Miley Cyrus

           

Source I

 

         The majority of people who first fell in love with Miley Cyrus fell in love with the good girl Hannah Montana.  Then they watched her grow up over the years into a hyper sexualized adolescent Miley Cyrus.  All girls go through the transition from girlhood to womanhood, and therefore look for a role model to help them through this difficult time.  I do not feel that Miley Cyrus is a good role model.  Also she is not a good representation of women for a number of reasons.

                                                Source II

            First we look at Hannah Montana, the pseudonym of the character Miley Stewart when she is a pop star on stage.  Yes this may seem good because it represents young girls who have a dream of making it big one day.  However the character is narrow in her representation because her father (Billy Ray Stewart/Cyrus) has been in the music industry, they are well off, there is no mother figure in the picture, and most notably she is that ideal female image (white, thin, blonde).  Also this show presents a double bind through the lead character.  Miley is an ordinary every day girl and yet she is a mega superstar on the other hand.  Further her need for an alter ego proves that it is quite impossible for us to be two contradictory identities in one being.

            Next she started to break free from Disney’s capitalist nature and her good girl image.  This mainly started with the song and video of “Can’t Be Tamed”.  Although the lyrics of the song are some bit positive, the video was sexualized.  In the song it says “They try to change me but they realize they can't...I can't be tamed...I can't be changed...And if you try to hold me back, I might explode” (Source III).  She is saying that women can’t be held back from doing what they want, they can’t be domesticated like a pet.  Miley is also issuing a warning saying that the longer and more you oppress us the faster and harder you will fall. 

 

                                         Source IV

 

When you actually watch the video you realize that’s not the message.  In the video Miley is wearing a skimpy black outfit, has wings, and is seen breaking free from a cage.  She is saying that she is a sexual animal that cannot be dominated or taken control of in a sexual relationship.  However by the end of the video she goes back into the cage, ultimately stating that she is dominated but when she gets mad she has her way.

            Now we come to 2013.  She’s engaged, has a new look, she culturally appropriates twerking, goes crazy at the VMAs, her engagement falls apart, and her new album comes out.  This is all part of her new image being a carefree sex crazed being trying to break out of the innocent Hannah Montana image and transition into womanhood.  To Miley the VMA performance was a way of breaking out and being empowering, however I disagree with that.  It misrepresents what other women feel is empowering and growing up.  To me empowering would be getting a job they said I would never reach. Or it's saying I don’t care what you think to the world without having to parade yourself around half nude.  Therefore Miley Cyrus misrepresents women because she has had her own experiences, and she is not yet a woman.

 

                                                                        Source V.

 

Sources

I. http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/hannah-montana/images/8435551/title/hannah-montana-season-1-promotional-photos-hq-3-photo
II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVTFcT_nwGw

III. http://www.metrolyrics.com/cant-be-tamed-lyrics-miley-cyrus.html

IV. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSG6z_13-Q

V. http://www.gotceleb.com/miley-cyrus-2013-mtv-video-music-awards-in-brooklyn-2013-08-26.html/miley-cyrus-pictures-hot-vma-2013-mtv-performance-58

Kelly Clarkson

                                                                         Source I

 

            I feel Kelly Clarkson is a great representation of women as well as a great role model for young females these days.  It all starts with how she reached her success.  Everyone knows her as the ‘first, original American Idol’.  The main goal of this show was to find the next greatest superstar among a group of average, everyday, normal people.  Therefore Kelly Clarkson represents all those women who have dreams of doing something that seems almost unimaginable.  She shows us that as long as we work hard towards something we love, we can reach the top.  Further Kelly represents those artists who stay true to their image and self.  I recall her saying in an interview something like before she won American Idol, a record label approached her however they wanted her to change her image and become more provocative such as Christina Aguilera.  She told them no because she felt that singing was about talent and not looks, she refused to be another lifeless being that the capitalist society could use to make money off.  With that she was telling the world that women are not to be treated like pieces of meat, just there to look aesthetically pleasing and pleasure society.

