There Is Still Hope For Music Videos

Communications scholar, Sut Jhally has some pretty solid theories regarding women and the sexually objectified roles they typically play in music videos. While Jhally's Dreamworlds is a little dated, many of the theories he presents still hold water in contemporary music videos. But on the other hand as formats are changing from the constraints of television timeslots to the seemingly endless limits of the internet, music videos no longer have to conform to the three minute advertisement formula that were so prevalent in their early days.

For the most part, I don't really care for music videos because so many of them seem so egotistical and do in fact follow some aspect of the production formula Sut Jhally explains in his commentary film about the music video industry. So, this assignment began excruciatingly slow as I trolled the web for music videos of my favorite rock and metal bands, who met the requirement of being male dominated but would typically lack the example of a non-band member female being featured in said music video. Then, I remembered a video I saw earlier this year that was completely brilliant and tossed aside all normal conventions that are associated with music videos. This video did not attempt to tell some convoluted story with highly stylized imagery inter-cut with the featured band lip-syncing their newest single. It was more of a short film with a hysterically funny plot that features more than one track off this artist's new album. It still retains the spirit of a conventional music video but the creativeness of this video is unparalleled. I would like to personally thank the Beastie Boys for still being awesome after all these years and for breaking ground to embrace the format of the internet to make the greatest music video of all time with Fight For Your Right (Revisited).


Photo Credit: Joe Wolf / JoeInSouthernCa  http://www.flickr.com/photos/joebehr/5723002790/

The music videos Sut Jhally dissects in Dreamworlds were all still relatively new in format because MTV had only been around for a few years and the directors of these videos would typically have backgrounds in making television commercials. So, there is this idea among them that says the best way to sell this artist's album during the short time constraints of the featured single to the consumers is to entice them with sex. Unfortunately, the target audience seemed to almost always be adolescent males and the use of women in these videos were almost exclusively as sexual objects. Their roles are normally boiled down to faceless strippers, prostitutes, body parts, or just silhouettes with fit bodies whose sole purpose is to serve as eye candy with no thoughts, hopes or dreams.

In the Beastie Boys video, they have abandoned the three minute song, time format and made something that is completely fresh. Though they have borrowed some of the practices of the ancient music video, like the scene with the strippers/hookers in the limo. On the flipside of that, the women are not faceless or even voiceless, but are seemingly more empowered than the men playing the Beastie Boys band members. You’ll just have to watch it to see what I mean. This video is close to a half an hour in length, but this embraces the format of the internet where there is no need to censor any ideas or be held to television’s time constraints. I hope more musicians see the potential of this sort of format and abandon the traditional three minute ad.

I think Sut Jhally’s theories are mostly correct in mainstream television music videos, but as the internet becomes the new go-to format, I think videos like Fight For Your Right (Revisited) will become the new standard. As long as you don’t mind potty-mouth humor and pee jokes, check it out below! And see if you can count all the celebrity cameos.