There harsh effects on music listeners. According to Imani Perry in the article Who(se) Am I: The Identity and image of Women in Hip-Hop, the music industry has a strong grasp on the ideology of women. The article goes into great depth about how women are becoming viewed as objects in a male dominating culture. I couldn't agree more with this statement. It sickens me when I watch such degrading things on the television because women either become victims of the stereotype and it sets impossible expectations.
Music, mainly R&B, is slowly becoming more vulgar and shameful towards women. Through examples of Lil Kim and Missy Elliot, Perry was able to discuss how women are able to give into the stereotype as well as fight against it. In the article, the most interesting part was when the author compared the two versions of Lady Marmalade. The song was released under to different artist at two different time periods. The author went into great detail about how the original version by The Bluebells took more of a storytelling stance of a Creole prostitute walking the streets. However, the newer and more recent version sung by current pop sensations (Christian Aguilera, Mya, Pink and Lil Kim) took it to a different level by having the women singing about how they are the prostitutes on the street. The writer seemed upset that the producer of the song, unlike the older version, was a women.
I am very hesitant about the example I want to use but I do feel that it really does push what Perry is talking about to the most extreme level. I will not post the video on this site but will provide a link if you still wish to see it after reading. The song Cult 45 and Two Zigzags by the rap artist Afroman, is a song about smoking marijuana and sex with multiple partners. The songs lyrics go great detail about multiple sexual relationships that the singer has been through with women of every race and culture. In addition, he goes as far as each ethnicity of woman that he slept with that fits the stereotype. For example, having sex with a white woman who's father is in the KKK. I find the lyrics highly disturbing and embarrassing to listen to. In the article, Perry goes in to great detail about how women are shown in music videos as sexual objects and this video does not let down the reputation. The concept of the video is of a man waking up in a bed surrounded by women in very skimpy and scandalous clothing. In an article that I have also read, The More You Subtract, the More You Add by Jean Kilbourne, Kilbourne talks about how girls are victims to images that are portrayed in the media. I feel that her statement, “They [young girls] must be overtly sexy and attractive but essentially passive and virginal” (259) is demonstrated in the video because the girls in the video are literally walking prostitutes, there is an attempt to show them as experience with sex but also innocent. But what I really dislike about this video more so than the song is the fact that there is so much visual demonstration of sex but there is no visual representation of the drugs that he is talking about. This makes me wonder that is our culture really hitting the point where sex idealized then drugs.
Source: Who(se) Am I: The Identity and image of Women in Hip-Hop by Imani Perry
The More You Subtract, the More You Add by Jean Kilbourne
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