            One of her songs that speaks to this is “Mr. Know It All”.  Some of the lyrics are “Mr. Bring Me Down/Well you like to bring me down, don't you/But I ain't laying down/Baby I ain't going down/Can't nobody tell me how it's gonna be…you should know that I lead not follow…You ain't got the right to tell me/When and where to go…'Cause I'm living my truth without your lies” (Source III).  Another criticism Kelly has been faced with for not choosing to fit into this image is that of her weight.  I feel she represents an average body size, however because she isn’t a size 4 people in the media have called her fat. 

                                                                           Source II

 

A song that speaks to this ‘not fitting in’ is “People Like Us”.  Part of the lyrics are “[t]hey try and knock us down/But change is coming, it's our time now…Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes…It's a revolution, after all your tears have turned to rage/Just wait, everything will be okay…You've just gotta turn it up loud when the flames get higher” (Source IV).  She is saying don’t let them get to you, you are stronger and can fight this.  Yes it may be easier sometimes to forget your individuality and just go with flow of everyone else, but if you push through it will get better.  Further in the song she says “They can't do nothing to you, they can't do nothing to me/This is the life that we choose, this is the life that we bleed/So throw your fists in the air, come out, come out if you dare/Tonight we're gonna change forever” (Source IV).  This is her saying that you should do what you want with your life, that we are truly stronger than this capitalist society when we work together.

                                                                           Source V

 

            Now in the video of this song the setting seems to be a research facility or a detention centre for misfits who don’t fit in.  The people who are in muted, black and white tones represent capitalist society.  They also represent those almost lifeless beings, going with the flow and succumbing to the consumption of completely useless items.  On the other hand the people who are portrayed in vibrant colour are the ones that don’t fit in.  However they are the true representation of body image and beauty.  They are unique, have a conscience, and are the ones that will make a difference in society.

 

Sources

I. http://www.kellyclarkson.com/sites/kclarkson/files/official_photos/kc_2790.jpg

II. http://www.kellyclarkson.com/sites/kclarkson/files/stronger_4.jpg

III. http://www.metrolyrics.com/mr-know-it-all-lyrics-kelly-clarkson.html

IV. http://www.metrolyrics.com/people-like-us-lyrics-kelly-clarkson.html#startvideo

V. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWbMz_aBlMU

Adele

  

        Adele is white but she defies the white image of beauty because she is not slim.  She is larger than most of the females that we see in music today.  In a way, she is the total opposite of Nicki Minaj.  Adele’s focus is on her music not on the way she looks.  Adele is a good representation of women because she shows that not all women are slim.  You do not have to be slim to be beautiful.  Real women come in all shapes and sizes and Adele brings attention to this.  She is represented as a powerful female willing to defy society’s image of beauty.

          Her music videos are not sexualized like many of her counterpart female musicians.  Videos such as “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You” have an artistic feel that accompany the lyrics of these songs.  The focus is always on the music which is what being a singer is about.  This obsession with image in music and other popular media is ridiculous.  Music is about the singing, not the way the artist looks.  The way an artist looks has no bearing on their ability to sing.  You usually hear an artist’s song first before you see an image of them or their music video.  Adele represents the voice of women.  Women have something to say, they are not just there to look aesthetically pleasing for men.

        Adele further defies the social norm by having a child out of wedlock.  There are many women that are faced with unwanted pregnancy and choose to be single parents.  But there are also couples like Adele and her boyfriend that have a child before getting married.  This shows women that are in similar positions that it is not wrong.  You do not have to be chained down by the masculine institution of marriage.

         In the music video for “Rolling in the Deep” Adele is sitting in a chair singing. The room she is sitting in looks like someone has been painting it.  It panes out to a house full of glasses of water.  Another shot is of a samurai dancing with a sword in a room lined with sand.  Someone (unseen) is throwing white ceramic dishes that form a large pile at the end of the stairs.  The more powerfully Adele sings, the glasses of water vibrate, the samurai dances faster and the dishes are broken faster.  This culminates to sparklers falling upon a table covered with a model of white buildings.  The white buildings are finally set on fire.  Women have the power to destroy the male hegemony that these white buildings represent.  These buildings represent the male thinking that is only one sided.  Without women society is bland and colourless, and has no life to it.  All these different images intertwined represent the power of Adele’s singing.  The music video is not only focused on Adele unlike other videos that prominently feature the singer.  The video is focused more on the singer’s power.  This video represents women’s ability to let their voice be heard.  When women are heard they have the power to do anything, including setting a house on fire.

