These Boots are made for Walkin'

A friend at uni recommended me to watch the music video of the song These Boots are made for walkin' by Nancy Sinatra and the cover version by Jessica Simpson. She said that the original song and video was very empowering for women, but the cover version was the exact opposite. After just watching both music videos, I have to disagree. I think both music videos are showing women as sex objects. The video featuring Nancy Sinatra is just not as explicit because it is from 1966, therefore would not have needed to be as explicit in order to provoke the audience. Both videos show women finding empowerment through being a sex object. It is the appealing looks of both the singers that gives them power. This is the fake-empowerment that has been taking place for a while in our culture. It creates the apparent need for women to become even sexier so they can be the ultimate sex object. The woman might observe some kind of freedom, in exploring her sexuality, but because she does so with an audience, it is not really her exploration but the enjoyment of the audience that is really her main focus. 

 The music video featuring Nancy Sinatra begins with just bare legs walking through the screen. The women are not shown in any kind of position of power. In fact they are not even shown as women, they are just a pair of legs, without a body. Nancy Sinatra's body in the next shot is very carefully positioned in order to look pleasing to an audience. Her position pronounces the length of her legs. Though the jumper-like dress is not very provocative to our eyes, at the time of its original release the length of the dress would have been very provocative to say the least. 

 
 

 

Throughout the song, the dance moves reveals the dancer's underwear, and the dancers move on the spot like flowers, or lie on their backs stretching their legs in the air. The only dance move where they really move forward, not just on the spot, is when they walk. Then however the camera quickly zooms in on their legs, portraying them as simply body parts, not humans. 

In order to find at least some part of the song that would be "empowering women" as my friend had told me, I had a quick look at the lyrics. The woman narrative character is shown to respond the being done wrong by a man. Even though the woman assumes some form of higher position and removes herself from a bad relationship, she only does so in response to being done wrong by a man - ultimately she is still passive and only reacting, not acting. 

I think my friend fell in the trap that our pop culture has been showing us - that women can be powerful, yes, but only when they are also a sex object, that ultimately being a sex object is what empowers a woman. 



   Jessica Simpson's take on the song

















Ultimately, her take on the song is very similar to Nancy Sinatra's, the imagery used in her music video is just a lot more explicit due to the context it was created in. Jessica Simpson is being shown to make the men in a bar almost dribble because she is so attractive. Then, one of the customers slaps her bum, to which she appears to be responding positively at first, only to then hit the man hard across the face. He falls over and into another customer, which sets of a domino reaction, leading to a bar fight.

Even though Jessica Simpsons is shown to be physically overpowering a man, it doesn't quite feel like she is being empowered.

She then proceeds to dance with a range of of other female dancers in way that makes it obvious that it is intended to be found attractive by a male heterosexual typical audience - they are making themselves sex objects. After she just confronted a man who essentially sexually harassed her, Jessica Simpson continues to objectify herself. The car wash scene at the end? Well… that is the cliché way women are being shown as sex objects, isn't it?

Charlie Crxsh