The Fine Line: Crazy or Powerful?
The ‘Hot N Cold’ music video that hit Youtube in 2008 showcases a manic Perry being almost rejected at the altar. Then in 2009, P!nk’s hit song ‘So What’ was released, an anthem for girls struggling with breakups. The music video follows P!nk’s adventure following a rough breakup. Despite the differences in lyrics and artist, these videos are painstakingly similar. Both are action filled, showing the main girl characters transforming through stages and acting absolutely crazy.
Hot N Cold’ begins with a blissful bride, then quickly transfers to Perry chasing her fiance down the street. It switches to pop-star Perry singing proudly, Soon after, it is back to the bridal Perry in front of background dancers holding baseball bats while tears drip down her face. The chaotic aesthetic of the music video intensifies when she begins to swing at the groom. The video continues to go back and forth between pop-star Perry dancing happily to crying bridal Perry. ‘So What’ starts with an unstable P!nk riding a toy car on the highway then quickly shifts to her slamming a guitar out of anger. As the video progresses, P!nk is shown sawing trees and throwing toilet paper at her ex's car. Just like ‘Hot N Cold’, in between these destructive clips, a pop-star version of P!nk is singing confidently. Both videos have a setting-switching, intense energy. Female stars in the videos go through both highs and lows, switching from pop-icons to heartbroken, angry girls. ‘Hot n Cold’ ends with the finance saying “I do” and they run off together while ‘So What’ shows P!nk content with her man. The exhilarating tones of the videos end with a calm resolution: the girl ends up with the guy.
In “Feminism and Popular Culture”, Andi Ziesler disucsses the 2000s as a time of progression and counteraction for feminism, which can be analyzed through both of these music videos (Ziesler, 2008, pg 15). Both videos display women breaking heternormic social ideals. However, are they demonstrating this progress through stereotyping. In ‘So What’ we see P!nk being catastrophic, breaking things throughout her path. It is evident the behavior wasn’t to attract men. Ziesler would argue this video was breaking past the male gaze positioning women as merely objects to be looked at (Ziesler, 2008, pg 8). ‘So What’ shows a strong-willed woman, formulating her own decisions. Perry’s behavior in ‘Hot n Cold’ may not be as intense as in P!nk’s video, but also fights against the norms put on women as being submissive to men. She is seen pushing physically against men. Despite the literal and metaphorical push-back against the male gaze, both still play into stereotypical gender roles. The ending of both videos can be perceived through with this definition of male gaze, “so by positioning women as nothing more than....made vulnerable, the male unconscious reassures itself that, really, it has nothing to fear from women.” (Ziesler, 2008, pg.8). These videos show how even with how angry women can get, at the end of the day, men have nothing to fear. Despite the hurt, the woman will still be there. P!nk and Perry are constructing their own power through breaking past the male gaze. However, the happy gender norms by relabeling the as crazy or violent, rather than a of the status-quo.
Stuart Hall would argue these representations of women as crazy over-simplify these values into all women (Hall, 1994, pg 235). These videos are actively perpetuating stereotypes that women are crazy. Representation of women in the media matters because it will influence how people view women, and how women view themselves. Displaying women as unstable over men normalizes the idea that men can have full control of a woman's emotions and actions. Women become associated with craziness and the opposing extreme is reduced into men being non-crazy due to the “rigid two-part structure” (Hall, 1994, pg 235). Hall argues there will forever be a power imbalance in binary oppositions. Through these videos women are being represented on the subordinate end (Hall, 1994, p. 235). These videos attempt to break gender norms by showing ‘difference’ and testing a realm women do not typically display in mainstream media. They are using chainsaws and baseball bats, items stereotypically labeled as masculine. They are breaking binary boundaries by entering an extreme that is not inherently feminine. Hall would argue “they are also a rather crude and reductionist way of establishing meaning” because they are achieving this by adhering to the gender norms associated with crazy/non-crazy. (Hall, 1994, 235). Instead of building a powerful narrative of a strong woman, the videos reduce women into a category that they are crazy.
