Hip-Hop Women

After watching MTV or VH1 for any length of time, it is clear that many music videos are especially objectified representations of women. Hip-hop music videos in particular have potential to specifically effect African American women, as they are the most common sexual objects portrayed. We’ve all seen rap videos where a man is surrounded by dozens of half-naked women, and this is actually an interesting version of sexist representations. The men go beyond being a “Don Juan” (as Imani Perry describes in the article “Who(se) Am I?”) where women are used, yet still maintain some semblance of humanity, to being commodities on the same level as “property, not unlike the luxury cars, Rolex watches, and platinum and diamond medallions that were also featured.”

The image of African American women in these videos has implications for female viewers that perhaps watch them, taking ideas of “beauty” from the unrealistic images. “The beauty ideal for black women presented in these videos is as impossible to achieve as the waif-thin models in Vogue magazine are for white women”. For example, there are black women with very light complexions and long, straight hair that “contrasts sharply to the real hair of most black women”. For a long time young black girls have had, in general, better body image because they were represented less in the media and therefore had less people telling them what “sexy” is. Now, it is possible that the self-esteem of these girls might start to suffer because of the increased negative representations.

However, unlike a lot of music genres, there are quite a few female artists in the hip-hop industry that counter such images. The article used the example of Missy Elliot, who “presents a glamorous and stylish image but never is presented in an objectifying manner”. Also, the author talks about Alicia Keys, who seems to be very comfortable with her own identity without exploiting herself in sexual images in her music videos (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK8t0gP4isE). Apparently, this is a genre with extremes, from the women portrayed as property to very self-assured female artists.