When did it become the norm for women in music to be trampy 24/7?
Believe me, there is nothing wrong with owning one’s sexuality. But is the concept of being in charge of your sexuality synonymous with acting like a stripper in heat? Over the past decade or so, the role of the woman in pop music has gone from being occasionally titillating to basically playing the role of a ho. Misogynist? Not at all. Work with me here. Name one huge-selling (platinum level) female star in popular music right now who doesn’t pull her clothes off at any available opportunity. Alicia Keys. Hayley Williams. Mary J. Blige. Meanwhile, think of iconic female performers from yesteryear: Aretha, Patti, Chaka, Joni, Carole King). Hell, think of female country performers today. Think of Aaliyah, Latifah, Lyte, Jewel. Not that they weren’t sexy (well, not that some of them weren’t sexy), but the seduction was implied and not rubbed in your face.
Female singers trading on their femininity is nothing new. Hey, part of the reason Diana Ross became such an icon in the Sixties is because she was sexy. But that wasn’t *all* she was. Even in the Nineties: yeah, Madonna was edgy, but she was countered by artists like Alanis Morissette and Lauryn Hill-women that sold millions of records and were able to do so without being overt about their sexuality. I mean, Alanis had the whole “go down on you in a theater” thing, but she wasn’t parading around in next-to-nothing, writhing and moaning like…Britney, Christina, GaGa, Rihanna, Katy Perry and just about every female artist making waves these days. There was a sense of mystery to their sexuality-it wasn’t the only thing they were trading on. Is it even possible these days to be a female hip-hop artist and not be overtly sexual? At least in the days of Kim and Foxy, you had Missy and Lauryn Hill to counterbalance. Nowadays, there’s just Nicki Minaj. This is NOT a good thing. Where’s the emphasis on talent?
Now, I’m totally not a prude. Actually, you could probably rate me pretty high on the freak scale. I might be a gay dude, but I appreciate titties as much as the next guy. However, I don’t find in-your-face sexuality to be very…uh, sexy. Especially if it comes from a place of desperation and/or is played for shock value. There’s a lot to be said for subtlety. Madonna? Sexy chick. However, she was more sexy when it was somewhat coy (see: “Bedtime Stories”) than when she was pushing her titties in everyone’s face (see: “Erotica”, her least essential studio album before she started sucking about ten years ago). Janet? “Pleasure Principle”-sexy. Nipplegate? Not sexy. And she went from being every black man’s perfect woman to an almost-desperate one-note performer who appeared to want to distract us by disrobing, hoping we wouldn’t notice that the music was getting shittier and shittier. And we see where the over-sexed image has gotten Christina Aguilera (we won’t talk about Britney, because she has nothing else going for her except her hotness…and even THAT’s fading fast).
I’m not saying all girl performers should start wearing turtlenecks or goose-down jackets. Everyone wants to be titillated. It’s just that trading exclusively on your sexuality (as opposed to your talent) does for womankind exactly what T-Pain style cooning does for Black folks and Adam Lambert-style flamboyance does for gay artists. It puts everyone in a box that then becomes extremely hard to get out of. It makes no sense for a minority group to fight so hard for equality and then fall back on the stereotypes that their oppressors use against them.
Further example of using sexuality as a desperate measure to attract controversy (and perhaps record sales)? See below…
15 comments
Dave Lifton says:
Aug 11, 2010
(quietly walking off popblerd’s lawn…)
Dave Lifton says:
Aug 11, 2010
Seriously, I don’t think you could say the 90s were particularly subtle. Justify My Love, Prince’s assless pants on the VMAs (to say nothing of Lovesexy a few years earlier), Janet AND Jennifer Aniston were nude on the cover of Rolling Stone, Courtney Love’s nasty titties hanging out all the time. OK, bad example.
And I’m sure that if mainstream America could have accepted a naked black woman in 1965 then Diana Ross would have done it. But Berry had to present his artists as classy and non-threatening, so he kept naked Diana all to himself, the greedy bastard.