In addition to questions of gender binaries, the music videos bring questions of race. The videos could be emblems of feminism in that era, however Hall would argue that the music videos could be ambiguous in their meaning, based on the lens and context the videos were watched in (Hall, 1994, p.228). Now, I see two white women and notice the privilege in their representations. These pop-stars aren’t viewed as dangerous. Do less artists of color portray themselves as destructive because of the implications that come with it? Because P!nk and Perry are white, they hold more privilege to break boundaries because their stereotypes are less constrained than people of color. When analyzing these music videos, I see a pattern between the way women are represented and the implications that come with their race and privilege. Women are writing anthems speaking out against men, and amassing power through non-traditional feminine avenues. On the flip side, you can see the male gaze and stereotypes they still enforce. You begin to notice that these videos sustain that women are crazy. Despite the powerful push-back against the male gaze, both reinforce through their endings that men have nothing to fear from women, and they will always return.
References
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Newbery Park, CA: Sage, pp. 225-249
Hot n Cold. (2008). Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHNpusq654.
So What (Official Video). (2009). Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJfFZqTlWrQ.
Zeisler, A. (2008). Chapter 1: Pop Circumstance and why Pop Culture matters. In Feminism and pop culture (pp. 1–12). essay, Seal Press.
Hi Mia!
ReplyDeleteI thought this was an interesting interpretation of feminist expression in music, especially within the representations of ‘crazy’ women. Often, when watching or listening to female pop-music artists, I had not realized their final scenes involved ‘content resolutions’; remaining with a man. Similarly, their identities as white women also influence their ability to express ‘craziness’ that are not afforded to female artists of color. Very interesting points!
When reading your piece, I also found a strong relation to Sarah Benet-Weiser’s argument of technology's role in popular feminism. For example, Katy Perry and P!nk demonstrate their images of rebellion and refusal of the male gaze (as you described), while also promoting their own self-brand to commodify feminism. In her writing, Benet-Weiser says, “The daily, just like the personal, is indeed political. But in the context of digital technologies and a postfeminist environment, attention to everyday politics becomes less a reason to collectively challenge power struggles and more a reason to embrace self-branding” (Benet-Weiser, 2012, p. 67). To explain, these artists commercialize their ‘craziness’ without recognizing the underlying representation of women in their songs and videos. In this way, they’re promoting their own self-image and ignoring larger power struggles of their predominantly female audience.
Moreover, these commodities reinforce neoliberal moral frameworks, which further distracts viewers from the existing gender imbalances that surround our social and political world.
To Benet-Weiser’s argument, these forms of commodification do not challenge our systemic structures, but rather distracts consumers from these powers. The relationship of popular feminism to the underlying partriarchy is symbolic to Katy Perry’s ‘Hot & Cold’ alter scene, they will both return in the end.
Commentor: Madison Bauerle
Work Cited
Banet-Weiser, S. (2012). Authentic: The politics of ambivalence in a brand culture. New York University Press.
Hi Mia,
ReplyDeleteThis fascinating analysis of these two popular music videos made me think of Sarah Banet-Weiser’s term commodity feminism, which she defines in her 2015 piece Popular Misogyny. Commodity feminism is a phenomenon in which celebrities endorse feminism in a way that turns the movement into a product and oversimplifies its long and complex history (Banet-Weiser, 2015). Popular feminism manifests itself in both Katy Perry and P!nk’s videos. Both artists attempt to portray feminist autonomy over their bodies and actions by using stereotypically masculine tools such as chainsaws and baseball bats to get angry and physically push against men. However, similar to John Fiske’s concept of depoliticizing ripped jeans by turning them into a fashion trend, the emotional complexity portrayed in these videos can be simplified to fit into traditional gender role representations (Fiske, 2010). After both Katy Perry and P!nk’s “crazy” emotional episodes, they end up happily with a man, consistent with the traditional, stereotypical regime of representation of women as emotional, sensitive, and dependent on men (Hall, 1997).
While these videos were released in 2008 and 2009, the songs and videos remain largely popular and widely circulated. The Hot N Cold music video has 1.1 billion views on YouTube, and So What has 429 million views. These videos propagate traditional and problematic gender roles to a large, international, and cross-cultural audience. Your post reminded me that rather than consuming content passively in the way Adorno and Horkheimer (1944) classified audiences in Dialectic of Enlightenment, to think critically about the regime of representation conveyed in the media I engage with and its ramifications for mass audiences (Hall, 1997).
- Andie Goldmacher
References
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment. pp. 1-12.
Banet-Weiser, S. (2015). Popular misogyny. Culture Digitally
Fiske, J. (2010). The jeaning of America. In Understanding popular culture. Routledge, pp. 1-21.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Newbery Park, CA: Sage, pp. 225-249