Music Videos

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Music Videos

The term music video generally refers to a short film (usually three to five minutes in length) made for television play whose soundtrack consists entirely or primarily of a rock, pop, or country song. The content of music videos varies from straightforward performances recorded in a studio or concert hall to conceptual images or quasinarrative plots, and a music video usually is intended to be a companion to the song featured in it. Videos have formed a major aspect of promotion in the music industry since the early 1980s.

As marketing tools and artistic products, music videos are a fertile site for depicting and contesting popular images of gender and sexuality. Throughout the history of the medium the presentations of gender (including constructions of masculine and feminine roles, depictions of women, and gendered interactions) and sexuality (most notably images of homosexual and other nonnormative sexual identities) in several videos have provoked anxiety from both conservative and progressive cultural perspectives. The intensity of that anxiety and the debates that have followed point to the relevance of music videos in discussions of sex and gender in contemporary American society.

HISTORY

The pairing of music with moving images dates back to the beginning of cinematic history; however, the development of the music video as a recognizable medium with significant cultural impact largely resulted from the 1981 launching of MTV (Music Television), a twenty-four-hour cable channel devoted to showing videos of mostly English and American popular music. Although many early music videos were essentially live performance clips, directors and recording artists began to experiment by adding narrative and visual elements. By the time of Michael Jackson's 1984 "Thriller" (still considered a notable achievement in the genre) audiences looked to videos for additional interpretive information about pop songs. The place of video in popular music culture solidified during the mid-1980s. MTV produced an awards show for music videos beginning in 1984, and collections of music videos were available for sale as early as 1986.

Although shifting aesthetic standards and advances in filming technology have changed the expectations and style of music videos since the beginning of MTV, depictions of gender and sexuality have remained central to their imagery. To investigate the changing sex and gender issues and conflicts in popular music, the history of music video can be divided into three main phases, each with its own set of foregrounded gender concerns. These concerns do not constitute the whole of gender and sexuality matters within those time periods; rather, they represent the new or major topics.

Early MTV (1980–1988)

During the first explorations of the modern music video—the promotional clips made for early MTV—the novelty of the medium and the lack of expectations for video content made for a wide range of gendered images. In England the youth subcultures of postpunk, New Wave, and New Romantic entailed a certain amount of transgression of gender norms, especially among males; it was not uncommon for men in London dance clubs to wear jewelry, lipstick, and pieces of feminine clothing (bright and/or pastel colors, fishnet stockings and mesh, shirts with ruffles). Musicians coming out of that club scene often exaggerated those fashions to mark themselves as members of a subculture and distinguish themselves from other bands.

This aesthetic was widespread among British dance-music acts of the 1980s, and its spectacle was well suited to the nascent medium of music video; notable artists include Adam Ant, Duran Duran, and Culture Club. Perhaps the most iconic "gender-bending" artist was Culture Club's lead singer, Boy George. In "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" (1982) Boy George is dressed in a long T-shirt, tight stretch pants, bangles, and a Hasidic Jewish hat. His hair is long and teased in the then-current female fashion, and he wears very heavy make-up. Despite the abundance of feminine signifiers, Boy George does not appear to be trying to look like a woman. Rather, his gender presentation often provokes confusion, a state usually referred to as "gender-blending" or "gender-fuck."

Those alternative expressions of masculinity did not necessarily correspond with homosexuality, although many British dance-music artists were associated with the queer community. Homosexuality itself, especially among men, was a major source of anxiety during that period as the first wave of the AIDS pandemic hit gay males in Europe and the United States. As a result few gay male artists of the 1980s were open about their sexuality. However, that silence did not translate into a lack of gay content in music videos. George Michael, for instance, appeared in the video "Faith" (1987) dressed in the "clone" style (closely trimmed facial hair, tight jeans, mirrored sunglasses) then coded as distinctly gay. However, to mainstream audiences Michael's presentation did read as heterosexual, since he was marketed as a teen idol throughout the 1980s.

Female artists in this first era of music video generally had different options and faced different challenges in regard to sexual and gender presentation. The complicated relationship of rock and pop music to women—alternately idealizing, contemptuous, exploitative, empowering, and nonexistent—transferred to music video. When women appeared in male artists' videos, they often were presented as antagonists or objects of desire. In their own videos women negotiated their identity in a variety of ways. Some artists experimented with masculine gender presentation and sexual difference. Annie Lennox of The Eurythmics appeared in "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (1983) in a dyed-orange crew cut and business suit, brandishing a riding crop. Like Boy George, Lennox made certain that she would not be read as male, but whereas Boy George provoked simple confusion and anxiety, the sadomasochistic overtones of Lennox's image added a palpable layer of menace to her androgyny.

Other female artists approached the issue of female gender presentation differently. In "She Bop" (1985) Cyndi Lauper's thinly veiled references to masturbation are made explicit in the video, which shows Lauper with dark glasses and a white cane (blindness being a folkloric consequence of masturbation) and later with hairy palms (another supposed result of autoeroticism). Madonna, whose career was just beginning in the mid-1980s, claimed the conventional female role of "boy toy" as an empowering one, quoting Marilyn Monroe's performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in the video "Material Girl" (1985).

