Black Women Versus White Women:
How does race impact the way female sexuality is presented in music videos?by
Latonya Brown
At first glance, music videos may appear to be a harmless entertainment outlet that promotes the sale of popular music. But closer inspection reveals that it is indeed a cultural phenomenon that has an impact far and beyond music sales. Since the beginning of Black Entertainment Television (BET), Music Television (MTV), and Video Hits One (VH-1) in 1980, 1981, and 1985 respectively, music videos have been a dominant factor in American culture, as well as a platform from which current American attitudes, values, and preoccupations can be readily accessed. An analysis of two groups of music videos, popular/mainstream that features white women, versus hip hop/rap that features black women, establishes current and reoccurring themes and historical stereotypes of both groups of women. Modern day representations of black women in many hip hop music videos show little range from the typical stereotypes, including that of the vixen or little more than an accessory that money can buy. Likewise, the themes that surfaced again and again for white women varied from the blonde bimbo, the fragile waif-like model, or the femme fatale. Examining race and its role in how female sexuality is represented in popular media presentations, yields a greater understanding of the cultural impact on the sexual development of females and their sexual practices and preoccupations.
Music videos reveal the very definition of popular culture, from the trends in clothing, the hair, and even the attitude of America. They are a rich source in which American beliefs, values, and point of view can be gleaned. Although there is a cross section of music that airs on several video channels, be it hip hop, pop, rhythm and blues, rap, or country, each channel caters to a particular segmented audience. Thus, each channel has its own distinct personality -interestingly, all of which are owned by media conglomerate Viacom. From the beginning, the prominent part of popular music video content consistently and overwhelmingly points to one feature - women. Taking note of the models in each music video genre, the roles and positions they play in the videos, and the production elements of the messages, including stylistics, movement, point of view, identified predictable formulas.
In analyzing current video themes, it is helpful to review historical stereotypes and themes of women. An examination of historical portrayals of black women reveals a staggering semblance to that of the present day media presentations. One of the most common and enduring stereotypes of black women in American culture is that of the Jezebel -the hyper-sexual, promiscuous, and lewd black female, depicted wearing little or no clothing. According to Ferris State Professor David Pilgrim, Jezebel images from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia depicts the common attitude regarding Black women that permeated American culture from slavery down through the Jim Crow period of the 1960s. He explains, “everyday items . . . depicted naked or scantily dressed Black women, lacking modesty and sexual restraint.” (Pilgram )To say the least, common household and utility items such as drinking glasses, ashtrays, sheet music, and fishing lures, speak to the objectification and deeply entrenched defamation of Black women and their humanity within American culture. Jezebel is a name that survived down through the centuries, in various cultures to denote the wicked and immoral “hussy.” The historical stereotype of Black women as Jezebel in American culture continues today in many aspects of modern media presentations, particularly the role of the hip hop music video siren that will be discussed later in further detail.
An examination of the historical representations of white women also serves as a cultural text. In contrast to black women, white women historically wore restrictive clothing, usually covering most of their bodies, suggesting a prudish, civilized, and purist demeanor. In their book, “Our Separate Ways,” Ella Bell and Stella Nkomo identify early sex stereotypes of White women in literature as passive, fragile, and powerless, or what they call “Miss Anne” (240). Another archetype Bell and Nkomo discuss is that of the “Femme Fatale,” (242) the flirtatious White woman who uses her sexuality to manipulate and control men (Bell and Nkomo, 242). The Femme Fatale is often represented in the position of power or control, unlike the Jezebel stereotype, who is portrayed as the object of power. However, the historical stereotypes of White women, along with Black women, can be readily identified in modern mainstream music videos.
To be sure, Black women have been a willing and available participator in popular hip hop music videos. Black females that make up a major portion of participants as well as audience of these videos and the like have fully bought into the notion that their value is reduced to the bump and grind of their hips and buttocks. The deconstruction and analysis of the following top hip hop videos demonstrate the power of stereotypes in not only shaping cultural attitudes, but in the perception of self as well. To take a case in point, in the music video, “Sexual Seduction,” Snoop Dogg is portrayed as a pimp, surrounded by black women, dressed in either leather or lace negligees, in scene after scene of various sexual poses, bending down at his feet, finger in mouth, crawling seductively on the floor, posed on his revolving bed, eagerly anticipating his every sexual desire.