 

         Adele is a good representation of women because she shows that our voices are beautiful.  They have the right to be spoken and heard.  Through this women can overcome the male dominance in society. Adele represents the women that are not slim and fit society’s image of beauty.  She shows that you can still be beautiful even if you are not slim.  This is a good message towards girls and women.

 

Sources:

Image 1:

http://jezebel.com/adele-says-fanks-but-no-fanks-to-seven-figure-memoir-pa-474712342

Image 2:

http://www.kveller.com/mayim-bialik/my-top-10-grammy-moments/1646069-adele-perform-2-grammys-2012-show-617/

Katy Perry

 
       I personally really enjoy Katy Perry’s music.  Katy Perry started out her singing career as a Christian singer.  She has very much broken out of this at the onset of her successful mainstream career.  Her first single, “I Kissed a Girl” explored homosexuality which is not accepted as much in the Christian faith.
        Most of Katy’s songs have positive messages of empowerment and being your own person.  These songs include "Firework" and "Roar".  But she also has a lot of songs about sex like "Peacock", "California Girls" and "E.T.".  Songs like “Not Like the Movies” break the “Hollywood” idea of finding your Prince Charming, falling in love and living happily ever after.  This is not a realistic idea that most girls and women actually experience.  This draws on Katy’s own life and her relationship with ex-husband Russell Brand.

 

           Katy embodies the white image of beauty.  She is white, slim and has big breasts.  One of the positive songs’ of hers that is popular right now is "Roar".  She is singing about breaking away from a restricting relationship.  Many women can identify with being in a relationship where they were denied to be who they really were or were abused emotionally or physically.  This song gives women the encouragement to stand up for themselves and not deny themselves their happiness for others.  She compares herself to a tiger.  This animal is strong and able to protect itself against predators just like women are able to.

          In the music video for this song, Katy appears alongside a male figure where their airplane crashes in the jungle.  The male figure who doesn’t seem too concerned is soon eaten by a tiger.  Katy, as a woman is more rational and seems upset by the fact that their plane crashed.  This shows that men are not smarter than women.  Katy is able to survive on her own. She befriends animals and explores the island.  She emerges as a warrior complete with a staff, grass skirt and a cheetah print top just covering her breasts.  I understand that she is an attractive, slim woman but is it really necessary for her to be half naked? What was wrong with the clothes she was wearing in the beginning half of the video?  The video portrays her as a strong woman but undermines this by her being half naked.  Katy comes face to face with a tiger but is able to roar loud enough to protect herself.  The tiger becomes her pet, Kitty Purry.  She is portrayed as the queen of the jungle sitting at a throne surrounded by all the animals.  This represents that women are able to overcome their obstacles or oppressors and become stronger because of it.

          Katy Perry is not explicitly a good representation of women or explicitly a bad representation of women.  I think she lies in the middle.  She has her positive aspects along with her negative ones.  Many of her songs have very positive messages of empowerment and being your own person.  On the same token though, many of her songs are very sexual.  She is highly sexualized in her music videos which is not a good representation of women.  Women are not sexual objects and should not be portrayed as such.  Do you agree? Is Katy Perry a good representation or a bad representation in your opinion?

 

Sources:

Image 1:

http://www.ariacharts.com.au/news/42895/katy-perry's-'roar'-

Image 2 :

http://jezebel.com/the-many-sexual-euphemisms-on-katy-perrys-filthy-awes-1448038883

Beyonce

Sources II - V

 

            Beyonce is one of the better representations of the modern day woman, however she isn’t the greatest.  First off she if of African American descent and therefore she does not fall into the ‘mythical norm’.  Also she has recently become a mother and is still working on her career.  She helps represent those women who want to find a balance between family and their jobs.  However I feel they shouldn’t look up to her because the modern day woman’s issue with children is that it’s too expensive to raise a child.  Beyonce doesn’t have that issue because she is part of a superstar couple worth hundreds of millions.  So women are stuck with two choices: get married, have children, be a stay at home mom, let the man be in charge; or get a job, grow your career, make enough money to raise children but find out you’re as barren as a desert  by then.

