Music, without a doubt, has become a universal instrument that connects people’s feelings and problems through lyrics. The artists’ streams of words over various beats are extremely influential on the listeners. Very often, music reproduces common societal ills, such as gender, racial, and class stereotypes. Although songs perpetuate many stereotypes, their topics and lyrics still successfully lure the target audience’s attention. And while music has the power to connect people from all around the world experiencing similar problems, artists have failed to provide any solution to these social problems. For example, most female artists’ songs pivot on the relationships between males and females. Without producing any groundbreaking message, many female artists only ponder about their partners’ mistreatments in their relationship and their inability to free themselves from the relationship because love has impeded their rationality. Unlike most female artists, Christina Aguilera provides mainstream society with a song that is more than just about a male to female relationship, but she challenges the double standards society upholds so firmly. However, although Aguilera’s lyricism in her song “Can’t Hold Us Down” provides a source of women empowerment, the visual aspect of her song falls guilty of ineffectively using enlightened sexism and thus continues to disseminate the racial and class stereotypes society is founded upon.
In 2002, Pop Star Christina Aguilera released her second album titled Stripped; her single “Can’t Hold Us Down” featuring Lil’ Kim, exposes the terrible values society has accepted. In a male dominate society, females often receive the brunt of the stick. Females are not respected or taken seriously and often are held to unreasonable standards. Society has set standards of how women should behave and their obligation in society, which is the housewife caricature. The most significant fact society has set, accepted, and continue to perpetuate is that men control women. Therefore, the disrespectful ways in which men treat women can be deemed acceptable and justified. This theme is not unfamiliar to the music industry as we hear numerous songs about relationships. However, Aguilera and Lil’ Kim challenge these standards society set for women. The lyrics, “If you look back in history it’s a common double standard of society/ The guy gets all the glory the more he can score/ While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore/ I don’t understand why it’s okay/ The guy can get away with it and the girl gets named” bring this double standard to people’s attention.
If one is to listen to just the lyrics of “Can’t Hold Us Down,” it is undoubtedly that Aguilera and Lil’ Kim deliver a powerful message that qualify as a female national anthem. Unlike mot artists, Aguilera and Lil’ Kim not only bring up a social issue and double standards in male to female relationships, they also offer solutions to change these standards society has set for women. The song’s explicit message is clearly stated in the chorus: “This is for my girls all around the world/ Who have come across a man that don’t respect your work/ Thinking all women should be seen, not heard/ So what do we do girls/ Shout louder/…Never can, never will/ Can’t hold us down.” It is clear that this song is a source of empowerment for women encouraging them to voice themselves and to not let men get away for disrespecting or mistreating them in a relationship. As for solutions for this problem, Aguilera and Lil’ Kim provides two: one is for females to speak up and two is for them to play the same games males do. Lim’ Kim states in her verse, “To all my girls with a man who be tryin mack/ Do it right back to him and let that be that/ You need to let him know that his game is wack.” Although these solutions might not be the best, Aguilera and Lil’ Kim should be given credit for at least attempting to address the issues they put in their song.
While the lyrics of the song provide a sense of women empowerment, the music video does not embody the same powerful message; instead the music video fails short at effectively using Susan Douglas’ ideology of enlighten sexism. Enlighten sexism is the notion that women have fully achieved equality, therefore it is now acceptable for people to joke about sexism and women are encouraged to use their appearances and sexuality as means to obtaining power. Douglas writes, “Now that women allegedly have the same sexual freedom as men, they actually prefer to be sex objects because it’s liberating” (12). Christina Aguilera’s music video is based on this premise that embracing female sexuality is now liberating. Aguilera is dressed promiscuously with a belly tube top, a sleeveless sweater, short’s with a deep slit on both sides of her thighs, a cap with “Lady” written on it, and heels. In the music video, the confrontation begins when an African American male grabs her posterior. Aguilera’s reaction implies that although she is dressed provocatively, it is not a representation of how she wants to be treated. While most female will agree with Aguilera, it is ironic that she needed to wear a cap with “Lady” written on it to indicate her role — and even then, she was not treated as one due to the way she was dressed. Therefore, embracing female sexuality does necessarily lead to liberation, at least not in the society we currently live under where female sexuality is usually objectified.
