Sexism in music videos

Not Sexist

The first video that i will analyse is Lily Allen - "Hard out Here". Many believe this video is very sexist and objectifying as its contradicting the lyrics; the lyrics meaning is that for women its very hard to be in the music industry as men are always in control and make women do sexy and objectifying movements and things. Therefore this video is seen as contradicting as there are girls in the video doing the exact thing that it being criticised. however I personally see this as amplifying the meaning to something more; the video lyrics portray Lily's feelings against objectifying women so by doing this is the video shows what she means by this as an example. Furthermore the most popular videos usually have women being objectified as this is what people currently like, so by doing this, the music video will become popular to get more views - so it gets more people to see what the industry is really like and raises more awareness. Therefore I personally think it was a marketing strategy.

The second video that I feel is not sexist is Nicki Minaj - "Anaconda". This is another video that people think is sexist as it has more women being objectified. However once again I feel that its a marketing strategy as Nicki Minaj is very popular for showing her assets but that's at her own will and not her management. She calls this other side her alter ego so therefore a video can not be sexist if it was constructed by Nicki herself. This video illustrates the lyrics from the song as its a jungle theme which is connected to the metaphor of an anaconda. This video promotes accepting your body for being larger but however it shames women with slimmer bodies with no curves.

"Lily Allen - Hard Out Here"

"Nicki Minaj - Anaconda"

Sexist/objectifying

Moving onto the sexist videos, I will start off with Robin Thicke - "Blurred Lines". This is a video that I find extremely objectifying as the song lyrics are speculated to be about rape or domination over women. The music video illustrates the lyrics as we see (in both versions on the video) girls walking around being sexy just to please the men; in the explicit version these women are topless. Therefore this video is very objectifying as its about men have more power and women are seen as objects of lust and sex.

The next sexist video is Britney Spears - "Make me". This video is sexist as I feel like it objectifies both men and women at the same time. This is because the music video is about a group of women trying to find Britney and good looking man to feature with her in some few scene for a music video. This objectifies men as they are being seen as tools to be used as women to make them more popular or even to be used by women for sexual desire (as she is looking for the best looking man). This also objectifies women as it seems Britney NEEDS a man in the video to help her so it make women seem like they need men and are just objects for them. Furthermore, this is the second video to this song as the first was too sexual so she had to make a completely new one. This indicates that the themes for both of these videos are too sexualised and are just using looks for popularity. 

"Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines"

"Britney Spears - Make Me"