What's hip, what's hop? disharmonized representations of gender in music videos

Abstract

Media representations of gender have always been an avenue for contestations in feminist media studies. Feminists have been concerned with how preoccupied the media are with women’s appearances and bodies whilst at the same time giving focus to what men do with them. More often than not, the media emit a particular cultural message: men are players and master, while women are objects and subject. Such a message is abundant in popular music videos consumed by most young people today, including those in Malaysia. A content analysis study of three hip-hop music videos that had the highest ratings in the MTV chart during the fourth week of January 2007 – That’s That, Dangerous, and Tell Me - discovered various oppressed representations of the female, while men are represented as powerful and central to everything. The hip-hop music videos focus on the female bodies (‘hip’) and how men behave towards them (‘hop’). Such representations belittle the increasing effort of Malaysian policy makers to propagate gender harmony in the home, the workplace and society at large. What are the implications of such media consumption on the gender consciousness and sensitivity of young Malaysians? The article explores this issue based on a focus group discussion of male and female students in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.