EF - Representation Of Women In Music Videos

The way in which women are represented in music videos, especially a video by a male artist, is often a huge area which causes great controversy. The ideas and tactics shown in and by music videos surrounding women can be perceived in some cases as being very insulting and undermining to a woman's identity and nature. However there are many female artists who choose to flaunt what they have got in the form of sexuality by using sexual references and connotations in their music video in order to form a 'male gaze' for men. 


Males 'rappers' are often known for using women in their videos as a form of 'eye candy' having them half dressed, with most of there body shown normally their legs, thighs, stomach and in particular the breasts, a good example of this is in 50 Cent's music video for 'Candy Shop'. 


The name of the song can also hint how women are going to be represented 'candy' being the main metaphor of women, almost hinting that women are like sweets, tasty, seductive and addictive, once you had one you cant stop, which you can hear 50 Cent say at 0:38 seconds in the video. Feminists could see this as sexually exploiting women to the advantage of men, showing women as men's property not the independent women feminists want them to be. 

A theory that has often come up when looking at music videos is the "male gaze theory", which suggests that music videos will often use women with very little clothing on, who are also quite glamerous and 'busty' shown in the 50 Cent video previously mentioned. 


The idea behind their inclusion is that they will attract a male audience or the male gaze. This kind of technique is common in music videos, despite arguably been degrading to women. 

Women who present themselves as sexual objects in their music videos such as Lady Gaga, could be seen as a way of showing men how they treat or perceive women, showing the control men have over women, and how they see them. 

This is seen in Lady Gaga's video for 'Bad Romance'. 
To begin with she presents herself as this innocent women dressed in white with pale skin and pink eyes suggesting purity and innocence, how women are seen then she transforms in her clothing to this provocative black leather, bikini type clothing when the male begins to take control, this clothing can maybe hint that she is trying to present herself as a strong, in control women who isn't taken over by a man, shown in the end scene when she is on the bed with a skeleton, trying to show she has killed the man who was trying to hurt her. This video could be seen as a way of Lady Gage wanting to show the audience that women are not always the innocent, vulnerable women they are stereotyped to be. 

Here is a video I found on YouTube produced by somebody else, so this is not my video but i thought it was a good example to show visually : 





Here is another one explaining how someone else see's women representation in hip hop videos, this focuses more on how they see African American Women represented :