Portrayal of Women in Music Videos
Together with the songs' melody and lyrics, music videos are powerful tools that tattoohuman minds with images that shape a person's attitude. Throughout the twentiethcentury, music videos have influenced various perceptions on the images of women. Nomatter what the women in the music videos are singing about, or what actions they aredoing in the videos, there is almost always a sexual overtone. For women to be portrayedin this way has many consequences, for the images that we view in every day life shape theway we think. Viewing a music video that has a woman being portrayed in an overtlysexual manner once may not have a very serious affect on a person, but seeing manydifferent music videos all portraying women sexually, and seeing these videos over andover, does indeed shape a person's mind to view women with much less respect than theywould otherwise. This therefore, is where the problem lies. Over time, seeing women
Asidefrom the music industry's criticism, there was a great deal of music fan criticism as well. The younger a person is, the more thesesexual images can affect them. It willchange how a woman sees herself, and how a man sees other women. Ironically enough, this is the age when watching music television is the mostpopular. If one views a particular music video at least a few times a day, andalso listens to the song on the radio or on a CD a few times a day, they are beingpresented with these images over and over. According to the vice president of marketing,Marshall Cohen, it was "the most researched channel in history," and it is arguably themost powerful musical outlet developed to date. (and American Express) launched MTV, thefirst 24-hour music video cable channel. He believes that the MTV launch marked the end of rock on television, foreverything put on MTV is more about the image than the song itself. The main reason for thisis because at this age, a teen is constantly searching for what kind of person they are tobecome. The music industry wasinitially cautious about videos. A big problem with music videos is that the visual is put to music. The problems with the image being just as important, if not more important, thanthe song itself, is that the images are even further embedded in one's mind. They are relatively expensive to produce, and they havenever become consumer commodities the way that records, tapes, and CDs have.
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Acceptance Essays
