Hip Hop Lyrics Demeaning to Women?

Women in Hip Hop Lyrics

I found this brilliant video of an interview between singer, Drake and an interviewer known as Katie Courin. She asks Drake about the way hip-hop lyrics demean women and describe them. I thought that Drake's response was very interesting!

He defends the hip-hop lyrics by explaining that it's simply humour and mostly about "the way you say it". 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boloHgCmVNQ

I also found an article that discussed hip-hop lyrics and how they might not always be demeaning to women.

"Many hip hop artists do exploit women of color and many song lyrics objectify and disrespect women, negatively influencing young women.
But, I think it’s all about perspective. If one is focused, hip hop can have a positive impact on one’s behavior, and the poetry of hip hop can teach one about life. For example, Tupac Shakur and Nas are hip hop legends. Their song lyrics can have a positive impact on the lives of many young women of color. In “I can,” Nas encourages positive outcomes for young students. The song promotes self-confidence, optimistic thinking, and self-appreciation. In “Keep ya head up,” Tupac Shakur promotes valuing women, rather than exploiting them. “I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women? Do we hate our women? I think it's time to kill for our women, time to heal our women, be real to our women.” Instead of trashing women, Tupac provides a message of hope to young women who are struggling"  - http://ealert.mysistahs.org/features/about_hiphop.htm

The writer explained that the lyrics in hip-hop videos are not always demeaning to women and also gave a very good example of a music video. Here's a link to the video of Tupac's  'I Can'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi-MIKb_J1w

I also found this useful article that discussed sexualisation in the lyrics of music during the 60s. I thought that I might be useful if I should decided to research deeper into the meaning of lyrics in hip-hop songs. 

"Since music videos didn’t really start to exist until MTV came out in the 1980s, sexualization in songs was basically wrapped up in the lyrics. Even in songs that have blessed the world with their very existence and are beloved by millions, sexualization shines through:

“Well she was just seventeen/And you know what I mean/And the way she looked was way beyond compare”
“I Saw Her Standing There”, The Beatles

“It was an itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie yellow polka dot bikini that she wore for the first time today”
“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”, Brian Hyland

“(Why don’t you come out) with your red dress on
(Come out) Mmm, you look so fine
(Come out) Move it nice and easy
Girl, you make me lose my mind”
“Sherry”, The Four Seasons

“Some like ‘em fat, some like ‘em tall
Some like ‘em short, skinny legs and all
I like ‘em all, huh, I like ‘em proud”
“Mother Popcorn”, James Brown

There’s also the ongoing idea that women are owned by men, or should be:

“When I saw you walking down the street
I said that’s a kind of girl I’d like to meet
She’s so pretty, Lord she’s fine
I’m gonna make her mine, all mine”
“Hey! Baby”, Bruce Channel

(This song also encourages street harassment, a practice that is still looked upon as socially acceptable. Think about it: men driving by a group of women and honking? It happens a lot more than we realize).

I could go on to list a thousand more songs from the 1960s that objectify women, but I have a word count, and I think you get the picture. The fact of the matter is, if you’re looking at songs about women that came out in the ‘60s, you’re going to get a heck of a lot more that talk about how pretty a girl is than how smart or strong she is".

The Gaze

The Gaze

It's been a while since I've posted anything but I've decided to go ahead and do some catch up! We spoke about The Gaze in a previous lecture. The Gaze is a theory that woman are objectified and purely presented to the male viewing audience for sexual and visual stimulation. I found lecture to be one of the most interesting lectures so far.

"While the ideas behind the concept were present in earlier uses of the gaze, the introduction of the term “the male gaze” can be traced back to Laura Mulvey and her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” which was published in 1975. In it, Mulvey states that in film women are typically the objects, rather than the possessors, of gaze because the control of the camera (and thus the gaze) comes from factors such as the as the assumption of heterosexual men as the default target audience for most film genres. While this was more true in the time it was written, when Hollywood protagonists were overwhelmingly male, the base concept of men as watchers and women as watched still applies today, despite the growing number of movies targeted toward women and that feature female protagonists" http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-%E2%80%9Cmale-gaze%E2%80%9D/

I've done some very brief reading about a film maker and director known as Laura Mulvey. She wrote an essay on the male gaze and I was only able to find a few pieces of her essay for some reason. Here's a very interesting quote that I recently found:

"Woman displayed as sexual object is the leit-motif of

erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to striptease, from Ziegfeld to Busby Berkeley, sheholds the look, plays to and signifies male desire. Mainstream film neatly combined

spectacie and narrative"

She explains that men have become the main target audience for film and women have almost become part of the props in cinema. I agree with her theory that women are objectified. I'm hoping to base my research on this theory for my essay. 

(update)

After some thorough search, I found the original essay by Laura Mulvey titled, Visual Pleasures & Narrative Cinema.

Sexualisation of Women

How Women Are Sexualised 

I've decided to base my research essay on the way women are sexualised in the music industry! I've been reading many books about how women are objectified and viewed within the industry. Mostly, I've been watching documentaries and reading articles. Here are a few samples of my research so far. 

This video was short documentary about how women are treated in the general music industry. I would like to focus my research on a more specific music genre. I think that R&B and Hip-hop are probably the most interesting routes for me to go down. 

An interesting quote I heard in this video mentioned that "Brittany...is sending a message that is okay for women to be objected and submissive". 

Another interesting resource I found was from the Guardian on-line. It was an article based on sexual content in the media. 

One of the images used had this note beside:

The singer Rihanna has faced criticism from parents' groups for her music video in which she shoots someone who raped her. Photograph: Joe Stevens/Retna Ltd/Corbis

I could use specific artists in my essay as part of my analysis. However, I'd like to focus on the topic more than artists. I will use few named artists but probably not very recent ones. 

Here's an interesting paragraph from the Guardian article about parents worry over sexual content in the media. 

"Findings from a survey conducted for the Bailey review show that:

• Two-thirds of parents had come across clothes, toys, games, music videos or other products that they thought were inappropriate for the age group they were aimed at.

• 40% of parents said they had seen things in public places (shop window displays, advertising hoardings) that they felt were inappropriate for children to see because of their sexual content.

• 41% of parents said they had seen programmes or adverts on TV before 9pm that they felt were unsuitable or inappropriate for children because of their sexual content.

• Of those parents who had felt the need to complain about these issues but hadn't, over 60% said that they had not done so either because they didn't think anything would be done or they didn't know who to complain to.

• Around half of parents felt that celebrity culture, adult style clothes and music videos are encouraging children to act older than they are.

Bailey has previously said: "For us to let children be children, we need to let parents be parents. That means giving parents the support and encouragement they need to help their children understand and resist the harms they face.

"But it also means putting brakes on ever greater commercialisation and sexualisation facing children in modern society. Only then can we look to create a truly family friendly society that protects children."

including statistics in my essay may also come in handy in terms of proving factual information or supporting a statement from other sources.