AN - What I have done this week from 20/6/11 to 25/6/11 Part 3: Controversy and Representation in the Music Industry

After learning of the technologies and software used in A2, we went on to learn about the controversy and representation in the music industry. A prime example of controversy seen in the music industry is the news story of Lady Gaga wearing a dress made of meat at the 2010 MTV Music Awards, due to this, she sparked controversy from animal rights protesters because they are against people eating meat and wearing their skin for fashion purposes. 

Another prime example of controversy in the music industry is in Rihanna's music video, Man Down. In which the artist shoots a rapist in the back of the head during the opening sequence of the video. Melissa Henson, director of PTC stated that, "Rihanna's personal story and status as a celebrity superstar provided a golden opportunity for the singer to send an important message to female victims of rape and domestic violence. Instead of telling victims they should seek help, Rihanna released a music video that gives retaliation in the form of premeditated murder the imprimatur of acceptability." 

In a series of Twitters via the social networking site Twitter, Rihanna sought to make her case. One of the tweets said, "I'm a 23 year old rockstar with NO KIDS! What's up with everybody wantin me to be a parent? I'm just a girl, I can only be your/our voice!"

Here is the video that Rihanna faced the controversy for:

Finally, from what I've learned about the music industry, I believe that there many different representations of people within these videos, For example, black people are usually portrayed as being the stereotypical "Black Pimps", due to the behaviour of rappers such as 50 Cent and Kanye West in these videos, however in reality this isn't the case. Another example of representation in music videos is the representation of women in music videos because they're usually shown as being objects towards men's desires hence the lack of clothing. A good example of this is in the Britney Spears music video, "Womaniser" in which during some parts of the music video, Britney can be seen laying down in a sauna completely naked. This is done to attract a male target audience and to get them to fantasize about her, so that they will buy her albums and make her music videos increase in popularity.  

Here is the video for Womaniser: