Gender, masculinity and music videos

1. Gender, masculinity and music videos

2. Introduction • The essay will analyse the video of 50 cent ft. Snoop dog P.I.M.P. We will base our knowledge on the article Skeggs, B. 1993. Two Minute Brother: Contestation Through gender, "race" and sexuality. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences.6(3), 299. And we will use quotations from there for the second part of our essay.

3. Part I • Gender representations: black masculine males and oversexualised black females • Hegemonic/subordinate forms: black powerful men/subordinated obedient black women • Symbols of power and their effects: expensive cars, mansions, jewellery, “magic stick”, attitude of women towards men.

4. Part II • Other representations: objectified women (According to the article: “The majority of rap videos that reference women often produce fantasy images of numerous beautiful women draping themselves around, and unconditionally desiring, the male rappers”); • Intersection of masculinity with class, sexuality, “race” and ethnicity:with class: (“Alongside economic castration... which meant that Black masculinities could never compete on the same territory as white masculinities”, “they were able to develop coping strategies to create dignity out of oppression.” (Genovese 1972)) with sexuality: (“Through pseudo-scientific mythology, Black people were labelled as more animalistic, more primitive and, accordingly, more sexual.”) with “race” and ethnicity: (“as popular music has shown, through the fear and fascination of the white audience/consumers, racist myths could very easily be converted into displays of Black male power and control.”)

5. Part III • The text does not challenge hegemonic masculinity, and instead magnify it. • Alternatives to the dominant modes of representations in the text: there are no alternatives • Can we challenge these representations?