This video pales in comparison to his 2003, “P.I.M.P.” collaboration with fellow rapper Fifty Cent. In this video, Fifty Cent wakes up with three women in bed, who clean and dress him for the day. He is then escorted to the ‘Pimp Headquarters’ where Snoop Dogg and veteran pimps, including Chicago’s Magic Don Juan, initiates him into the pimp hall of fame. The following pool party features beautiful and scantily clad women sitting around in celebration as a dark skinned model in earth tone bikini and heels gyrate to the camera angeled underneath her crotch. Two submissive female models in negligee nighties and wearing dog cuff and chains are escorted by a slick dressed female pimp, showing that exploitation can also be a female game. Slow motion frames of jiggling female flesh and body parts and seductive facial shots with lips slightly parted, further demonstrates the objectivity of female sexuality.
Flo Rida’s “Low” is actually a promotion for the movie “How She Move,” which is the typical hip hop club scene dance video, where admist the dance scenes inside the club, a featured model is outside bending low and gyrating with legs wide open beside the rapper’s sportscar, as if offering her body as another token for his success.
Fifty Cent’s, “Disco Inferno,” begins and ends on the same note, featuring topless, thong wearing models literally posing upside down in a booty-jiggling festival. Several shots of Fifty Cent smacking their booties and pouring champaign down faceless models’ backside is par for the course.
Hip hop star Nelly’s “Tip Drill,” video takes place at another typical location for hip hop videos -the strip club. Practically naked women in thongs and g-strings are wildly grinding and pole-sliding in hypersexuaiized poses as the rapper and posse throw money in appreciation. The video ends with rapper Nelly sliding a credit card down a black female’s buttocks. The message: if you have no limit, neither do we.
It’s hard to imagine that these videos had popular uncut versions which aired on the now defunct ‘BET Uncut,’ an afterhours video show with a TV-MA rating that allows hip hop performers to take the exploitation to a whole new level. This display of defamation of black women is what Mary McRae in “How Do I Talk To You?” calls internalized sexism, which has many of the same consequences as internalized racism. She states, “beliefs that are informed by stereotypes can be so strong that we tend to accept them, even about ourselves, and act as though they are true.” (McRae) McRae’s observation rings true, particularly in the light of music videos where many black females’ sense of self appears to be strongly influenced by the way they are categorically perceived by others within American culture.
An examination of popular mainstream video yields a similar view of the power of stereotypes. Namely, historical representations continue to play a major role in the way female sexuality is presented in modern day media. White women can often be observed in the historical themes at polar ends of the spectrum either as the fragile, powerless, the damsel in distress, or the cunning, femme fatale. In several popular country, pop, mainstream videos the All-American girl is often in tears as the white male plays the heroic role either as the American soldier or the typical prince that rescue her from turmoil. At polar ends of the spectrum, the white female in modern day videos is either the pop princess or the bad girl.
As an illustration, “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” music video by Aerosmith presents the brave, powerful, leading man leaving for military duty, as close-up face shots of the all-American beauty, hair blowing in the wind, tears streaming down her face is featured as the broken-hearted left in the wake of war.
In the evolution of her career, pop princess Britney Spears has portrayed both the wholesome girl next door to the blonde feme fatal. “Baby, One More Tme,” (1999) features Spears in the mini-skirted and midriff bearing schoolgirl uniform and ponytails who sing about a school girl crush. “Toxic” (2004) features a more sexually evolved Spears who portrays a beautiful but deadly flight attendant/secret agent/super hero in leather catsuit who seduce men, using her sexual wiles to outwit them, and ultimately poisons her former lover in the end after making out with him.
