I should probably declare an interest before I post these two articles which I’ve wanted to share with you for awhile.
I love Adele.
I only discovered her recently. Her song ‘Someone like you’ did me in. Have a listen.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qemWRToNYJY[/youtube]
And her cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Make You Feel My Love’ is gorgeous beyond belief.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0put0_a–Ng[/youtube]
No Lady Gaga porno gimmicks. No Christina Aguilera crotch shots. No Rhianna bondage and banana clips.
Adele doesn’t need any of this. She’s only 23, but she knows she can sing. It is her voice, and her presence, which makes her a star. She doesn’t need to follow the sexualised scripts demanded of so many young artists and which I’ve written about before here.
So I was heartened to read these recently published pieces echoing my thoughts.
The Guardian – May 30, 2011
A top record executive has launched a damning attack on music industry attitudes, claiming the insistence on over-sexualising female artists has led to “boring, crass and unoriginal” music.
Richard Russell is founder of record label XL Recordings, home to the hugely successful UK singer-songwriter Adele, 23, who he said had the potential to change the way women were seen in the industry by focusing on her music rather than her sexuality.
“The whole message with [Adele] is that it’s just music, it’s just really good music,” said Russell. “There is nothing else. There are no gimmicks, no selling of sexuality. I think in the American market, particularly, they have come to the conclusion that is what you have to do.” Read article here
Warwick McFadyen, June 4 2011 – National Times
SOME commodities are dug from the ground. Some are grown from the soil. Some are reared on the land. The value of each, whether it be iron ore, wheat or cows is governed by supply and demand.
So it is with the pairing of sex and women – the raw materials in the manufacture of a musical product that has less to do with the ostensible first cause of said product, that is the song, and much more to do with the selling of a chattel.
The sexualisation of women in the pop business to achieve this aim credits no one. It is a disgrace. In this commodity market, the human becomes the object. A singing, dancing object that has been degraded of individuality so as to be amorphous, malleable and interchangeable. Puppets and puppetmasters. Read article here.
See also: Rihanna and the rise of raunch pop
Mike Stock: Why this pop porn will damage a generation of children
11 Responses
I’ve had Adele’s CD on constant play in my car for about three weeks and listening to it still gives me chills. I really hope her agent/producer realise they’re on to something and don’t encourage her to buy into the sexualised crap of other female singers her age. That would be a tragedy. (Although the fact that she’s number 1 in something like 17 countries at the moment should give them a clue that perhaps it’s all about the voice and the music, not about leather and 2-metre penises on stage…)
A great article! At long last – are they possibly starting to wake up????
It is so sad that music videos have become pornified. I remember when Christina Aguilera’s “Dirty” video came out, totally dripping in raunch and sleeze and thinking, I just don’t want to see that, so I changed the channel. What is more frustrating to me however, is the way these ‘singers’ justify this trend. I have heard it so many times that they are “just proud of their sexuality” or they are “free and liberated women.” I never realised that Germaine and company defined “liberation” as the removal of ones clothing and the thrusting, girating and play-acting of sex.
It’s great that for these women, sex is not a dirty word, however they really shouldn’t sugar coat it…. they are using sex, their bodies, to sell a product, to make money. Using sex to make money is nothing more that pornography, so lets call it for what it is. It is PG-rated porn, marketed to children as Saturday and Sunday Morning TV. Now let’s see if singers can justify at sexual liberation.
I absolutely love Stephanie Germanotta, what a shame she became ‘Lady Gaga.’
Check out ‘Lady Gaga’ before she adopted the porno gimmicks and sexualised scripts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM
I noticed that while Gabriella Cilmi said she had to do a provocative photo shoot as that’s what you have to do in the music industry to be successful. Scottish singer Susan Boyle was topping the charts and keeping her clothes on.
Hi Melinda, I am so pleased that you have discovered Adele. Her second album is an excellent follow up to her debut and it’s on high rotation in my home. I saw Adele on the Graham Norton Show a few weeks ago and she was funny, charming, relaxed, entertaining and very sure of herself. I hope she does not get chewed up by the music industry.
While my 11 year old daughter who loves to sing might not have the maturity to understand the lyrics of those songs, I could happily share with her Adele’s amazing vocal talent, knowing that she wouldn’t be bombarded by foul images. Well done Adele, beautiful voice.
Whilst it is good to see a female singer allowed to showcase her singing skills and not having to depict herself as a dehumanised sexualised commodity for men’s sexual titilation we must not lose sight of who is to blame for the continued epidemic of female singers having to become men’s sexual service stations.
