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PORNIFICATION AND POP – THE DEBATE CONTINUES
Posted by Laura on August 22, 2010
Tags: Lady Gaga, Media, Music, pornification, sexualisation
There is always talk of the increasing sexualised nature of pop music and celebrities, but since Mike Stock announced in The Daily Mail that “Ninety-nine per cent of the charts is R ‘n’ B and 99 per cent of that is soft pornography” there has been a real surge in commentary over the last week or so. Stock, a music producer himself and one who launched Kylie’s career in the 1980s, claims that pop music today is sexualising youngsters; focusing predominantly on Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Whilst I might agree with his comments on the former, to tarnish Lady Gaga with the same brush seems completely at odds. Polly Vernon’s piece today in The Observer (Lipstick, leather and lesbianism – the new sexual politics that is changing pop) really picks up on this. To quote:
Lady Gaga presents an extremely empowered vision of sex and sexiness. Hers is a million miles away from the cynical, soulless titillation of your average Britney Spears video; of …Baby One More Time, say (in which Spears, who was 17, dressed as a schoolgirl and beseeched whoever to “Hit me, baby, one more time…”). It’s the opposite of the sex offered in most R&B and hip-hop videos, in which unnamed, interchangeable bikini-clad models dance for the slathering delectation of the male recording artists. Because men dance for Lady Gaga.
Gaga owns this version of sex and she’s not asking you to approve it. She’s a complete pop icon – but she’s no pin-up. She hasn’t bothered constructing a version of herself designed to please a straight male audience. Lady Gaga doesn’t do pretty, or available, or submissive, or obviously glamorous. Instead she does scary, she does theatrical, she does brave.
And these are my thoughts exactly. Perhaps a pop princess like Spears is indeed presenting an oversexualised image and encouraging young girls to dress/dance/act in a provocative manner. Lady Gaga I think not. To me, Lady Gaga represents a different kind of sexuality, one which in my eyes is certainly not run of the mill heterosexual. And perhaps Mike Stock wouldn’t feel comfortable watching a Lady Gaga with his children or mother, but I certainly would.
Tags for this post:Lady Gaga, Media, Music, pornification, sexualisation