Hardly That Kind of Girl? On Female Representations in Mainstream Pop Music Videos Kai Arne Hansen Master Thesis Department of Musicology University of Oslo Spring semester 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This master thesis would not have been completed without the help and support of a number of people, and I want to extend my sincerest thanks to the following: First of all, my supervisor Professor Stan Hawkins at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, has done a remarkable job in both challenging and inspiring me. Your efforts and patience is much appreciated, and the degree to which you believe in my work has meant a lot to me throughout the process. Thanks is also due to all Professors and academic staff at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, and also to my fellow students. The creative and inspiring atmosphere at IMV could not exist without you. Karl Magnus Bjorøy has remained a close friend and adequate sparring-partner throughout my entire writing process; both your friendship and advice is valued equally. Thanks to Even Bekkedal for supplying constant support and encouragement. I would not have been without our chats and banter, nor our endevours in procastination. A special thanks to Egil Marstein Bauer for helpful suggestions and proofreading, your enthusiasm and support is greatly appreciated. iii I would also like to thank all of my friends on a general basis. None mentioned, none forgotten. You make my days, weeks, and years much brighter, and I cannot imagine life without you. My sincerest gratitude to my family. You have supported me continously in my studies over the last years. Thank you for believing in me. Finally, this thesis could never have been completed without the love and support of Oda Fjeldvær Eggen. As pronounced by Didrik Solli-Tangen: ”My Hard is Yours”. Oslo, 26 April 2011 Kai Arne Hansen iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. v TABLE OF FIGURES..................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1...................................................................................................................... 1 BEHIND THE SCREENS OF POP MUSIC VIDEOS.................................................. 1 THEORIZING GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND ETHNICITY .............................................5 CONSTRUCTING THE FEMALE: PERFORMING GENDER.....................................5 SEXUAL PERCEPTIONS: HEGEMONY AND POWER ...............................................9 CONSTRUCTIONS OF ETHNICITY..............................................................................12 MUSICOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY ..............................................................................16 INTERPRETATION AND INTERTEXTUALITY .........................................................20 ANALYZING MUSIC VIDEO ..........................................................................................24 CRITICAL REFLECTIONS: WRITING FROM A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE AND CHOOSING EMPIRICAL MATERIAL ................................................................27 CHAPTER 2.................................................................................................................... 31 HYPEREMBODIMENT, PORNOGRAPHY, AND TECHNOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION IN THREE CURRENT POP VIDEOS ....................................... 31 RIHANNA – UMBRELLA .................................................................................................33 BRITNEY SPEARS – WOMANIZER ..............................................................................38 CHRISTINA AGUILERA – NOT MYSELF TONIGHT................................................42 CONCLUDORY THOUGHTS ..........................................................................................47 CHAPTER 3.................................................................................................................... 49 BEYONCÈ: ALL THE SINGLE…ROBO-DIVAS?................................................... 49 SINGLE LADIES: MUSIC VIDEO, DANCE, AND THE BODY..................................50 B(L)ACKDROP: MUSICAL CODES, BLACKNESS, AND SEXUALITY..................53 ETHNIC AMBIVALENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND HYPEREMBODIMENT...........61 PUT A RING ON IT: BEYONCÈ`S ROBOT HAND......................................................63 CONCLUDORY THOUGHTS ..........................................................................................67 CHAPTER 4.................................................................................................................... 69 LADY GAGA – A MONSTROUS AFFAIR ................................................................ 69 CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMANCE: LYRICS, AUDIOVISUALITY, AND S&M.........70 GOING GAGA FOR MONSTROSITY: CODING AND CORPOREALITY..............82 CONCLUDORY THOUGHTS ..........................................................................................87 CHAPTER 5.................................................................................................................... 89 YOU`RE NOT GONNA REACH MY TELEPHONE ................................................ 89 PLOTTING INTERTEXTUALITY ..................................................................................90 IMPRISONED: ANDROGYNY, DRAG, AND BISEXUALITY ...................................94 CAUGHT DEAD AT THE DINER: PARODY AND THE SPECTACLE OF SOUND .............................................................................................................................................101 CONCLUDORY THOUGHTS ........................................................................................105 FINAL REFLECTIONS .............................................................................................. 107 v INDEX OF WORKS CITED....................................................................................... 111 VIDEOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................... 119 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: Rihanna covered in silver paint. ................................................................... 35 Figure 2: Main chord progression in "Womanizer" (8 bars)..................................... 39 Figure 3: A series of porn-referencing images from "Not Myself Tonight"............. 45 Figure 4: Frames from "Single Ladies". ...................................................................... 51 Figure 5: Main drum beat of ”Single Ladies”.............................................................. 54 Figure 6: Excerpt of vocal phrasing in the bridge of "Single Ladies"....................... 56 Figure 7: Beyoncè flaunting her robot hand. ............................................................... 65 Figure 8: Table of chord progression and tonality in "Bad Romance”..................... 71 Figure 9: Table of the relationship between visual narrative, music, and lyrics in ”Bad Romance”....................................................................................................... 77 Figure 10: Weirdly proportioned GaGa with bat-hat and bulging spine.................. 85 Figure 11: Main chord progression in "Telephone" (4 bars)..................................... 91 Figure 12: Beyoncè`s similar hairstyle and lipstick in "Video Phone" (left) and "Telephone". ........................................................................................................... 92 Figure 13: Masculine GaGa vs. feminine Beyoncè. ..................................................... 96 Figure 14: Table of the relationship between image and music in the prison-parts of ”Telephone”............................................................................................................. 99 Figure 15: Drum pattern in the transition between post-chorus and third verse... 101 vi CHAPTER 1 BEHIND THE SCREENS OF POP MUSIC VIDEOS Music video is a particularly powerful medium for showcasing pop artists, offering up a site where images and sounds come together to shape compelling representations, most commonly in a projection of beauty and physical perfection. From this perspective most pop videos have a function, as Stan Hawkins has argued, to “fill a space where identities and bodies are affirmed in comfortably reassuring ways” (Hawkins 2007: 30), and the dominant paradigm in current pop videos is one of reinforcement of the already fixed categories of beauty, which hold the slender, feminine, and sexualized female body as one of its ideals. A point worth noting in this regard, is how technology offers up new representational possibilities; the images and sounds experienced in current pop videos are digitally edited and highly processed. This entails that sexualized and gendered displays often are mediated through representations of physical perfection, far exceeding what can be expected of the natural body, and thus normalizing beauty-as-perfection. Is the effect of these representations always a perpetuation of binaries and stereotypes? Or is pop representation in its sensationalization and spectacularization of sexuality and gender a form of parody, something which uncovers the strictures of social and cultural norms? While the images and representations presented to us by pop culture are far too often brushed aside as pure entertainment without specific relevance to us, I have been intrigued by their influence in their