Furthermore, Aguilera is not the only person that fails to effectively use enlighten sexism, but Lil’ Kim’s intention to empower women through her verse is depicted as a “warrior in a thong” in the music video. The image of a “warrior in a thong” is Douglas criticism on the superwomen depiction, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Zena, as women having the capability to save the day, but also needing to look sexually appealing. That is how Lil’ Kim’s role is executed in this video. She suddenly pops out of the crowd that is surrounding Aguilera, and tears off the “cape” that is covering her thus revealing her outfit, which is even more scandalous than Aguilera’s: patterned bra with matching underwear and a sheer laced cardigan. In the “You Go Girl” chapter, Douglas mentions, “Enlightened sexism suggest that black women deserve to be objectified and should be rendered powerless because all they really care about are sex and money anyway.” Lil’ Kim’s wardrobe is by no means empowering instead it reaffirms Douglas’ statement. This statement is further exacerbated by Aguilera’s following lyrics “You must talk so big to make up for the small lil’ things.” The implication of this line is not fully comprehendible through hearing; instead it’s looking at the music video when Aguilera is stroking the water hose, do listeners see the sexual innuendo behind the lyric. Once again, the music video has failed to effectively use enlightened sexism.
Lastly, in combination of Aguilera and Lil’ Kim failure to effectively used their sex appeal, the music video implicitly shines light on and perpetuates racial and class stereotypes. The music video takes place in an environment that is depicted as the “hood” with graffiti everywhere, people in the community rocking 80’s fashion, and it is not a random selection that everyone in the music video is of color. As Patricia Hill Collins argues in her article “Why Black Sexual Politics” that society relies on the discourse of Black sexuality to preserve societal hierarchies and to reinforce racial practices, the setting this video do just so. Combining the explicit message illustrated through the lyrics together with the music video, one can only come to the conclusion that the song “Can’t Hold Us Down” implies that it is more common for people of color to experience the problem stated in the song. The music video plays on the stereotype that men of color are more likely to disrespect and mistreat women of color. Although the song seems to target all females, women of color identify themselves with this song more. Aguilera and Lil’ Kim can join Josephine Baker, Destiny’s Child, and Jennifer Lopez into the category of Black femininity.
As Douglas indicate in her chapter titled “Sex ‘R’ Us,” she would view Christina Aguilera’s music video as a hybrid of empowerment and objectification. Aguilera’s song is lyrically empowering, but visually it just showcases examples of objectified women in the media. While we might give Aguilera and Lil’ Kim recognition for challenging the social male to female relationship as well as provide possible solutions to addressing problems, it is hard to leave with a sense of empowerment after watching the video. The disconnect between the lyrics and the music video, strongly defeat the purpose of the song. What could have been a female nation anthem has rendered as no different than any other form of media that use female sex appeal to make profit. Overall, music has created a means where artists can re-expose social problems without providing practical solutions as people relate their lives to the lyrics and as music industries continue to thrive on reproducing gender, racial, and class stereotypes.
It is quite a misfortune for this to happen, no only with Christina Aguilera's music but with many other artist's songs as well. It is not unusual that the powerful message from the lyrics are ultimately zapped out of the music videos. All this reminds me of the birdcage women are trapped in. Despite Christina's wish to empower women, she is often confronted with bigger forces such as the media and the producers who might have pressured her to act and dress the way she did. Having said this, the way she tried to free women in her speech while falling through a deadly stereotype in the video also reminds me of a woman trying to fight within a patriarchal system who in the end fails because she can't help but to follow the blueprints of the system.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this. Jia, you brought up a lot of interesting facts. I’ve seen this video a multitude of time beforehand, but I never thought about the videos’ implicit messages; I subconsciously chose to only hear Christina Aguilera and Lil’ Kim’s female empowering lyrics. You wrote in your response, “Combining the explicit message illustrated through the lyrics together with the music video, one can only come to the conclusion that the song “Can’t Hold Us Down” implies that it is more common for people of color to experience the problem stated in the song. The music video plays on the stereotype that men of color are more likely to disrespect and mistreat women of color.” Before watching this video, I would have never imagined this to be the case.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the directors of this music video ever considered this it to be racially oppressive and sexist. Evidently, music videos and lyrics can give off very different messages to their audience.