The Use of Perspective by Incongruity in Dreamworlds III
Music videos objectify women, and to a certain extent – men. That fact is not really in question. However, even those who acknowledge the blatant sexualization, objectification, and commoditization of women in music videos cannot help but feel shocked, disgusted, or shaken by the bombardment of music video images presented in Sut Jhally’s film Dreamworlds III. In the film, several techniques are utilized to achieve perspective by incongruity, in which the connection between music videos and real-life effects such as sexual violence are brought to the viewer’s attention.
One technique used in Dreamworlds III that encourages viewers to consider the music videos in a new way is to strip them of their audio tracks. This focuses attention on the images alone. Jhally’s voice is the only soundtrack through most of the film, drawing attention to the images contained in the video segments. Only short bursts of lyrics are incorporated into the film as it becomes necessary to show examples of violent attitudes and verbal abuse toward women. A Limp Bizkit video in which a woman who has declined the singer’s advances is bound to a chair and verbally threatened and degraded by him serves as the example. However, this is a rarity in a film that primarily relies on strong imagery. This isolation of images without their accompanying sound creates a feeling of image over-saturation. Viewers cannot help but feel bombarded with female body parts. While this might seem alright at first, it quickly becomes disturbing and eerie.
The compilation of many videos, interwoven among music genres, highlights the widespread use of certain filming tactics used throughout the music video genre. By demonstrating numerous video clips from all music genres that use the same filming techniques, patterns are made clear that might have remained subconscious for many viewers prior to Dreamworlds III. Common imagery is explored such as women touching themselves and the fragmentation of female body parts. The transformation from young innocent female artist to highly sexualized young woman is also highlighted through images of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey. By offering several video examples from across genres for each film tactic, repetition is reinforced that heightens awareness of the video maker’s agenda and increases discomfort in the viewer.
Jhally returns to the theme of fantasy throughout his narration of the film. He describes the idea of the “male dreamworld,” in which women undress, are wet, and occupy roles such as cheerleader, horny teacher, repressed librarian waiting to be seduced, or naughty school-girl. The “compliant stripper” is named as the ultimate male fantasy. In the music videos, the compliant stripper is barely more than a living sex doll – there to serve the alpha male happily in any way he wants. Examples are shown of how more often than not, women in music videos are reduced to fantasy sex toys that can be bought. Jhally also asks the question, and encourages viewers to ask as well, who controls the media? Whose fantasy is this? It is certainly not the fantasy of most women to have a credit card swiped through their genitals while males laugh about it. While showing footage from the video “Stacy’s Mom,” in which a teenage boy ignores his girlfriend while lusting over her mother who seems to have nothing better to do than undress around him, Jhally argues that the fantasies of white young males are what music videos primarily exhibit. He further argues that even videos from black males are subversive to their culture, showing racist imagery that serves the white males who dominate the corporate media industry. It is important to ask questions about whose agenda is being advanced through music videos. As this film points out, it is most certainly not that of females or minority groups.
In perhaps the most profound and disturbing technique utilized in Dreamworlds III, music videos are spliced in with real-world events to show just how disturbing the content of music videos should be and how willingly we accept it until the same events happen to real women. A Justin Timberlake video is featured in which he stalks his ex-girlfriend after she has an affair. He watches her undress and shower while hiding in her home. It is simply not entertaining when real women are stalked and murdered by ex-boyfriends, so why are viewers largely okay with the same act in a music video? In even more disturbing parallels, video segments showing women being doused with liquids, groped, and stripped are compared with the tragic real-world incident during the 2000 Puerto Rican Pride Parade in Central Park in which the same acts occurred. Another tragic assault during the 2001 Modern Rock Festival in Seattle is also shown. In this case, a woman was undressed and raped in a crowd of cheering men. The entire incident was caught on video, and like the Central Park incident, was indistinguishable from the music videos except for one thing; In the music videos the women were willing or passive, while in real life they were in serious distress.
The strategies that Jhally uses to explore the “dream world” of the music video ultimately combine to show that these videos require active consideration on the part of the viewer. When women are represented in exaggerated sexualized roles constructed by society and repeatedly reinforced through music videos, that representation becomes the “norm” which real women are supposed to emulate. This creates the atmosphere in which incidents such as the one in Central Park take place. Women allow themselves to be groupies that bend over and allow rock stars to throw lunch meat at their genitals. Girls bare all for the Girls Gone Wild videos, because they think that to act in a promiscuous manner is the way to assert their femininity. Equally as tragic, men believe they must act like an aggressive alpha-male who uses women as if they are disposable commodities. To underscore the link between the imagery in music videos and our culture, the film ends with rape statistics. At that point, two things are almost certain: Our society needs to think about how gender roles are portrayed in media, and viewers of Dreamworlds III will never view a music video in the same passive manner again.
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