seen on the CCTV footage, which suggests that music videos have the ability to, at the very least, contribute to an environment in which violence against women is deemed acceptable.

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Hip-hop came to life in the early to mid-1970s in the Bronx and other urban areas as a movement of cultural expression by and for working class black and Latino youth. It encompasses not only rap music, but also dance, graffiti art, and fashion. In the wake of the demise of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” and the reemergence of conservative domestic policies, America’s inner cities in the latter half of the twentieth century fell victim to deindustrialization, rising unemployment, the withdrawal of governmental social support and, subsequently, increased poverty, crime, and drug abuse. Simultaneously, however, a vibrant and organic youth culture emerged in small nightclubs, public spaces, and private homes. Young urban youth began creating their own music, marked by a strong and unrelenting beat and chanted, rather than sung, rhyming lyrics. Rap thus emerged as a new music genre and a cornerstone of hip–hop culture. While many mainstream critics initially dismissed rap as a novelty and predicted that it would soon fade away, the ensuing decades have proven them very wrong.

Hip-hop has become one of the most vital, and profitable, forces in popular culture. Rap music is now an international art form and is regularly heard in advertising and on radio and television. Furthermore, hip-hop beats have influenced popular music genres from rock to jazz to reggae. The fashions, styles, and attitude of hip-hop have been adopted by America’s commercial culture industries and by youths of all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. In fact, it is estimated that 60 to 70 percent of mainstream rap music is purchased by whites. Having come a long way from its underground roots, born in poverty and despair, hip-hop is now truly mainstream. Along with this transformation of hip-hop from a marginal to mainstream cultural form, a particular type of rap music has emerged as the recording industry’s most widely produced and promoted subgenre. Sometimes referred to as “gangsta rap,” this style is marked by lyrics and visual images that glorify violence, misogyny, and homophobia, and promote a hunger for the acquisition of flashy and expensive material goods.

In Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, longtime hip-hop fan Byron Hurt takes a step back from the music that he loves to ask difficult questions about how rap music may be shaping our culture, reinforcing racist stereotypes of black men, and promoting harmful ideas about gender and sexuality.

For this week's blog post, watch each (all) of the following videos, then choose one and critically analyze it in terms of the following questions:

1. What roles do the men in the music video play?  What roles do the women play?  
2. Does the music video--as Sut Jhally insists all music videos do--tell a story about male and female sexuality?  If so, what story about sexuality does it tell?
3. What story (besides sexuality) does the visual music video tell?  If you had to watch the music video without sound, what story are you told and/or what message does the music video offer?
4. Does the music video reinforce harmful stereotypes or does it challenge them?  Provide examples from the video.
5. Given that music videos' target audience is adolescents (13-18 years old), what do you think adolescents learn about men, women, and relationships from this music video?

Jason Derulo--"Swalla" (ft. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGLxoKOvzu4&index=7&list=PLhS3DcL9XnJiyhbMAUPOK9d0qazofnb7O

Migos--"Bad and Boujee"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-sJp1FfG7Q&index=48&list=PLhS3DcL9XnJiyhbMAUPOK9d0qazofnb7O

Bruno Mars--"24K Magic"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqyT8IEBkvY&index=46&list=PLhS3DcL9XnJiyhbMAUPOK9d0qazofnb7O

Beyonce--"Sorry"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsmWxxouIM

The week prior to spring break, we screened both The Codes of Gender and Killing Us Softly 4, both of which examined images of women in advertising with a specific focus on how advertising constructs a distorted and destructive ideal of femininity.  This week, we screened The Bro Code:  How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men, which examines how popular culture reinforces and rewards sexism and reinforces a hostile climate toward women, homosexual men, and
heterosexual men who challenge existing norms about what it means to be a man in American
society. 

As an extension of this week's screening, you are asked to screen EITHER Tough Guise 2:  Violence, Manhood & American Culture or Generation M:  Misogyny in Media and Culture, both of which are available on the CI Learn course website under "external links." 

For this week's blog post, you are asked to complete ONE of the following activities, and be sure to use examples and support your argument using examples from the two films you screened:

1. Go to lyric websites and print out lyrics by contemporary rap artists (Big Sean, Drake, 2Chainz, Meek Mills, YG, The Weeknd, Migos, Gucci Mane, Lil Wayne, etc.). Examine the content of the lyrics of one song from one of these artists and describe how the lyrics construct masculinity and how the lyrics treat women using as the foundation of your argument the concepts and ideas presented in the screenings.  As an extension, look at the official music video for the song and discuss how the images in the video construct a particular vision of masculinity and how the women are portrayed (what role or roles do the women play?  what is their purpose in the video?).  Please post a link to the song (preferably a link to the YouTube official video). 
2. When you think about young boys being exposed to these accelerating levels of violence
   – whether it’s in movies, video games, or porn – what kinds of messages about manhood
   do you think they’re absorbing? What kinds of messages about women? About
   femininity?  Provide images or links to media texts
3. Go to a toy store or go online to a department store chain that carries toys and games.
   Make a list of the games and toys that have been marketed strictly for girls and those
   for boys.  Ideally, take a picture of the store aisle and post it. What do you think are
   the positives and/or negatives about splitting games and toys in this way. Are there
   themes that you interpret as being male or female with respect to toys and games,
   such as weapons versus cosmetics?

