Stereotypes: The Visual Nature Of Music Videos

Music Videos

The role of a music video director is to reproduce the artists vision on screen, this is achieved when the director understands the target market and directs a convicting video that covers all aspects planned in pre-production. Commercial rap relies on a formula to create rap videos, directors focus on over emphasizing rappers’ belongings, (jewelry, cars, homes, and women). Hip-hop videos have become problematic because they place too much importance on how much skin is being revealed, or how many beautiful girls can fit in a frame, as a result “the visual nature of music videos makes shortcuts and sexual stereotypes commonplace. (Andsager & Roe, 1999) Music videos depict compelling images with regard to sexuality and gender, females are characterized as having large chests, and

“From casting to production, women are subjected to harsh physical scrutiny because their bodies are among the many commodities used to create the music video as an extended advertisement for the music products (songs, albums) sold by the record label.” (Lewis 1990, p. 5) Women compromise by working in a hostile environment where they’re judged and given employment based on how good they look in comparison to another female. What makes their case worse is that some video vixens try to better their situation by sleeping with rappers. Making sure the set remains professional is very important to the director, while all measures are taken into consideration the mixture of drugs, down time, half naked women and rappers creates a recipe for an unsavory work environment. Lewis tells us that video vixens are unable to escape the characters they portray in music videos because the lines become blurred, viewers and producers don’t see vixens as anything more than vixens. When a rappers’ lyrics align with what is being shown on the screen, it gives viewers a negative image of females. Rappers are known to live promiscuously; they believe that most women only want them