Judith butler describe gender as “an identity instituted though a stylized repletion of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance.
How useful is this idea in understanding how gender is represented? Compare and contrast our ideas in terms of both print media and music videos
Refer in detail to your chosen music video style models, Men’s Health and Oh… (20)
The statement that Judith butler claims, is known as “gender as performativity.” rather gender being part of our nature we “act it out” and the gender is constructed, which is represented in music videos. She suggests that gender is fluid, changeable and plural, meaning society can have the ability to change the way genders should be preserved.
The music video “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, published in 2013, was a massive controversy, around the third wave of feminism in the mid 1990s. The music video portrays women as highly sexualised passive sex objects. They have constructed a music video in order to get a message across about how women are represented. Society was not happy with this, and decided that this idea of women needed to change, by not taking the video down, but changing its culture of racism and sexism.
According to Barker and Jane, english fiction writers, the third wave feminism is the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists’ and enhance to characteristics of “sex positive” and the “reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes”.
The forth wave feminism began around 2012. The only difference compared to the 3rd wave feminism, is that the forth wave feminism was more active, as there were multiple foundations to suport it, such as the “free the nipple” campaign, where miley cyrus got involved and gave her surport.
In response to the “Blurred Lines” music video, Auckland Uni produced a “parody” version, in order to provoke/enhance the message of how women were represented. The video is a role reversal, where the women act like the men and the men act like the women from the original music video. The aim of the parody was to show how bizarre it is to see men portrayed as women in music videos. This was able to show that the use of new media technologies have been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out within feminism.
The magazine “Oh Comely” was published by the independent publisher, Iceberg Press, a London based publisher. This magazine is about new ways of looking inside ourselves and out the world. It is a reimagination of women’s magazine, that constructs a representation of femininity with its focus on creativity and quickness. Their front covers show a major theme of empowerment, as they stand with a strong, bold posture, with full face shots. We can apply Stuart halls theory of representation as the absence of men, creates an identity for the brand as they are doing something different and showing how women can have different representations and aren’t just objects, as you would see in various magazines and music videos, such as “Blurred Lines” music video.
From looking at the magazine “Oh Comely”, we can see a major contrast in the Men’s Health magazine, published by the company Hearst communications, where it focuses on the representation of men. This magazine supports Judith Butlers theory considering “a repertoire of acts”, suggesting that something is learnt through a repeated action. Hearst is a large conglomerate, owning other magazines such as Maire Claire and Elle, and with Men’s Health being one of the world’s largest men’s magazine brands, it plays a big role in presenting genders and stereotypes. With its repetitive Men’s Health magazines, with all the men standing in the same position in each magazine (strong, bulky, strong) it creates an ideology of the way men should be perceived. Overtime, when the magazines reach all audiences, it gives the audience an intended message on how they should look. This is enhanced by the various bold text that are featured in the front cover, “blast body fat” “new year muscle” etc.
In conclusion, Judith Butlers theory allows us to understand how gender is presented through media institutions, and how societies stereotype gender. Furthermore, the way gender is constructed through media can majorly contrast each other. In the music video “Blurred lines”, it is seen that the women have been overly sexualized. The theorist Laura Muvely focuses on the Male Gaze, and how women are objectified. The Male Gaze is the act of depicting women in the visual arts, from a masculine perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male view. This is clearly seen in “Blurred Lines”, through the use of minimal clothing and close up shots, making them be identified as “sex symbols”. Alternatively, with the magazine “Oh Comely”, as it introduces women with long sleeved clothing and minimal makeup. Furthermore, it takes us away from the representation of women being seen as sex objects, therefore creating a radical text for the reader, as they are used to large conglomerates and artists, such as Hearst, more specifically Men’s Health, creating a dominant ideology of how men and women should be seen.