Analysis Of The Latest Madonna Video example essay topic

"At House of Comics, a Writer's Champion", Dana Jennings New York Times, September 15, 2003, C 8 DC Comics is soon to release its largest first printing of a single graphic novel. The women heading this venture is Karen Berger, which is a rarity in the "boy's club" of comic books. Berger states in her article that being a woman has helped her in her career The music video has become a staple for any artist trying to break into or maintain their position in the music industry... A vast majority contain images of scantily clad women performing simulated sex acts For my media analysis project I plan to survey the top music videos played on MTV and analyze the treatment of women in the videos. Most women in male musical videos are objectified as lust objects and even in female videos, the women are scantily clad and acting in a way as to please men.

The video opens with a small boy trying to gain admittance to a sort of caberet show... The ticket taker will not admit the boy. We move inside, then, to Madonna's "strip show" number, where she manipulates a chair and sings... (this video also includes, for the first time in Madonna's videos, the gay spectator - a woman rather than a man). The video plays with the notion... of the male gaze in cinema, the construction of the camera's "look" as male and its object as female. Madonna is clearly the object of these voyeuristic gazes, yet she fractures the monolithic nature of the camera's look with the opening and closing barriers of the booths, her direct counter gaze into the camera's lens... The camera cuts to the young boy, who, looking in the mirror, dances in a manner imitation Madonna's dance inside the caberet, thus establishing an identification between them... the young boy's game of impersonating the femme fatale and Madonna's transvestism at the end both refuse essentialist gender categories and turn sexual identity into a kind of play "Madonna's combination of sexual iconography and sexual behaviour in her video has long had feminists debating whether or not she has set back the feminist movement to pre-Suffragette days" Hurley 1994.

An analysis of the latest Madonna video (an appearance in a Britney Spears video "Me Against the Music") shows the same dichotomy of a woman owning her sexuality, but then a woman playing into traditional roles given to her by society and objectification. The traditional role Madonna is given in this video is that of the older, less sexual ized women (giving into the notion that an older women can't be sexy). Follows is analysis of "Me Against the Music". Britney Spear arrives at a dance club in an expensive sports car (this could be seen as an announcement that she has become successful) especially since she is driving herself. Britney is wearing a black modified version of a man's suit with a low cut tank top, this plays with traditional gender roles.

The next shot however objectifies Britney by only showing her breast (which are in a low cut tank top) as she suggestively caresses her thighs. We then see Madonna, she is dressed in a white suit (to serve as a foil to Britney). Madonna flicks open a pocket watch, perhaps this symbolizes the end of Madonna's time, she is older now and does not have as much influence as younger stars like Britney. In the video, Britney and Madonna are reverse images of each other, from their dance moves to the way they dress. Britney's section of the club is filled with teenagers taking hits from an oxygen bar, while Madonna's part of the club is filled with men in suits smoking cigars. Though the areas are separated by a wall, somehow Britney can sense Madonna on the other side and they both dance.

Madonna writhes on the floor, fining a sex act and dances on the men, but they are unresponsive to her. Perhaps this is another symbolic gesture that men do not want older women, because on Britney's side of the club she has many male backup dancers. Britney chases Madonna through the club throughout various rooms. In one scene, Madonna is in a room filled with autumn leaves and plays seductively on a swing. The swing could be a representation of the youth she is trying to hang on to, but dead leaves (old age) surrounds her. It is surprising that Madonna, the same woman whose videos have been banned from television, would play into such conventions of old age that women past 40 are no longer attractive or sexual.

But it seems from this video she has passed the struggle of sexual object / owning your own sexuality to a younger generation of pop stars. 20 Peterson, D.L. and Post, K.S. (February 1989). "Influence of Rock Videos on Attitudes of Violence Against Women". Psychological Reports.