But the difference is that it’s not controversial anymore because of Madonna, Prince, Janet, etc. So the generation that follows them has to take it one step further.
blerd says:
Aug 11, 2010
The 90s weren’t especially subtle, no. But there was variety. Think of the biggest selling female artists of the decade-Shania Twain, Alanis, Lauryn Hill, Jewel…artists who didn’t overplay the sexuality card. Even Janet’s sexuality was somewhat classy. She didn’t totally slut it up until the beginning of the last decade. I’m not saying you can’t be trampy. I just think that female artists these days seem to think that being trampy is the ONLY option.
Kyle says:
Aug 11, 2010
I’m just happy that you handed Hayley Williams her respect. I was all set to be up in arms about it. “Hey, c’mon, man! One leaked picture doesn’t–oh, never mind.” Anyway, you basically know how I feel about this, so I’ll just say that you echoed my sentiments beautifully. Nicely done.
C says:
Aug 11, 2010
A few things. I think there is a MAJOR difference in being sexy vs being slutty so I have to take umbrage with your title. We already know that sex sells because most markets are driven by …. men. If a woman owns her sexuality and she’s comfortable/confident in it – I don’t see the conflict.
I think the Ciara video is pushing the boundaries – but maybe that was what she wanted to accomplish as a sexual being? I’m more concerned about people like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Momsen who I feel are consistently under-dressed as YOUNG girls.
The music industry eats its young and the windows for success are growing increasingly smaller. I feel like women need to step up and be accountable for one another but also music companies need to sell me talent and not glitter. But, that’s probably not going to happen any time soon.
blerd says:
Aug 11, 2010
There IS a major difference between being sexy and being slutty. The examples I mentioned are of women being slutty, or at least using their sexuality as a device by which to obtain publicity and fame. It’s not a natural development or trait.
Let’s be real about Ciara-when she came out, she was totally virtuous and virginal. As recently as when the last album came out (which if I remember correctly was barely a year ago), I remember reading an interview with her in Blender where they jokingly asked her if she would consider going to a nude beach and she was like “no”. So this sudden shift in attitude is probably less due to a natural event and more due to desperation because her last record didn’t sell.
The bottom line is that we can’t blame the corporate bigwigs for everything. Americans have a lengthy history of assigning blame to others when we should all be looking in the mirror. Everyone needs to step up and be accountable. We can affect change by supporting artists who don’t adopt this oversexualized image and take a bit of responsibility for their actions and the way they present themselves. Clive Davis and Jimmy Iovine are not standing in front of these women ripping their clothes off. Business people react to the market. If we don’t support it, they won’t make it.
C says:
Aug 11, 2010
I’ve always been on the fence about artist evolution. We so infrequently allow artists, ESPECIALLY WOMEN, to change their means, explore their sexuality or just grow up. When Madonna did it – we said she reinvented herself. If Ciara does it? She’s slutty? I don’t know.
Accountability is definitely a HUGE issue. However, the media juggernaut definitely pushes people so hard.
Dave Lifton says:
Aug 12, 2010
Shania walking a deserted highway in that leopard-print outfit (That Don’t Impress Me Much) and Jewel writhing around on the ground (You Were Meant For Me) weren’t examples of unnecessarily using their hotness to gain fame? The only difference between them and Katy Perry is that those songs are a little better than the crap she puts out and could’ve been hits without sexy videos.
But I don’t understand this concept of a female artist “owning her sexuality.” It seems like a phrase someone came up with to feel less guilty about objectifying women. “Oh, it’s OK. She’s in control, and that just makes her sexier.” As long as men are in charge of the labels and are the majority of the managers (and, with some artists, the songwriters and producers), then female artists aren’t in control of their sexuality.
blerd says:
Aug 12, 2010
Well if the women are parroting that sentiment, it makes them complicit, no?
Again, there’s a difference between “sexy” and “slutty”. With Shania and Jewel (and Fiona, and countless others), it was dare I say, classier. The influence wasn’t the chick at the strip club showing her hoo-ha to everyone.
