Media Representation of Race and Gender in Music Videos

We were asked to watch current music videos and discussed in class the representations in the video. Most everyone knows that artist write about their songs about memories and feelings that happened to them. Also, artists do a lot of inter-textuality about people in their life or about a feud. There are some people who listen to the song because they enjoy or relate to the song lyrics. However, there are some people who really listen to the lyrics and try to understand what the song is about. I am one who just listens to the song because I enjoy the artist and love the song. This week in class we watched music videos that seemed to have a representation of gender.

The first music video was “PYNK-Janelle Monáe.” She re-appropriating the color pink because most people are going to associate the color pink as a feminine color. Pink literally means a color between red and white but Monáe associated the color pink to meaningful items to females. Monáe gave a new meaning to the color pink with her song. In this song, the female holds the power because she is listing off a number of items that are pink. I believe that this song represents women in a unique but good way than most artist would have done.

The second music video was by Beyoncé and it was called "Formation." This song was on her Lemonade album which means there was a lot about her husband and feelings she felt during this time. The whole album was written by Beyoncé with the help from other writers. However, all of the songs were from the heart and the feelings that she felt. I am a huge Beyoncé fan. I knew this about the song and what it was about. This song is largely about race because everyone in the video is black. I know that Bey supports black lives matter but the clip where the little boy is dancing in front of the police officers. Well if you did not see all those officers were white. Which proves the support of black lives matter. The definition of formation means to Beyoncé is calling for all of her strong, beautiful, black women to unite. She leads her back-up dancers, who are strong black women in a display of formation dancing. Also, she makes a lot of references about herself like her parents being from the south.

The last music video was “Hard Out Here-Lily Allen.” This song was mainly about women being objectify but by who though. Women for many decades it seems that they have been objectify by everything and it is still going on. In her song, it seems that she may be talking about how men want women to be. However, that is the opposite of what the song is about. The song is about women not beating the odds, but it is hard out in the real world for women. Women can be working as hard as a man to get a promotion, but the boss could give it to the man because the person in charge of the decision can do that. I was not huge fan of the video because it ruins the song for me. Also, it had nothing to do with what the song was about.  

One thing that all these videos had in common was that all of their backup dancers were African American and female. Some might say they are showing that they are a feminist which might be the case or they want all female dancers. However, I do know that African Americans are excellent dancers and each other these artists want the best dancers in their music videos. 

I believe that semiotic theory can be used to describe song lyrics and music videos because there is meaning behind lyrics and why they are written the way they are. I have a couple of friends that like to write lyrics than sing or rap them for other people. I asked what they usually write about and their reply to me is life. They write about things that touch them and what they want to see in the world. Some artists are straight forward with telling you what they want, and others put their meanings between the lines for us to interpret them for ourselves. For instance, some of Beyoncé lyrics I did not understand but after I read other people’s interpretation of the lyrics. Which helped me understand the meaning behind the words that make the song great. Semiotic theory helps viewers of the media understand “how” language or in this case lyrics to a song produces meaning to the artist. Some people say that artists are like poets because of how they rhythm and make their song lyrics. Poets always seem to have hidden or even multiple meaning in between the lines of their stanzas.

I have a feeling that after this course, I am going to be looking at a lot of things in a different lens. It is starting off with music videos and what is being represented by the producer and artist. People make music videos to appeal to a certain audience. I did like the music videos that I watched for class except for Lily Allen’s video. Also, noticed that some current music videos do not even go with what the song is even about. I think it is more about who is going to like and watch the music video.