Rihanna and other female singers did not ‘choose’ to turn themselves into men’s sexual service stations because female singers are not the ones with the socio-economic power. That is still firmly in the sticky hands of men. The music industry is controlled by men for men’s profit and so we must blame the men who the ceo’s of multi-national music corporations who are all profiting from selling female singers as men’s sexual service stations.
Take a look at the innumerable music videos which abound and note which sex is fully clothed and which sex has hardly any clothes on. No it is not the men who are prancing around naked for the female sexual entertainment – it is the reverse. But of course blaming Rihana and other female singers ensures male accountability is never raised or noticed.
That’s how our male supremacist system operates and yes the system deliberately dehumanises female singers of colour because women of colour are depicted as more animalistic as white female singers. The male singers of colour are never depicted naked are they? Instead they are depicted as having a ‘harem’ of sexually available naked women of colour and such stereotypes are white men’s ones imposed on women of colour. Male singers of colour dupe themselves into believing they are gaining the white man’s power and rights but they forget it is the white male ceos of various music companies which are the ones ‘pulling the strings’ not the male singers of colour who strut around claiming they are ‘pimping their rides.’
That photo show a female singer straddling a pseudo penis is white men’s fantasies imposed on women. Our male supremacy worships the penis and uses it at every opportunity to reinforce the lie that men are superior to women and women well we are just men’s disposable sexualised commodities are we not? We aren’t even human because that right continues to be ‘male only.’ So focus on holding the powerful white men accountable for maintaining a misogynistic music industry, because blaming female singers does male supremacist’s work for them.
As regards Adele she will doubtless be subjected to intense pressure and coercion from music companies to turn herself into a dehumanised sexualised commodity for men to gain sexual pleasure from viewing because a female singer who just relies on her singing skills is not worthy of consideration from the male perspective. Remember male singers do not routinely walk on stage wearing little or no clothing and the reason is because male singers are seen as more than just ‘sex.’ Women however are ‘sex’ first and abilities last.
I agree. Fabulous songs and voice. A modern singer I would listen to if the rest of her music is as wholesome and smut-free.
Thank you, Jennifer! I am so sick of people whinging at women that dance around in jaunty outfits as though they have a choice not to. The majority of the time in our society sex DOES sell.
Furthermore, if these celebrities have straight up come out and explained their video clips are reflections of their sexuality, why do we get to write articles about how “misled” they are and how they’re just paper cut-outs of eachother? If their sexuality is mainstream (and mainstream sexuality involves stripping and riding phallic objects), why is that automatically wrong? Why do we get to criticise them because their sexuality involves more public nudity than we’re comfortable with? Why don’t we just BELIEVE that they ARE comfortable with stripping, and get on with our lives?
Moreover, if they weren’t to strip, what is the likelihood they would make money? What is the likelihood that their record label would keep them on (unless, like Adele, they’re being “celebrated” for their squeaky clean image)? Susan Boyle was criticised time and time again for how “ugly” she was, and how she wasn’t making an effort to lose weight or get dental work done. Fortunately, our society still allowed her to see success – for a time – but she is an exception and do NOT pretend like she isn’t.
Rihanna, Christina and Lady Gaga have all come out and said that they are proud of their sexuality and not ashamed of their bodies. This should be a celebrated achievement for women. If you are comfortable in your own skin, you ARE celebrating the feminist movement, by not allowing societal preconceptions about your gender or sexuality to bind you. Your differing opinions and preferences for sexuality does not give your free passage to criticise people who are, after all, performers.
@Olivia
Pretty sure Jennifer was arguing that despite the rhetoric of agency being tossed about, the majority of female celebrities are not actually exercising much choice when it comes to the display and sale of their flesh. I’m not sure how much you actually believe they have much of a choice either, given that you admit it is exceptional for a woman to achieve commercial success or even be able to make music at all without trading on her sexuality?
I don’t know Rihanna, Gaga etc to be able to say whether or not it they are being honest when they claim to be celebrating their bodies or enjoying a particular expression of their sexuality. I hope they are, because it’s a wonderfully rare thing for women to be comfortable in their own skin. That said, however, their predictable and tired conformity to pornified stereotypes and male-dictated scripts of female beauty and sexuality, and the ends they continually go to in order to prove how comfortable they are in that mould, is a very long way from liberation and not really worthy of much celebration…