Consuming Images

You were asked to watch "Consuming Images" from Bill Moyers' The Public Mind, which aired in 1989/1990. This documentary illuminates how the power of visual images, especially in contemporary advertising calls into question what we perceive as truth and influences how we see the world and ourselves in it.

According to Moyers, "our most prolific visual form is the commercial. The average American, we’re told, sees more than 32,000 a year. Commercials now shape the way our politicians think and the way we get our news. Seeing is believing. A picture is worth a thousand words. And, of course, the camera never lies. With the invention of the photograph a century ago, the great American essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that we were moving into a time when the image would become more important than the object itself, when appearance would be preferred to reality, and it would be ever harder to know the truth. He should see us now."

And of course, news organizations also edit and later photographs. "If one purpose of journalism is to give us a picture of reality, is [it] journalism once the picture is altered? Just what is reality?"

"Soon after the camera was invented 150 years ago, the photograph was considered legal reality. Then the power of the picture to move human emotion was discovered by documentary photographers at the turn of the century. Lewis Hine in particular believed that if you could show people the true conditions of misery and of exploitation they would be moved to change those conditions. And it is that ethos, capturing reality with an image that communicates through feelings, that has inspired our most memorable documentary and news photographers. Throughout [the twentieth] century we have witnessed such a proliferation of photographic images that they often seem to overwhelm us. Image-makers counter by increasing the intensity. Nowhere is this more potent than in advertising’s appropriation of the photograph."

Photo Source:  Associated Press, Photographer Nick Ut

Several weeks ago, I shared the famous Vietnam War image of "Napalm Girl" and explained how this image, along with others, influenced public opinion and helped erode support for U.S. involvement in the war. Part of the reason this image was so powerful was the emotions it evoked. This image was very persuasive in that it showed the realities of war in a way most Americans had never seen nor experienced it.  Stuart Ewen insists, "images have built into them a strategy of persuasion."  And this is true whether we're talking about news or advertising.  The appeal is to feelings, and this discourages thought.  I have said before, in this course and elsewhere, that emotions are irrational. 

For this week's blog post, you are asked to find two images--one an advertising image and one a journalistic image (from a print or online newspaper or online news site) and try to identify which emotions the images are evoking and what sort of reality or worldview they are selling.  Yes, the advertising image is explicitly designed to sell a version of reality, but so too, if we are to believe the scholars, journalistic images.  Dig beneath the surface.  You don't have to agree with the worldview or version of reality to be able to identify it.  But be specific and point to specifics within the images themselves to support your claims.  Most of all, have fun with this.

Toxic Sludge is Good for You

We watched the film Toxic Sludge is Good for You and discussed the fact that marketing, advertising and public relations are all forms of propaganda.  The film offered examples of when and how propaganda has been used, especially to promote support for war or military intervention.  Propaganda in the United States is so embedded in culture that we don’t notice that it is there, much
less the influence it has on our lives.

For this week's blog post, you are asked to choose one political proposition or piece of legislation that has been proposed in the past two weeks and try to trace it back to who is funding and benefitting from it.  You need to be particularly critical and resourceful for this week's challenge. 

Have fun and good luck!

Media & Politics: Rich Media, Poor Democracy

The Founding Fathers understood the importance of information to democracy and to democratic theory.  They believed that to have a healthy democracy, we must have a healthy, independent, and vibrant journalism to check power and the status quo in the public interest.  In other words, if there is no freedom of speech or the press, we will not have an informed public.  The result will be the absence of a meaningful democracy.

In a democracy, journalism has three basic and necessary functions:

1. to provide an accounting of people in power and those with designs on power
2.  to provide and ensure a diversity of opinions on important issues so that citizens can form their own opinions
3.  to check facts, assure for accuracy, and point out lies.

These basic functions have been undermined with the slow erosion of the necessary boundary between the work of editors and reporters on one side, and the interests of owners and advertisers on the other. The result is a fundamental clash between the commercial base of media and the basic responsibilities of professional journalism.  With this commercial focus, an autonomous, independent journalism no longer makes fiscal sense because commercial news organizations face intense pressure to maximize profits.

It’s all about money.

The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech and a free press has been fundamentally compromised as news media have become the province of big corporations and wealthy owners in increasingly monopolistic markets.

The First Amendment was formulated as a social right: the right of citizens to have access to a free press. This principle has been eroded by a series of court decisions that have interpreted the First Amendment on behalf of corporate “speech.”  In other words, the right of owners and investors to control journalism without interference is valued more than the right of journalists and editors to do their jobs without interference.

Since our media are themselves corporations, we should not be surprised that journalistic autonomy and dissenting voices have virtually disappeared from mainstream news coverage. There is little or no business sense in encouraging the autonomy and independence of journalists given the corporate structure of media. It makes far more sense for owners and shareholders to hold their news divisions, just as they hold their television and film divisions, to a fierce accounting that demands profits over investing resources for controversial investigative work. The result of this corporate logic is that news programming has become as formulaic, watered down, and as sensationalistic as entertainment programming.  Their focus is to keep corporate stock prices high by keeping ratings high while slashing budgets and cutting costs.

The journalism that has emerged from this new business model is as economically sound from a corporate perspective as it is bankrupt and impoverished from a democratic perspective. Easy stories – puff pieces, natural disasters, and celebrity news have replaced more complicated and in-depth stories that address issues that have the most impact on citizens’ lives.

Similarly, the claims made by public officials are no longer challenged or checked for accuracy. “Balanced” news now means providing different opinions from official sources without any attempt to intervene or figure out who is telling the truth – if anyone. This simple regurgitation of the claims of those in power is exactly what we would expect from a system dominated by a handful of very wealthy corporations.  But it is the opposite of the kind of gutsy journalism that used to be expected and admired as fundamental to democracy. In terms of both domestic and foreign policy coverage, it is simply illogical to expect journalism that is critical of the U.S. role in the world, and perfectly logical that we have ended up with “journalism” that reflects the interests of owners.

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/10/30/rs-fake-news.cnn

Not surprisingly, the corporate focus of media and the lack of oversight has enabled the proliferation of fake news sites that oftentimes appear more believable and realistic than actual, credible, long-standing news sources.  For more information on this, review the following two sites and stories:

• CBS News "Don't Be Fooled by These Fake News Sites
• CNN "Fake News Sites Designed to Trick You

Your blog assignment for this week is to consider the following:

Do news media still fail to challenge the claims made by our political leaders or are they attempting to return to their original purpose and challenge those claims? 

You might also consider recent attempts by politicians to discredit news sources and provide a discussion of what fake news actually is and how it has become more mainstream—and for many, more believable—than actual credible news sources and their stories. 

Please provide links to any sources you identify and/or reference.  

Joystick Warriors

This week, you were asked to watch Joystick Warriors, which is a discussion about the relationship between violent video games and violence in the real world.  The film examines the game industry's longstanding working relationship with the U.S. military and the American gun industry.  Joystick Warriors examines several games to demonstrate how they sanitize, glamorize, and normalize violence while cultivating potentially dangerous and regressive attitudes and ideas about masculinity and militarism. 

Image source:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/15/can-t-balance-a-checkbook-here-have-an-ar-15.html

Gun ownership has risen dramatically in the past decade and the National Rifle Association has lobbied Congress repeatedly to relax ownership standards, most notably the recent passing of legislation that removed the Obama-era regulation that bars people with certain mental health issues from purchasing or owning a gun.  All that remains is a presidential signature.  Arguments fall on both sides of this issue with some saying it's a dangerous move and others saying that those who would have been prevented under the Social Security Reporting Act aren't likely to be violent because their mental impairment is severe enough that their disability is managed by caseworkers so reporting them to the national database is unnecessary.

Can you find any examples of gun violence that suggests it was encouraged by or facilitated as the result of an emphasis on masculinity and militarism in video games?  Do you think the concern about marketing weapons through video games is warranted?  Why or why not.  Justify your position with examples and evidence including links.

The Mean World Syndrome

This week, we watched The Mean World Syndrome, which argued, among other things, that people who consume a lot of media -- especially television and more specifically, television news -- believe the world is a far more dangerous place that it actually is.  This creates a sense of anxiety, fear, and anger that is out of proportion with reality.  This insecurity often leads to a greater desire for protection from this perceived danger and threat, which makes people more easily manipulated, more willing to give up rights and freedoms, and more likely to want to protect themselves in any way necessary; hence, the proliferation of guns and gun violence, the scapegoating of minorities and immigrants, the erosion of civil liberties, the increase in surveillance, and the absurd number of people who are incarcerated (and, in my opinion, the proliferation of for-profit prisons).

