A Dream World

When we turn on the radio in the car or listen to a new popular song, we did not think about the consequences the songs imagery and words have on our society. We tend to just like the song because it is catchy or a favorite artist sings it. However, songs can have a deep impact on the way we think we are suppose to act like or look like in the real world.  The song “Bad Girl” by Danity Kane and the video both portray ideas of what our society and its members have deemed as being the “norm.” To a normal everyday viewer of the video, it would seem this is just another girl pop group ready to dominate the world with their fantastic dance moves and impeccable voices. However, the video details the identities of gender and sexuality in a way that can be consequential to its viewers.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFzws_oKl9k&ob=av2el

The effects or consequences of the ways gender and sexuality are represented in the video can be the way young females think about themselves. “We have to ‘speak through’ the ideologies which are active in our society and which provide us with the ‘means of making sense’ of social relations and our place in them.” (Hall, 90) In other words, Lull suggests that through such media as a music video, young viewers see how they should be fitting and acting in society.

Through the seductive type clothing the members of Danity Kane wear, young female viewers begin to perceive that type of clothing most get the guys to be attracted to you and want you. The “comic” style of the video seems to suggest that men are automatically drawn in to the whole fantasy world, especially with a story portraying sexy women. Female viewers think they have to go out and buy clothing, from stores like Victoria Secret, that can show off your cleavage and gives you the perfect hourglass, sexy figure. “…the most potent effect of mass media is how they subtly influence their audiences to perceive social roles and routine personal activities.” (Lull, 62) For this reason, many women try to achieve the perfect figure through any meals, unhealthy lives, and possibly even death. Videos, like this one, continue to teach women that they need to be over sexual in order to win over a man and possibly marry him later.

The music videos of today show us only a representation of the world and the imaginations of how we may perceive the world to be. Every representation “provides us with stories, images, and scripts that enable us to image and practice femininities, masculinities, and sexualities.” (Brown, Lecture 1/11/11) The video for “Bad Girl” gives us a glimpse into a dream world, where girls are sweet and nice but can turn into an alternate “bad girl” with a flash of a red light. According to Mayne, analyzing a representation should take into account the time period, exchanges in gender, race, sexuality, and class, and cultural understandings and context. (162) Music videos of today for popular artists show promiscuous behavior and imply to the viewer this is a “norm” in our society. It encourages the viewer to engage in sexual behavior and its what will get you everything you want in life. It also suggests it is a “norm” for women to have this secret inner desire to have sex and fulfill the sexual fantasies of men.  In a way, the video creates a dualism or two opposing categories for each woman. There is the before woman who plays nice and acts innocent, but when the red light flashes she transforms into the hypersexual woman who provides desires for men. This is clear in the lyrical lines of  “…I can be your addiction if you wanna get hooked on me…” and “…I can be part of your deepest fantasies” that it is the “norm” for woman to be sexual and provide for their men. This may be why many teenagers feel the need to have sex in order to feel accepted among their peers, especially the male peers, and why many younger teens are becoming pregnant.

The media affects the way individuals perceive themselves and the ways in which they feel they have to act in the real world. Today, many of the “norms” for women is to be a hypersexual being that can fulfill men’s desires. Women feel they have to look tan, be skinny, and dress in skimpy clothes that highlight an hourglass shape. These views ultimately affect the younger generations of viewers into thinking that is the way the real world is and how they should be acting in the real world. Music videos, like “Bad Girl” by Danity Kane, encourages younger generations to have sex before marriage and that it is acceptable to act sexual all the time. When we turn on the radio or just dancing to the latest “it” song, we need to be reminded those images and lyrics produced by the music industry only come to life in through the imagination of a producer and they represent a dream world.

Work Cited

Brown, Adriane. You Think I’m Pretty Without Any Makeup on: Hegemonic Femininity in Popular Culture. 2010.

Hall, Stuart. "White of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media." Silver Linings: Some Strategies for the Eighties. Ed. G. Bridges and R. Brunt. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 1981.

Lull, James. “Hegemony.” Media, Communitcation, Culture: A Global Approach. Columbia University Press, 1995.

Mayne, Judith. “Women, Representation, and Culture.” In Reading Women’s Lives.