Alternative Expressions (1989–1999)

As the 1980s ended, mixed gender signifiers fell out of mainstream fashion for all but a few artists. The success of "alternative rock" in the early 1990s (led by Nirvana and Pearl Jam) set a harder tone for male artists, but male alternative rock artists were able to display sexual difference and abjection more easily. The lead singer of Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor, for instance, appears in "Closer" (1994) bound and blindfolded, depicting an unusual sadomasochistic sexuality and sexual availability.

Madonna's career was at its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and her more transgressive videos appeared during that time. Madonna's 1990s videos addressed almost every aspect of anxiety involving female sexuality: "Like A Prayer" (1989) dealt with interracial relationships, "Justify My Love" (1990) was banned by MTV for its polymorphous perversity, and virtually all her videos included religious imagery. By the mid-1990s Madonna's name was a watchword for sexual titillation and obscenity.

Merging and Blending (Twenty-First Century)

The early years of the twenty-first century were marked by several major mergers of record labels. Some writers assert that this unification of the industry led to more homogenized music, whereas others question the standards by which homogeneity is determined. It is certain, however, that music videos of the early 2000s featured a great deal of hybridism across genres. Women's sexual desire was portrayed as more aggressive than it had been in the past, and artists such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears enacted the third-wave feminist belief in empowerment through sexuality. Set in an atmosphere of near panic over teenage sexuality, the image of Spears, who loudly proclaimed her virginity and Christianity in her early career, as openly sexual was deeply controversial because her audience consisted largely of preteenage girls. Madonna, now past forty, moved away from the explicit sexuality of her 1990s work and began experimenting with the trope of mystical goddess/mother, using imagery from the Buddhist, Sufi, and Jewish traditions.

MUSIC VIDEO OUTSIDE THE POP MUSIC MAINSTREAM

The comments made above could be applied to music videos across the spectrum of genres grouped under the rubric of popular music, but three musical styles in particular merit special mention here: country, heavy metal, and rap. Until Viacom Communications purchased MTV in 1986, programmers had a narrow view of what music was appropriate to a youth-oriented music channel. Country-western music generally was ignored, as was most African-American music. As a result music video in those genres developed somewhat differently.

Heavy metal music did find a place on MTV, although it usually was confined to special programming blocks late at night. Gender norms for that genre differed remarkably from those for mainstream pop: Male singers were expected to have long, teased hair and wear elaborate makeup and bright, tight-fitting clothing. Although the perceived stylistic excesses of the "hair bands" later provoked derision, the masculinity of groups such as Mötley Crüe ("Girls, Girls, Girls" [1991]) and Poison ("Every Rose Has Its Thorn" [1989]) was virtually unquestioned during the height of their popularity in the late 1980s. Despite the "feminine" appearance of male singers, women in heavy metal videos generally were depicted as objects of desire or accessories for homosocial bonding between band members. Notable exceptions include videos by female artists such as Lita Ford and the all-women group Vixen. Both artists appeared in videos using the same signifiers of heavy metal machismo and virility as their male peers, although those signifiers (long hair, heavy makeup and jewelry, spandex, and the like) appeared less gender-transgressive and therefore less powerful on female bodies.

The country-western music industry was slower to adopt music videos as a promotional tool. Most country videos favor live performance footage, occasionally with intercuts depicting the narrative of the song. Gender presentations of country artists are usually more conventional than are those in other genres, although there are exceptions. In "Better Things to Do" (1994) Terri Clark dresses and behaves in the same manner as the singers in male "hat acts," although this parallel may not be evident until the two are compared directly. On the fringes, k.d. lang's extremely butch persona in videos such as "Pulling Back the Reins" (1990) led to her marginalization in the Nashville-based industry.

Much has been written about the depiction of women in hip-hop videos, with many feminist critics condemning hip-hop as intrinsically misogynist. Although there are many examples of female objectification and violence against women in videos in that genre, the relationship between women and hip-hop is undoubtedly more complicated than it first appears.

Female rappers have been part of the hip-hop scene since its inception, although their contributions often are downplayed by a largely white hip-hop audience seeking racialized ideals of black masculinity and violence. Videos by artists such as Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot contain little exploitative content (focusing instead on artist performances or narrative depiction), and some all-female groups objectify men in their videos. Additionally, some objectifying rap videos have a multivalent relationship to the women who appear in them. Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" (1994), for instance, may appear to be entirely about "big butts," but it is also a celebration of African-American bodies, affirming the desirability of a distinctly African-American female body type. Although it has not always been acknowledged by scholars of music video, this complex play between exploitation and empowerment is common to hip-hop as well as to music videos in general, making the medium a lens through which to examine the everyday negotiations people make with gendered bodies, both others' and their own.