(http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/aurora-and-the-mean-world-syndrome)

We currently have a person occupying the White House who is a heavy viewer, defined as someone who watches more than four hours of television per day.  In fact, his aides are concerned about the amount of television he consumes.  If we agree with George Gerbner and accept that Cultivation Theory is plausible, then we not only believe that television has a cumulative and overarching impact on the way we see the world and ourselves in it, we must also believe that it has an effect on the person who is currently making political decisions that will impact us all (e.g., the Muslim ban and assumption that all Muslims are terrorists, the claim that Mexicans are rapists and criminals and drug dealers that warrant building a wall, the threat of military intervention in Chicago--CHICAGO!!--to curb urban violence).  That is a scary prospect.

While violence has always been present in storytelling and is sometimes necessary to the message of a particular story, what is troubling about today's media violence is that it often lacks consequences.  It is glamorous or humorous and typically leads to a happy ending, a highly unrealistic view of the actual consequences of violence.  He calls this "happy violence."

"It has to be highly entertaining violence. That means that theyʼre thrilling, that theyʼre swift, that theyʼre often glamorous, that theyʼre certainly spectacular, and they always lead to a happy ending." ~George Gerbner

What is "happy violence?"  Describe it in your own words.
What are some examples of happy violence from movies or television that you've seen recently?  Provide examples and share links (or images or screenshots).  Why are these examples of happy violence?  How do they make violence glamorous or humorous? 

The Myth of the Liberal Media

We watched The Myth of the Liberal Media and discussed a variety of issues including media ownership and media conglomeration and how that affects the news we receive.

Visit Free Press and look at the media ownership chart.  Consider a television channel you watch or a particular television show or maybe a musical artist you particularly enjoy and trace it to its corporate owner.  Which conglomerate owns and controls the channel/show/artist?  How might that influence the content of the programming or the content of the episodes or the lyrics?

Welcome and Course Introduction

Welcome to COMM/EDUC345!!! 

In almost every area of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are surrounded and influenced by the media.

Media is the plural form of medium. The word medium--from Latin, “the one in the middle”--has different meanings in different contexts.  For our purposes, media are the means or channels by which messages are transmitted or communicated.

Media are used for a variety of purposes, including advocacy, education and enrichment, entertainment, journalism, public service, personal and artistic expression...

Media include newpapers (both print and online), magazines (both print and online), film (professional and amateur), radio (short-wave, long-wave, digital), television (network, cable, on-demand/streaming), Internet/World Wide Web, books (print and digital), CDs, and DVDs.

There are many things to consider as we tackle media literacy, including:

• How to critically analyze and evaluate media texts
• Media conglomerates and the business & globalization of mass media
• Media (specifically journalism) as the Fourth Estate; that is, the intersection of media and government
• News and Fake News, as well as issues of media bias
• Sociopolitical and sociocultural aspects of media content such as the repeated use of stereotypes and the glamorization of violence

We will interrogate a variety of topics and issues, as well as engage a multitude of media texts in this course, all designed to hone our critical sensibilities and enable us to educate others.  As we begin, take a moment to read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."  The "Allegory of the Cave" can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice, written as a series of conversations between Socrates and others--primarily Sophists--whose thoughts and political actions influenced citizens.  Although somewhat utopian in its vision of an ideal world, The Republic is written as a discussion of the education necessary for a man to be (or become) a Philosopher-King.

(from "Plato," Encyclopedia Britannica)

The son of a wealthy and noble family, the elements required for one to be a citizen of Athens, Plato (427-347 BCE) had planned to pursue a career in politics when the trial, exile, and eventual suicide of his mentor Socrates (399 BCE) changed his life. He abandoned his political career, turned to philosophy, and opened a school on the outskirts of Athens dedicated to teaching the Socratic search for wisdom (known as Dialectic). Plato's school, the Academy, was the first university in western history and operated from 387 BCE until 529 CE, when Byzantine Emperor Justinian closed it.  Socrates was a thinker and a teacher who proselytized in an effort to educate, but Plato was a teacher and a writer whose writings typically appear as dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. 

In the "Allegory of the Cave," Plato symbolically describes the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way to salvation. Although brief, the "Allegory" presents most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists of directing students' minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-Kings) are the rulers.[1]

Please read the "Allegory" (found on the Blackboard course site) and then post a blog response to the following question:

          How might the "Allegory" help us understand media and media influence?

Please provide concrete examples to support your claim.  And for fun, try drawing a picture (or creating a digital picture) of Plato's cave and uploading it onto your blog post.  Feel free to share links or other media files (images, gifs, etc.), too.