Essay/Term paper: The cultural construction of gender and representation of ide

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Music

Soaps but more importantly music videos can be said to interrogate the cultural construction of gender and representations of identity. The video suggests a set of images to the viewer and usually these are a blurring of gender and identity. Music videos predicate on the representation of female gender experience. The two interrelated sign systems- access signs and discovery signs- will be discussed. Music clips that will be focused on are Madonna"s "Burning Up", "Express Yourself", and "Justify My Love". The singer, who has been labelled "Our Lady of MTV", has an amazing video appeal due to her play with gender and identity. No other single artist has produced as many mixed images as she has.


Television soaps tend not to interrogate the construction of gender and the representation of identity. They do not seem to cross any boundaries. People watch soaps to relax and somehow relate, so if they were to experiment with the theatre of gender, it may be seen as a threat to viewers. Soapies usually have the males in typically male dominated occupations such as doctors, car salesmen and chefs. Women in soaps are usually secretaries or housewives. There does not seem to be any attempt for a switch of roles. Females are feminine, males masculine. There has been one exception, which was Kylie Minogue"s character, Charlene, on Neighbours. She was a mechanic and tomboy. This is one of the few occasions where a soap has interrogated the cultural construction of gender and representation of identity.



A music video is footage that accompanies a song. They can have a storyline related to the song, displays of images or simply focusing on the artist/s performing. Music video is forever crossing the lines of gender and identity. It is able to do this as it is seen as a form of art, therefore there is no threat to viewers. It is ironic that Boy George has said that "video was the worst thing to happen to music", when he himself looked and acted like he was crossing the lines of gender and boundaries back in the 1980"s. Madonna is most famous for creating videos with no boundaries for gender or identity. Most of the time, she deliberately plays with surfaces and masks. Madonna visual style engages and hyperbolises the discourse of femininity- she has bleached hair with dark roots, street smart image yet glamorous. Gender play is the mix and match of styles that flirt with the signifiers of sexual difference, and Madonna is always doing that. The three music videos of Madonna to be analysed are "Burning Up", "Express Yourself", and "Justify My Love".
Pouring money into the visuals, she is the first female artist to fully exploit video. In the three videos to be discussed, there is a mixture of suggestion and aggression. "Burning Up" involves her and a man. She is writhing in the middle of the road while he is driving towards her. At the moment where she seemed submissive, she was actually about to take over- suddenly he disappeared and at the end of the clip she was behind the wheel. It was like she was powerless, but then she turns that image upside down by showing who had the control.
"Express Yourself" is very similar. It shows her as being powerful and also as being weak. She plays with gender through her wearing of a pin-striped suit ( the male sign of power and success) and her crotch grabs. It also shows her with a chain around her neck. Madonna says:

"It"s just an image I thought was powerful...It showed an extreme. Extreme images of women: one is in charge, in control, dominating; the other is chained to a bed..."

It is evident in this video that she interrogates the cultural construction of gender and representations of identity.
"Justify My Love" is the same. The banned video showed how gender roles could be swapped, blurred and played with to create different identities. It showed men who looked and acted like women and women who looked and acted like men. It totally changed the typical gender roles and behaviour around.
E. Ann Kaplan (1897) stated "Madonna"s feminism is part of a larger post-modernism phenomenon which her videos also embody in their blurring of sacrosanct boundaries and polarities such as male/female, high art/pop art, film/TV, fiction/reality and private/public.



Two interrelated sign systems developed from videos predicated on female gender experience- access signs and discovery signs. These can both be seen in Cyndi Lauper"s 1983 hit "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and Madonna"s 1984 song "Borderline". Both are set in the street not feeling threatened, which is the access sign. The discovery sign is being female. In "Borderline" it is the fact she gets discovered to be a model.





Soaps but more importantly music videos can be said to interrogate the cultural construction of gender and representations of identity. The video suggests a set of images to the viewer and usually these are a blurring of gender and identity. Music videos predicate on the representation of female gender experience. The two interrelated sign systems- access signs and discovery signs- will be discussed. Music clips that will be focused on are Madonna"s "Burning Up", "Express Yourself", and "Justify My Love". The singer, who has been labelled "Our Lady of MTV", has an amazing video appeal due to her play with gender and identity. No other single artist has produced as many mixed images as she has.