            Looking at her career we see she got her start in one of the most popular girl groups of the late 20th and early 21st century.  Girl groups were all for female empowerment, at least that’s what I thought.  Now it’s all about looking hot, being sexy, and selling as many records as you can.  Take for example Beyonce’s song “Run The World (Girls)”, it’s all about the empowerment of women.  Some of the song lyrics are “I'm repping for the girls who taking over the world help me raise a glass for the college grads...Boy you know you love it how we're smart enough to make these millions/Strong enough to bear the children then get back to business”(Source I).  So Beyonce is basically saying for girls to go get an education, become the top dog of a company, and yay I’m rooting for you because you are in charge.  However when I watch the video for this song I become completely discouraged.  She is half naked and shaking her stuff all over the screen, not to mention the rest of the females in the video.  This is just deducing women back down to their bodies, making them sex-crazed animals.

                                                                          Source VI

            Now this goes with saying she is not like Nicki Minaj trying to turn herself into ‘Barbie’.  Beyonce is more like I’m hot, I’m fit, and I feel wonderful with my body.  Whereas Nicki is more like look at me I have large breasts and a large ass, and I’m the type of girl every guy wants.  Therefore in this sense Beyonce is a better representation of women.  She is showing females that feeling great about your body is about satisfying yourself and not about pleasing as many people as you can.  She is a real woman staying true to her body, unlike Minaj who is being fake with all the work she has had done.

            Therefore Beyonce represents working women and those women who feel good about their bodies.  However she misrepresents them in the sense that she has more money and in turn has more time to focus on being healthy as well as focusing on building her family and career.

Sources

       I.            http://www.metrolyrics.com/girls-who-run-the-world-lyrics-beyonce-knowles.html

    II.            http://glittermagrocks.com/connect/2010/05/13/beyonce/

 III.            http://www.hdwallpapersfan.com/beyonce-knowles.html/beyonce-knowles-32

 IV.            http://www.wallpapers-photos.net/beyonce-knowles-2013-new-photos-hd-3/

    V.            http://www.palzoo.net/Destinys-Child

 VI.            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U

Nicki Minaj

         In my personal opinion, I think Nicki Minaj is a bad representation of women.  She is the most sexualized female artist in the music industry right now other than Miley Cyrus.  Even her name Minaj, is sexual.  It is a play on the French phrase ménage a trios, which means threesome.  She portrays this image of a black Barbie doll.  She even has a Barbie doll created after her.  An issue with the Barbie doll is the fact that Barbie is the white ‘mythical norm’.  The Nicki Minaj Barbie has much lighter skin than Nicki herself.  Nicki is not properly represented by this Barbie that is apparently supposed to be in her image.  It also ignores the Black girls that might play with the doll and not feel accurately embodied by Mattel the creator of Barbie.  Minaj reinforces the white image of beauty rather than representing and embracing the beauty of Black women.
         She wants to be known for the way she looks.  She wears very provocative clothing in her videos that bring attention to her breasts and butt.  Not all women have big breasts or a big butt but they see her as an ideal image of beauty and think there is something wrong with their bodies because they do not look like her.  Reportedly, Nicki has had breast implants and butt injections to be created into this image.  Women should be happy with the way they look and not feel the need to change.  It is wrong to have plastic surgery when there is nothing physically wrong with your body.  What needs to change is your ideals and beliefs that there is something wrong with you.  Women need to have a positive body image.         
            I commend her for being a successful female artist in the rap/hip-hop genre that is dominated by men.  It shows women that they can sing in a genre that is typically looked at as a male genre.  Women can do what men can do, whether this is in an occupation or something else.  I wish Nicki would do it in a less sexualized way because she is doing the same thing to herself that male rappers do to women in their music videos. If she didn’t look the way she did, she wouldn’t be as successful.   
          The first song that made Nicki Minaj become popular is “Super Bass”.  I think it’s important to take a closer look at the lyrics of this song.  This is especially important as when people generally listen to music they do not pay that much attention to the lyrics.  The title of the song itself is a play on words of “superb ass”.  When she addresses the male in the song she repeatedly draws attention to the fact that he has money with lyrics like “got stacks on deck like he savin’ up” and “he got the right kind of bill”.  She is showing that women only care about how much money a guy has or how he looks.  The lyrics, “he be blazin’ up” signify this.  She also use derogatory language within the song. I find the line “you’ll get slapped if you’re lookin’ ho”, very anti-feminist.  It doesn’t even fit with the lyrics of the song.  I don’t understand why as a woman she would want to address another woman as a ho.  She also condones physical violence with reference to slapping.  You can slap a woman if she looks like a ho?  Is this what Nicki is trying to say?  The line “then the panties come off” basically is telling girls or women listening to the song that if you like a guy have sex with him.  If you like a guy you should get to know him and let him get to know you.  You can’t have a positive relationship with someone just based on sex.  I don’t understand the line, “I can tell that you're in touch with your feminine side, oh”.  She talks about his eyes and they signal that he is in touch with his feminine side.  I think she is trying to say he is emotional. I do not believe this makes him more feminine.  She is condoning the stereotype that females are emotional and caring beings.
         The fact that Nicki Minaj is black, she is representing more women than the typical pop star, but yet she is trying to become this white image.  We see her failing to represent black females.  She sexualizes the females she represents which is not a fair representation of all women.  She brings up anti-feminist messages as well in her songs.  What are your thoughts about Nicki Minaj? 