Another pop princess, Jessica Simpson, epitomized the blonde all-American girl next door, whose claim to fame had more to do with marrying her prince and boy band member, Nick Lachey than her pop music. In the video “With You” (2004) Simpson describes being with her prince, where she can “let her hair down, or say anything crazy because (he’ll) always catch (her) before she hits the ground.” The video location is her mansion where Simpson’s reality show, “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica” (2003) is also shot. It features the beautiful blonde in the popular stereotypical ‘bimbo’ role as she awkwardly does house work, displaying that she is inept at doing dishes and laundry.
The video also features Simpson eating Chicken Of The Sea tuna from a can, a humorous reference to the fact that she questioned her husband whether tuna was chicken or fish on their reality show. Simpson is also shown eating buffalo wings, another reference to her reality show, where she thought they contained real buffalo meat. The video ends with a final reference to the “Newlyweds” reality show, as Simpson straps her breasts down and attemps to play golf. On the reality show, she had complained that she couldn’t golf well because her huge breasts get in the way. The video, along with the reality show was a pop culture hit and both earned numerous awards, including Teen’s Choice, People’s Choice, and Best Female MTV Video Awards, further illustrating cultural acceptance and power of popular female stereotypes.
In view of the forgoing video analysis, popular culture is defined and pertetuated through popular music videos. In ‘Media Literacy’ Silverblatt explains “media can serve as a text by which we can learn about the values, concerns, and priorities of various subcultures in American culture such as women, adolescents, and gays.” (Silverblatt, 58) As we have seen, historical representations of women both black and white are powerful messages that have not much altered in modern music video themes. Race is shown to have a major impact on how female sexuality is presented; each group disportionately portrayed according to its typically established stereotypical roles.
Many people understand that the cultural environment plays a powerful role in creating problems, particularly those of developing girls. The influence of media is strikingly illustrated in “Deadly Persuasion,” Jean Kilbourne states, “a recent study found a sharp rise in eating disorders among young women in Fiji soon after the introduction of television to the culture. Before television there was little talk of dieting in Fiji.” According to Kilbourne, it appears to be more than coincidental that among heavy television viewers, 50 percent were more likely to diet than those who watched television less frequently. (Kilbourne, 135) Furthermore, many psychologists link the impact of cultural environment on the development of Black women’s sexuality. Prominent psychologists Stephanie Brown and Lily McNair emphasize, “sexual behavior may develop out of a woman's sexual sense of self, or her sexual identity” (Brown and McNair). Thus, cumulative messages young women and girls receive in popular media presentations strongly impact their self esteem and identity. In recent years, social critics and psychologists have pointed out the range of problems, including low self-esteem, eating disorders, binge drinking, teen pregnancy, and the rise in HIV among adolescent girls in America. In a toxic cultural environment, girls and young women are most vulnerable to the messages of popular media presentations.
In conclusion, an analysis of both groups of music videos, popular/mainstream that features white women, and hip hop/rap that features black women, establishes reoccurring themes and historical stereotypes that negatively impact both groups of young women. This gives rise to the need for more positive gender roles in media presentations as well as social interventions and programs for girls who are in the process of learning their values and developing sexual identity.
Works Cited
Bell, E. and Nkomo, S. 2001. Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Personal Identity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Brown, Stepanie, Mc Nair, Lily. Black Women’s Sexual Sense of Self: Implications for Aids Prevention. University of Georgia http://www.uga.edu/womanist/1995/brown.html as retrieved on Mar 16, 2008.
Kilbourne, Jean. Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising. Free Press. (1999) New York, NY
McRae, Mary. 2004. Center for Gender in Organizations. “How Do I Talk To You, My White Sister?” http://www.simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/commentaries_2.pdf
Pilgrim, David Dr., Professor of Sociology, Ferris State University. July 2002. Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/jezebel/ as retrieved on Feb 19, 2008 22:32:20 GMT.
Silverblatt, Art. Media Literacy: Keys to Interpreting Media Messages - 2nd ed. Praeger Publishers, (2001) Westport, CT 06881.