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Alejandro - interesting music video

13 replies

YunoYurbubson · 17/06/2010 11:34

I have long had a bee in my bonnet about the role of women in music videos. I am sure I am not alone in this. MTV, for example, is mainstream and 'harmless' but shows video after video of strong, male singers surround by scantily clad female 'props' wiggling around suggestively. When the lead singer is a woman, she is still dressed in a bikini and heels and shaking her tuche like a bumble bee who found a juicy crop of Dahlias. It's depressing. The insidious misogyny of it makes me shout at the television.

A while back we unsubscribed from all the music channels. It is just not something I want my children growing up thinking is normal and okay.

Anyway, I just watched this video on Youtube and found it very interesting.

(As an aside, it's not particularly suitable for children if you have one MNing over your shoulder).

Okay, so there is still sex as a tool to sell music, which I am a bit meh about.

And the lead singer is female and stripped to her undies. Same old.

But there is a troupe of male dancers prancing around in synch, and doing a very feminised dance. If they had been women, no one would have blinked. To me it seems quite a witty way of making an important point.

The same isn't true of the bed scene which would have caused outcry if the genders had been reversed I think, and I personally found it distasteful.

I'm feeling a bit brave so I shall post this in the hope of someone else finding it an interesting video too.

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belgo · 17/06/2010 11:37

I have music channels on nearly all the time because I love music.

I have heard the song but as yet have not paid much attention to the video, so will watch it closely.

What do you think of Christina Aguilera's latest video?

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YunoYurbubson · 17/06/2010 11:43

I haven't seen Christina's, no. What is the song called?

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belgo · 17/06/2010 11:49

It's called Not Myself Tonight, and very obviously made to shock. Very little artistic interpretation, just a lot of bondage to tuneless music. Not the standard I expect to Christina Aguilera at all.

I quite like Lady Gaga, she seems to do what she wants to do. The bed scene is a bit much though.

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MillyR · 17/06/2010 12:04

I argued against Gaga in a previous thread, but have since completely changed my mind. In an ideal world she might not be an ideal role model, but in the world we live in she is preferable to most pop performers.

I think there are a lot of positive things in her music and performances. My daughter (9) is a huge Gaga fan and while she is not allowed to see all of the videos, what she has seen, heard and read has started to make her quite passionate about restrictions on gender roles. The constant remarks about Lady Gaga really being a man, made in the most offensive way on tv and on the internet are absolutely steeped in misogyny. DD has asked a lot of questions about this in combination with the way that Kurt stands up to homophobia on Glee.

I have discussed with her the fact that some people don't like people being gay, and that they also don't like people who act in a way that isn't quite narrowly male or female.

So I think what Gaga is doing is important, and while feminists feel, rightly, quite conflicted about her, to many other people Gaga is a hugely radical figure (often despised)for moving outside of the traditional image of a sexually passive woman. While she is often in her pants, she is also wearing a crow on her head and a 3 foot long public wig, which at first I thought nothing of but then so many men were angry about her appearance that I thought there must be something more to all of this.

If you google Gaga and feminist, you will find lots of feminist discussion of her.

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MillyR · 17/06/2010 12:26

"I'm getting the sense that you're a little bit of a feminist, like I am, which is good,"

From this interview with Gaga:

[http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-lady-gaga13-2009dec13,0,233483.story?page=1

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MillyR · 17/06/2010 12:28

Link not working, will try again

www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-lady-gaga13-2009dec13,0,233483.story?page=1

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YunoYurbubson · 17/06/2010 13:18

Interesting artical Milly.

And for me you are spot on when you say "feminists are, rightly, conflicted about her". On the evidence so far I think I Approve, while maintaining cats bum rights over some of her silliness.

I am outside UK and not very aware of popular culture so she has only recently blipped onto my radar.

Must admit that for all her 'uniqueness' I thought she must be Madonna when she came on the radio this morning . And when I asked my friend who sang that catchy 'Alejandro' song I'd just heard she confidently assured me it was Christina Aguilera .

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MillyR · 17/06/2010 13:55

There are obvious influences to her, but that is true of any performer. I think it is very hard for a female performer to find a way of breaking away from conventional stereotypes of women, because there are so few others doing so in the mainstream, and she is bound to make mistakes. But at least she is trying - she has commented on how hard it is for women to have a voice in the music industry and about having to fight her record company because they wanted her to look sexy and conventional on her record cover and she refused.

She seems to be becoming more radicalised and more identified as feminist as time goes on, and that may be a consequence of all the hateful sexist remarks that are made about her, so I'm more interested in where she is going to take her identity than what she has done so far. And of course her audience is young people - I don't really listen to pop, so I think young feminist bloggers have more of an understanding of what it is she is trying to express and react against.

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MrClaireKhaw · 17/06/2010 13:58

I love the Gaga. I think she's a very strong woman, who knows her own mind and think her scantily clad self is more about expression of style than getting her 'tits out', iyswim.

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HerBeatitude · 17/06/2010 15:00

I'm broadly in favour of her. She doesn't always get it right (who does?) but like Milly says, she's trying and sometimes succeeding in subverting the sexist shit that surrounds her.

V. V. interesting how confused and men get about her costumes and appearance. It makes you realise just how confident they are of expecting women to fit into a mould and if she doesn't quite fit, they feel really uncomfortable.

But yes, lots of shades of Madonna in there.

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RamblingRosa · 17/06/2010 21:08

Interesting if you look at the comments on the Youtube link. Loads of horrified fans shocked by what they call "gay porno". It's obviously really unsettling for some fans to see the stereotypical gender roles blurred in a pop vid.

I quite liked the video but not sure about the song. Not sure how subversive it is really. Not much there that others (eg. Madonna) haven't done before. Lots of playing with religion, S&M, sexuality etc that's been done a million times before. Still, I'd rather watch that than one of the usual women gyrating in hot pants/lingerie music vids.

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msrisotto · 19/06/2010 10:02

I kind of love Gaga actually. I really think she's done a lot for gender ambiguity!

She impressed me with this speech:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqmBnViL6w4

and other things i've heard about her.

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msrisotto · 19/06/2010 10:28

Sorry, that video isn't very clear, this is better:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3UPg8klNas&feature=related

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