Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Scopophilia in terms of Women vs. Men in Videos






Here I present you with two different videos. The more recent Ciara video feat. Ludacris (who will be at FEST by the way) called Ride, and Young Jock- I Know you See It from a few years ago. Using these two videos the concept of scopophilia is conveyed, which is the erotic look. However it varies because one song is by a woman and one is by a man.

In the Ciara video she has since we last saw her has lost a considerable amount of weight. She is dancing erotically and imitating the act of riding....well you know. Lets call it the cowgirl position. So she is gyrating and moving her body and the song speaks about how she is catering to the man "he likes the way I ride it". She never speaks about how she feels about "riding because the woman doesn't have that kind of opinion. Her one purpose is to be a sexual image, that men can look upon, therefore she is conveying to-be-looked-at-ness. Also it creates an ego ideal where women want to strive to be as fit or good at "riding" as Ciara, instead of striving to be say a business woman or a intellectual woman with integrity. It is assumed that what we watch we identify with based on our gender, but this doesn't apply for women who are just viewed as sexual images. This is demonstrated appropriately here. This video is not used to empower a woman but simply for a man's viewing pleasure.

On the contrary in the Young Jock video for I Know You See It, the man is portrayed with power. In the beginning the theme is like an episode of Cribs on MTV showing his large house and all the women half naked in the video just walking around for his pleasure. He throws money on the ground and looks generally happy.

Can women make videos to show that they too can possess power?
-Alicia Keys said I am SUPERWOMAAAAANNN.

1 comment:

  1. Okay you know I was originally opposed to you criticizing the video Ride however in a review you are right. THe song is not about a mutual pleasure from a sexual relationship put focuses solely on what is pleasurable to him.

    ReplyDelete