Body image is a huge concept in the music industry, especially with female representations. The videos in this blog post have all been released in 2014 and discuss female anatomy and attitudes towards them. The main issue this post will be addressing is why body image is such a popular topic in music and why these representations are becoming more harming to female self-esteem and body expectations for young women.
Iggy Azalea’s “Work”
Iggy’s first big hit was Work, and although it doesn’t directly talk about body image, the video clip gives the song a visual that is contrary to the song’s message. As you can see, the video clip has a lot of explicit images of the female anatomy, and is explicit in nature, however the explicit tag comes from the expletives in the song and not from the images represented in the video.
Jennifer Lopez’s “Booty”
Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda”
Both Jennifer Lopez’s song and Nicki Minaj’s song directly talk about how having a big “butt” is what the guys want. These two videos and songs impact negatively on what a positive representation of a woman should be. The videos support the lyrics in their visual representation which makes the message even more prominent. However, could it be a misconstrued message and these women really are just proud of their booty?
Meghan Trainor’s “All about that Bass”
This is one of the more interesting examples of bad body image representation as you have to really listen to what she’s saying. At first impression it talks about how being voluptuous is a good thing and to not “worry about your size” because “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top”. However, there are some negative connotations in her lyrics that imply being thin isn’t socially acceptable, because “boys like a little more booty to hold at night”, and “I won’t be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll”, as well as “I’m bringing booty back, go head and tell all them skinny bitches that”.
The messages that can be implied through the song are things like, you should love your body because men do and it’s ok to put other women down as long as you love your body. Jenny Trout from Trout Nation wrote that the song is, “meant to make women who think they’re fat feel good about the fat bodies they don’t have, while constantly reminding them that they should feel fat.”
This is number one on US charts right now. Are these the messages we want to be sending to women around the world of all ages?
What can be done to fix the impact?
I guess society works in mysterious ways, however is there really a solution for this issue? All of these songs were chart toppers during 2014 at some point. The topics they address are obviously popular ones. So when did these messages become the most important ones to tell? When did they become trending topics in pop culture? There are a few exceptions, such as Lily Allen’s “Hard out Here” which was a 2014 chart topper as well, although the exceptions seem to be outweighed by their compromises.
Miss Feminine 