Sources:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/super-bass-lyrics-nicki-minaj.html

Image 1: http://www.studlife.com/cadenza/music/2010/12/03/pink-friday-nicki-minaj/

http://thegrio.com/2011/12/02/nicki-minaj-as-barbie-one-of-a-kind-doll-crafted-for-charity-auction/

Image 2 :

http://thegrio.com/2012/02/07/nicki-minaj-and-marilyn-monroe-is-she-perpetuating-white-female-beauty-standard/

Welcome to the blog!

          Welcome to our blog, Voices of Misrepresentation!  To us representation is an image that stands in to symbolize the holistic ideas of something.  Therefore, misrepresentation of women is when the ‘mythical norm’ fails to take into account the holistic idea of women and their differences.  It is also when it fails to properly converse with cultures outside of the mainstream, American pop culture.
         We are going to be discussing how the voices of current female artists bring forth images to society which misrepresent women.  We will be talking specifically about Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Adele and Kelly Clarkson and possibly others.  These female artists range on a scale from bad to good in their representation of women.  Our focus will be on their music videos and the lyrics of their most popular songs as well as their current actions within the media.
          Music videos all started with the creation of MTV in the 1980s.  Music became an act for watching not just listening.  Music videos even more associated a song with an image.  Madonna was the first female artist to be sexualized in her video for “Like a Virgin”.  Madonna became very popular because of this, but it led other female artists to be viewed as sexual objects if they too wanted to sell their music.  Today, it is very hard to separate the music from the artist.  Music is no longer just an auditory medium, it has become a visual medium as well.  This has been really successful due to the use of the internet and especially websites such as YouTube.  If you like a song you hear, you can instantly search up the artist on the Internet and see how they look or their album artwork.  YouTube has allowed artists’ music videos to be viewed by millions of people all around the world. 
         Female artists especially are overly sexualized and usually half naked in their music videos.  This is an image men and women both see all over the world as an image of the ideal woman.  This woman is usually white and slim which is not an accurate description of the different shapes, sizes and races of women all over the world.  This improper portrayal leads to teens and young women having self esteem issues for not fitting into this pop culture image.
         This blog will be written by Eva and Olenna, two university students interested in the issue of misrepresentation of women in popular music.  If you have any suggestions of who we should talk about next just leave us a comment. We hope you enjoy reading our blog and it opens up a good discussion in your day-to-day lives.

Sources:
Lilly J Goren. You've Come a Long Way, Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture. (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2009.) 59-60