Sexualisation of women in the music industry free essay sample

Sexualisation is a way that mass media, celebrities or advertising can make young or old people, especially young girls, become more provocative in the way that they speak, dress and behave (BBC network, 2014). It can also force people to change in character, which is a growing concern. Sexualisation in our society has become extremely prevalent within the younger female gender. Some may dismiss this issue as no more than yet another moral panic situation between sexuality and young girls, but some see this as a serious subject and some of these people are in fact the girls being targeted (Church, 2014). The music industry with their music videos is one of the major influences contributing to the sexualisation of young girls. With the raunchy outfits and extreme sex appeal that music videos are displaying, gives an explanation for the increasingly sexualised behaviour with teen girls. There are many ways in which adolescent girls can be influenced by the sexualisation of the music industry. We will write a custom essay sample on Sexualisation of women in the music industry or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Ways such as, advertising clothing which is low cut, skimpy and sexually leading, masking young girls in makeup to make them look more attractive, and having a promiscuous outlook to the opposite sex at a young age. The constant contradiction between remaining innocent but looking visually irresistible to young males for young girls is becoming harder on account of the social normalities for youths in this generation. Are we putting too much undue pressure on young girls to look a certain way? When did this become an issue? Sexualisation in the music industry has been an issue since the early 1980’s when the television channel MTV was invented, and singers generated film clips to accompany their music (bright blue, 2013). Before music clips, the sexual element of the music was wrapped in the raunchy lyrics. Music videos started in 1981 when the pop hit ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton John was released. This music video contains multiple women in tight, fluoro coloured spandex gym clothes, performing what you would see in a gym, only more sexualised, with the thrusting and ‘pornified’ dance moves (YouTube, 2013). OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN: â€Å"LETS GET PHYSICAL† It was around this time that women were tired of shaping their music around the typical ‘good-girl’ category of music video. They wished to explore their sexuality and have an impact on the audience by displaying their womanhood and independence, which is when young girls started to explore how they could use their body language as a way of enticement. (Mathers, 2014) They were trying to entice men into paying more attention to them as being more fit and active which subtly means that they would engage in sexual activity. This is backed up by her lyrics stating ‘There is nothing left to talk about, unless it is horizontally’. The lyric is referring to sexual behaviours. On June 4th 2013 the most controversial, sexualised, and raunchy film clip was released (YouTube, 2013). This was Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Can’t Stop’. The video contained Miley with a group of rebellious youths, causing mayhem and havoc in a mansion. In the majority of the video, Cyrus is wearing nothing but white contoured leggings and a skimpy white bra. Miley is also shot with her legs open, and the camera between her legs, this is suggesting sexual behaviour. Miley has billions of ‘tween’ admirers all around the world (Vevo, 2013) and for them viewing this sort of materials can brand an ideology in their minds of how they should be behaving. â€Å"Miley speaks out in a current interview and states â€Å"Girls should see me as a role model, I am cool, calm and have hit 150 billion views on YouTube† (Seventeen, 2014). She is using her status to gain fans and manipulate you into thinking she is correct in the way she thinks, speaks, and acts. Both Miley and Olivia have referred to sexual conducts and displayed raunchy and suggestive danicing which can be seen as a lack of respect for themselves and also a generalisation that most girls in the muic industry are behaving this way. Have artists tried to contradict the sexualisation in music videos? 28-year-old British pop diva Lily Allen has made a living off of slamming pop culture, and in her new music video ‘Hard Out Here’ she makes a mockery of the music industry and how girls are behaving in music videos. (BBC network, 2014) The potty-mouthed princess makes several comments on how â€Å"she doesn’t have to shake her behind because she has half a brain† or â€Å"Dress like a hooker to attract a good looker†. These lyrics of the song reflects on the ways that she is dressed throughout the clip, she is in all black, yet she isn’t showing an inch of her own body although she is surrounded by the typical slack hussies who have barely anything on except having their genitals covered (Clips,2014) The girls around her are all dancing and moving in an inciting way to attract male attention, all the while making fun of women who feel this is acceptable. At one point in the video, Lily and her group of dancers are suggestively eating bananas, insinuating sexual behaviour (Independent,2014). Lily is sending a very important message to young girls, she is saying that this behaviour is non realistic and too sexualised for young girls who have impressionable mind to be viewing. The suggestive behaviours and the raunchy dance moves, are ways that she feels young girls of today’s music video industry are tyring to strive to be like. Do teenage girls in reality, feel the pressure or the need to behave or look like the women in music videos? According to the surveys that were conducted, targeted at year 11 and 12 students, one hundred per cent of the applicants, answered no to â€Å"whether or not they feel they have to behave this way. † This survey response indicates that girls in high school, don’t feel the pressures of looking like a girl in a music video, some commented on how â€Å"it is an unrealistic expectation of what we are expected to look like. † Fifty per cent of the surveyors said that they don’t feel the need to â€Å"parade themselves† as sexual beings to attract the opposite sex. This proves that half the demographics do not see the importance of sexual attraction or making themselves centre of attention while with the opposite sex. The girls that I surveyed were older teenagers between the ages of seventeen and eighteen, and these people were all for Lily Allen’s campaign for slamming the sexualised music videos. This shows that the older girls realise, the ideology of being ‘perfect’ does not exist, and these women shown in these videos are not ‘realistic†. In conclusion, the music industry is sexualising older teenage girls to a minor extent. According to the surveys, the older girls don’t feel that they have to display every inch of their body to be considered attractive, and most didn’t see having male attention as an important social standing to have. To the older teens in actuality, music videos are seen as false and a fake depiction of adolescent girls in reality. Lily Allen has made more or an impact on our generation, making girls embrace how they look, how much they weigh and not letting male attention become something to fear about. Idols like Miley are fooling impressionable young minds into what real women are like, and her depiction, is far from reality.