Television soaps tend not to interrogate the construction of gender and the representation of identity. They do not seem to cross any boundaries. People watch soaps to relax and somehow relate, so if they were to experiment with the theatre of gender, it may be seen as a threat to viewers. Soapies usually have the males in typically male dominated occupations such as doctors, car salesmen and chefs. Women in soaps are usually secretaries or housewives. There does not seem to be any attempt for a switch of roles. Females are feminine, males masculine. There has been one exception, which was Kylie Minogue"s character, Charlene, on Neighbours. She was a mechanic and tomboy. This is one of the few occasions where a soap has interrogated the cultural construction of gender and representation of identity.



A music video is footage that accompanies a song. They can have a storyline related to the song, displays of images or simply focusing on the artist/s performing. Music video is forever crossing the lines of gender and identity. It is able to do this as it is seen as a form of art, therefore there is no threat to viewers. It is ironic that Boy George has said that "video was the worst thing to happen to music", when he himself looked and acted like he was crossing the lines of gender and boundaries back in the 1980"s. Madonna is most famous for creating videos with no boundaries for gender or identity. Most of the time, she deliberately plays with surfaces and masks. Madonna visual style engages and hyperbolises the discourse of femininity- she has bleached hair with dark roots, street smart image yet glamorous. Gender play is the mix and match of styles that flirt with the signifiers of sexual difference, and Madonna is always doing that. The three music videos of Madonna to be analysed are "Burning Up", "Express Yourself", and "Justify My Love".
Pouring money into the visuals, she is the first female artist to fully exploit video. In the three videos to be discussed, there is a mixture of suggestion and aggression. "Burning Up" involves her and a man. She is writhing in the middle of the road while he is driving towards her. At the moment where she seemed submissive, she was actually about to take over- suddenly he disappeared and at the end of the clip she was behind the wheel. It was like she was powerless, but then she turns that image upside down by showing who had the control.
"Express Yourself" is very similar. It shows her as being powerful and also as being weak. She plays with gender through her wearing of a pin-striped suit ( the male sign of power and success) and her crotch grabs. It also shows her with a chain around her neck. Madonna says:

"It"s just an image I thought was powerful...It showed an extreme. Extreme images of women: one is in charge, in control, dominating; the other is chained to a bed..."

It is evident in this video that she interrogates the cultural construction of gender and representations of identity.
"Justify My Love" is the same. The banned video showed how gender roles could be swapped, blurred and played with to create different identities. It showed men who looked and acted like women and women who looked and acted like men. It totally changed the typical gender roles and behaviour around.
E. Ann Kaplan (1897) stated "Madonna"s feminism is part of a larger post-modernism phenomenon which her videos also embody in their blurring of sacrosanct boundaries and polarities such as male/female, high art/pop art, film/TV, fiction/reality and private/public.



Two interrelated sign systems developed from videos predicated on female gender experience- access signs and discovery signs. These can both be seen in Cyndi Lauper"s 1983 hit "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and Madonna"s 1984 song "Borderline". Both are set in the street not feeling threatened, which is the access sign. The discovery sign is being female. In "Borderline" it is the fact she gets discovered to be a model.



It is important to see a music video as well as hearing a song, because the video can change and correct any perceived ideas. This is the case for "Material Girl". The song was telling of money and acquisition, many thinking of Madonna as being money-hungry and greedy. The video itself showed that it was one big parody on the idea that diamonds are a girl"s best friend, showing Madonna to like simpler things instead. Her music videos are not to be taken seriously. She simply produces images that may not be seen often. She was quoted as saying

" I play a lot of characters and everytime I do a video or a song, people go "Oh, that"s what she"s like". And I"m not like any of them. I"m all of them. I"m none of them".

This shows that you cannot learn about her as a person from her videos. They are merely to view rare images of power and weakness at the same time.
There are many music videos that do not challenge gender or indentity. Such video clips as George Michael"s "Freedom". It seems slightly hypercritical that the song is about being your own person and being strong, when the images portrayed were supermodels looking like sex objects. Another video was Robert Palmer"s "Simply Irressistable", where the women were all dressed the same with no expression, looking once again like sex obejects. Motley Crue also did this in their clip "Girls, Girls, Girls". Though not suprising for this band, it features females in bikinis acting like "bimbos". In these clips there is no attempt to challenge gender or identities. No experimenting with the two ideas, making the music videos pointless as they do not raise any notions.


From this essay, it is evident to see how music video can play with the idea of gender and identity. Soaps do not do it as much as music video. Music videos are always pushing the limits on how far they can cross over into each one. Madonna is famous for