Judith Butler Describes Gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words it is something learnt through repeated performance. 

How useful is this idea in understanding how gender is represented in Music Videos? Refer in detail to your chosen style models. 

Refer in detail to your chosen music video style models, Men’s Health and Oh.. [20 marks] 

Judith Butler’s definition of gender is of an identity that is not assigned at birth, as has been the common idea of gender for centuries, but rather an identity that is instituted upon us and we define for ourselves through a stylized repetition of acts, often influenced by popular media and ideas about how people of certain genders should act. The way someone defines their gender is often influenced by the media and interests they are presented by their parents or carers, for example females are often introduced to different clothes, interests, toys, etc. that are traditionally assigned as for their gender compared to what males are usually introduced to at young ages by their parents or carers. Additionally, the media of a society can influence how someone defines their gender in a similar way to how they are introduced to different interests by their parents or carers depending on their gender. In this sense gender is described as “performative” by Judith Butler because when someone “acts” their gender that produces a series of effects that “consolidate an impression of being a man or woman” as Butler describes. Butler also describes gender as being fluid, changeable and “a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space”, meaning that a person’s gender changes based on different social settings or different people they are around, since gender is behaviour that is presented to others according to Butler. 

“Oh” (previously Oh Comely) is an independent magazine published by the small company Iceberg press. In contrast to magazines from large corporations like Men’s Health, Oh presents an alternative institutional structure, because as a  small company owned by a small group of 3 women and as a result is different to larger companies like Fox or Conde Nast – they are often owned by powerful people (usually men) with employees under them instead of the workers owning most of their own production, which is the company structure of Oh. This links to the representation of women in mass media – often presented to appeal to the male gaze, like the female presenters of Fox news who, in contrast to the men, are expected to represent and express themselves in a certain way to attract straight male audiences. Oh, on the other hand, represents a form of hegemonic struggle by presenting women in many ways. Also the lack of men in Oh presents an impression that these women are independent. This shows hegemonic struggle and links to bell hook’s theory by presenting different views of women and encouraging renegotiation of the hegemonic ideas. Althusser mentions how ISAs control how people think in society, and this is evident in how large media companies produce media that reinforces traditional gender roles through the representation of men and women. In magazines like Men’s health, produced by the conglomerate Hearst, men are represented in a way that reinforces the traditional gender roles of society, because the conglomerates act as gatekeepers of information to the public and major internal state apparatuses. However, small companies like Iceberg press are not subject to these pressures like the employees of Hearst and Men’s Health and therefore can focus on publishing the magazine Oh to push ideas that do not conform to hegemonic ideas about gender. Bell hook also introduces the idea of intersectionality, the theory that feminism is not homogenous or universal and that feminism links to other factors like age, sexuality, class, education religion, etc. This intersectionality highlights the link between postcolonial and industrial analysis and critical thinking and feminist critical thinking. While Oh, as a magazine owned by a small company can combat these hegemonic ideas and present different views about gender, race and class. For example, issues and pages of the magazine, such as page 53 of the CSP, focuses on women of different races and cultural identities. While Oh and it’s alternative institutional structure allows the creators to combat postcolonial societal ideas, the institutional capitalist structure of conglomerates like Hearst discourage creativity and encourage the conformity to hegemonic ideas since these guarantee profit and that the managers keep their positions. 

This idea is useful in understanding how gender is represented in Music videos because the theory describes gender to be an identity performed by people via a visual medium like a music video. Lisbet Van Zoonen suggests that popular culture is a site of struggle, where identities are continually being reconstructed, and since popular music videos are part of this culture that makes them useful for using ideas about gender to understand music videos as a part of the wider popular culture. The music video for Mr.Probz’s “Waves” can be understood through Butler’s gender theory by analysing the representation of gender of the characters in the video. The main character presents himself as male, and he finds himself alone, but other characters are introduced through memories the main character has, including another main character, a woman who is implied to be the girlfriend of the main character. The music video’s narrative is told from a male perspective and since only the male’s side of the story, the video may reflect how the man sees his girlfriend, who he hallucinates when alone, through the gender that is presented to him. In other words, the events shown in the music video are slanted because of how they are only shown from the man’s perspective which could affect how the female main character is portrayed compared to what could have happened, since in the video they are shown to have relationship problems and the protagonist is clearly heavily affected by this. In terms of Judith Butler’s theory, the representations of the characters genders are generally conventional as how the genders of female and male are usually represented. In this music video, the main character is mainly shown as vulnerable and he is presented as a victim of his circumstances and vices, evidenced by how he is shown washing up on a desert island and how he heavily drinks alcohol to deal with his problems. Meanwhile, the other main character, represented as a female is shown in a relationship with the male main character and she is represented as female through the repetition of acts traditionally thought of as female, for example, she wears dresses and has long hair, which are part of the acts that present her as female. This reinforces how gender is represented as being constituted as the repetition of stylised acts – the male protagonist is presented as a male and the other character is represented as female because this piece of media has recorded the typical performances of gender in the specific historical context of the time this video was produced. 

Overall, Judith Butler’s idea that gender is an identity instituted through a stylised repetition of acts is useful for analysing the representation of gender in music videos and other media forms, such as magazines like Men’s Health and Oh, because it helps to understand the representation of gender and identity in media. Also, the intersectional ideas linked to Judith Butler’s theory aid in the understanding of media industries and how they work to control and reinforce hegemonic ideas about gender and race in society.