Dave Lifton says:
Aug 12, 2010
As C says above, it’s an objective standard, and many find slutty to be sexy. Thrusting your boobs out for a camera, whether it’s delivered with a knowing wink or not, is allowing yourself to be objectified. Claim it as “ownership” seems like an unholy nexus of post-modernism and liberal guilt. I blame Camille Paglia.
I’m not disagreeing with you that Perry and her ilk aren’t going over the top, just that it’s hardly anything new.
blerd says:
Aug 12, 2010
I hear what you’re saying Dave (and Carletta). It just seems to be more prevalent than ever (and more desperate than ever).
Dave Lifton says:
Aug 12, 2010
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking/Was looked on as something shocking/Now, heaven knows/Anything Goes”
Cole Porter, 1934
blerd says:
Aug 12, 2010
Dave, can you please send me a video of yourself performing that song in a jaunty top hat and tails?
Tyler says:
Aug 27, 2010
I share C’s concern, but I also want to say that I think our critiques have to be sharper otherwise we run the risk of a kind of relativity that is truly destructive.
I don’t have a problem with sexual women in music. I do have a problem with young women who are creating sexual personas that are one-dimensional, irresponsible, exploitative, and uncritical. I think that’s is what popblerd is taking issue with, that there seems to be a reflexive sluttiness that doesn’t allow one to consider just what the artist is communicating with the sensuality.
With Madonna, you often got a deft deconstruction of white womanhood and the stranglehold that puritanical values have historically had on American sexuality. With Janet, you saw the evolution of a young woman who was exploring her love for her own body and her own sexual power in a way that didn’t detract from other aspects of who she was. You have NONE of that with any of these girls (though I would argue that Ciara’s Like A Boy is the closest thing to a brilliant black female pop artistic statement we’ve seen this past decade). Indeed, I would say that what Janet did before she competely fell off has not been accomplished since.
But I think what we have to consider is that young girls like Britney and Ciara and Katy Perry didn’t understand Madonna or Janet, weren’t listening to what was really going on. I don’t think they understood True Blue or Erotica or Like a Prayer to be conceptual works such that songs take on a different meaning within the context of the album. Same with janet. or The Velvet Rope (which is popularly understood to be a kinky album because of one song even though the album is about depression…see, this is what i mean by uncritical).
I think when we do we have to have a real conversation about the way we consume. And I think we we do – if we do – we will have to take responsibility for our inability to be seriously critical of popular music and to discuss seriously and thoughtfully what it is we are consuming (good and bad).
When we say, as so many often do, that “it’s just music” or “it’s just entertainment,” what we’re saying is that the child who is listening to Someday is Tonight or Secret shouldn’t be thinking about what those songs are communicating — or that what is being communicated is only what is immediately apparent.
We’re saying that in the quest for outlets that allow us to just “relax” and “not think” because stuff can’t be “too deep,” we allow for what we immediately see to take on greater meaning than what is actually going on. So you get Madonna’s ironic take on white womanhood in “Material Girl” devolving into Christina’s uncritical valorization of white womanhood during her Back to Basics era. Or to stay on topic, you go from janet. to Ciara being led around on a chain by Justin Timberlake (who … let’s be clear is Elvis Presley with a ghetto pass, talent be damned).
And then you have the marginalization of complicated sexuality in the form of Jaguar Wright and Joi Gilliam and the public balking at Jill Scott’s decision to throw off the Earth Mother patriarchal mantle and talk passionately and deeply about the fact that she likes to fuck and is devastated over her divorce (on the critically and commercially panned, but best album of her career, third album).
In short, we get the artists we deserve. Popular music is a reflection of the us at this moment. WE have to do better. WE have to stop buying crap just because it’s popular, just because it’s “in”. When we do, things shift.
blerd says:
Aug 28, 2010
I agree with that comment about 95%. I think today’s female artists are taking the Janet and Madonna archetype and just kinda skimming off the top without going deeper into the things they are trying to project. It’s all style and no substance. We’ll have to respectfully disagree on Jill Scott, though. That album was booty.