Banning videos by Robin Thicke, DJ Snake, and Calvin Harris, who use female bodies as trophies hard won of their overpowering masculinity, will not deflect the male gaze. Slapping a parental advisory warning on Nicki Minaj’s bum will not change the way black women are exoticised. It seems so painfully old-fashioned to think of women as either Madonna or whore – but that dichotomy has just been reconfigured for 2014 as “wifey” or a “thot.” This troublingly simplistic mindset is why newspaper the Voice picked up on the same report with a headline that said, “How Stars Like Beyoncé Are Damaging Our Girls.” It is why the owner of wrote an ostensibly “concerned” open letter to Nicki Minaj, asking “Is this the path you want to lead impressionable kids down?” It is why people blamed my short skirt when a sweaty old man followed me home from school. That, and the framework of (white) patriarchal privilege that paves the way for this logical misstep, this mental game of hopscotch where the lines are all drawn wrong. The real problem, of course, is the assumption that displays of feminine sexuality are indicators of sexual availability. The subtext whispers: “Hide your butt cheeks, hide your breasts, because people cannot learn to respect women if they are sexual creatures.” But the report’s implication that videos full of sexily writhing bodies are responsible for both rape culture and racism is fundamentally misguided. The recommended solution: compulsory age ratings, and increased cautiousness when it comes to what music video “choose to portray”. It goes on to suggest that by reducing women to eye candy, music videos create “a conducive context for violence against women”. Going further, the report cites experimental research where viewers who watch hypersexualised music videos become more tolerant of racist and sexist attitudes some even are more likely to excuse a rapist’s actions.
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