Lancome La Vie Est Belle Featuring Julia Roberts

After discussing my ideas for my final piece, my tutor pointed me towards this advertisement below, which I found here: x. I find the concept of the advert really interesting, as it shows that we are all controlled by society - especially the way that we interact with the opposite sex, the advert shows that quite clearly. 

But does it not just reinforce other stereotypes? Julia Roberts is shown wearing a white dress and entering a room where everyone is dressed in black. Does this reinforce the 'whore'/'virgin' polarisation of the female gender? Since all the women in the video are shown to be flirting with men, and Julia Roberts does not at all interact with anyone, it could be. But maybe it is also meant to show how everyone else is corrupted and stained by society, therefore wearing the darkest colour, but she isn't, therefore wearing a 'pure' colour. It seems like a little bit of a cliché, this choice of colour symbolism. What's missing in my opinion is that Julia Roberts is wearing white, being non-corrupted, but is being controlled by strings, and when she breaks the strings, her dress does not change. If the director had chosen to use clothing in such a symbolic way, it would have made sense to change the colour of her dress accordingly to the 'breaking free' of the strings. 

She then looks around at notices how everyone is controlled by strings - rather pretty ones, which look almost like diamonds. This suggests that we as society use our money to buy us just a more comfortable 'prison'. The camera then focuses on two women talking, where one is shown to brush her hair over her shoulder in a sensual way, then two men talking, using big hand gestures. This could be interpreted as our 'strings' by society dictating how we interact with people, and how our interactions differ depending on our gender and the opposite's gender. Next, the camera shows some 'couples' consisting of a man and a woman. Mostly, the man is standing with his back to the camera, and the woman is facing the camera, like below. It kind of seems like her strings are moving her arms, which she uses to draw attention to her body, and positions very carefully in order to achieve a certain look. 

Julia Roberts then realises, that she is also controlled by these strings - but she is the only one aware of it. She breaks the strings, similar to how you'd take off a bracelet, which is fitting because the strings look a lot like jewellery. 

Julia Roberts then leaves the party, and smiles knowingly at the camera. We are being shown the advert for the perfume, and the little animation shows the perfume bottle breaking the strings attached to it - subtext: buy this perfume, and escape society's pressure on you. Buy this beauty product, and you will be free. And since it is directed at women, it sounds a little like what I was looking at in previous posts, that women are shown to decorate their body in order to gain independence or power. A la: become a sex object and you will have power/(only) when you are being a sex object you will have power.

Though I like the initial direction that this advert is going in, it does still carry some of the stereotypes it wants to break free from. This reminds me of some research I did about Beyonce, that only being a sex object will give a woman power, and that this is the only kind of power she is ever able to gain. Women are always 'at risk' of 'loosing' their femininity when they are in powerful positions - look at Angela Merkel, a very powerful woman in control of an economically powerful country in a time of recession, so it seems that she is good at her job. Yet, she is still criticised for not being female enough, not being pretty enough. Interestingly, her nickname in Germany is 'Mutti', a pet name for your own mother, which makes her inherently non-sexual to the entire population. And that might be a good thing, since I doubt people would take her as serious if she happened to be younger and (since everyone's looks deteriorate with age) also more attractive.

I think what this advert is struggling with is the exact same struggle that feminists face today, that sexual 'liberation' or the okay for women to be freely sexual is all that women are allowed to do. Whenever women want to assume a position of power, if in a company or wherever, her surroundings are always very conscious of her sex, and her gender, applying standards that nobody would ever think of applying to a man in the same way. 

Charlie Crxsh

Beyoncé, Kesha, Lily Allen - The Struggle of female Pop Stars

The trend in society currently is to teach women that in order to gain power and authority, they have to be sexually attractive. It is not enough for a woman, to simply be intelligent, or very good in their field, they also have to be attractive to a certain extent in order for this to be recognized. This is why I find it so problematic, when pop culture names Beyoncé a strong and independent woman, because I feel that it will reinforce this trend. Her fans often consider her to be so great, because she is considered good-looking and attractive. Of course it's okay for a woman to be both, authoritative/powerful and attractive. I think what I struggle with mostly is that there is such a double standard between female and male pop stars/musicians. This picture of Beyoncé and Jay Z at the Grammys 2014 illustrates this quite well:

Beyoncé and Jay Z, Grammys 2014

Both Jay Z and Beyoncé are globally famous and successful musicians, and belong to the top of their field. So why is it, that Beyoncé has to basically wear lingerie, but Jay Z wears a suit, when they are performing together? Beyoncé is a great singer, I totally agree with that, but I also feel like she is (maybe unknowingly) reinforcing the trend that for women, sexual attractiveness and intelligence or power go hand in hand (patriarchy's response to the sexual liberation of women).

Beyoncé GQ Cover shoot February 2013

In this GQ Interview, Beyoncé does address equality issues, that would be quite interesting to explore, however most of the article focuses on either her clothes, her make up or her body. Why does it have to be that way? Shouldn't an interview be more about what she said, not how she looked? It might be that Beyoncé sees herself as an emancipated woman, and wants to come across that way. But the way people react to her is to objectify and reduce her to her looks only.

Kesha, I fear, might be facing a similar issue. She, too, is a sexually liberated woman but the response of the media is to objectify her, and call her a "slut" for talking about her sex life in her songs. Kesha imitates the way men talk about women in pop music, but inverts it. For a while I struggled with seeing a way that feminism, or gender-equality, can be successfully talked about in pop music. However, I feel that Lily Allen has found a good way to do so in her video "Hard Out Here", and I hope it will start a new phase of feminism in pop culture.

Lily Allen - Hard Out Here (Official Video) from Sammy Neal - Video Editor on Vimeo.

The lyrics are sarcastic and funny, and the video makes Lily Allen's message more obvious. Her background dancers do provocative dance moves, but they are almost grotesque and not very "sexy" due to the slow motion at some parts. It also makes it seem weird that these kind of dance moves are most commonly the way that female dancers dance in pop culture.

Some other videos of Kesha and Beyoncé:

Timber - Kesha ft Pitbull, Warrior Interrogation, Die Young - Kesha, Take It Off - Kesha, Partition (Explicit) - Beyoncé Drunk in Love (Explicit) - Beyonce ft Jay Z Pepsi Beyoncé "Mirrors" - Official 2013 video

Charlie Crxsh

P.S.: Could you imagine a man dressed like (e.g.) Beyoncé in the Partition music video in this scene? He would look ridiculous, people wouldn't take him seriously - and just because it's a female body, not a male one, it makes it look desirable.... 

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

The Differences in Images

The results of searching "man" and "woman" on google images, pinterest, and flickr:

Google images, a biased search engine, shows images ranked by demand. The most searched for images that are also tagged as man show influential public characters, famous actors, but mainly men in suits. The 5 related searches google offers are: Human, Clipart, Standing Up, Symbol and Stickman. For women however, google offers us photographs of women's faces, all but one are young, and all but three are striking a sexual pose. The 5 related searches google offers us here are: Wonder Woman, Standing, Average Woman, Symbol and Silhouette.  Standing and Symbol are the same related searches for both genders. None of the related searches for men offer a comparison like the search "average woman". You can also barely compare the "Stickman" search to the "Silhouette" search. Though both are simple black on white blockings of colour, the Silhouettes are sexual, the stickmen are not. The "Clipart" search shows stylised drawings of male characters, none of which seem sexual in any way. Wonder Woman? The only female superhero in the Justice League? She is still a very sexualised character, dressed in little more than a bathing suit. The "human" search google offers for men is also a rather neutral search, and seems to be more focused on anatomy. 

"A man in a tux to girls is like a woman in lingerie to men" - meaning: a tux, a symbol of authority, success and power is equal to lingerie, "undergarments which are designed to be visually appearing or erotic". This statement means that the only way women can achieve power is through being a sexual object and erotic.

"Be a girl with a mind, a woman with attitude, and a lady with class" "You can't rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion..." "A woman should never.." 

Instead of visual images like above we get rules for women how to act, how to achieve true beauty (by being a snow white character). These images police behaviour, however they do so in a subtle and sneaky way. 

Model shoots, panoramic landscapes, close ups of faces - the results on flickr are probably the most similar. Still we get a crude anatomical drawing of a man, and nothing comparable for the search "woman". Also noticeable; all the woman are universally attractive according to cultural standard - skinny, symmetrical faces; whereas the men are less so. Come to think of it, is there even a cultural standard of beauty for men?