I love this topic, because I am a grad student and one of the degrees I am pursuing is called Publication Design. We deal with new media, creative writing, graphic design, film making, et cetera--I study image making in its varied forms. I want to be in a position to make a positive change in what I see out there.
Now, one of my schools is a HBCU and we were discussing this issue in the student lounge just the other day (we have a big screen TV that's almost always locked on BET or MTV).
The question started out as, "Can a song/video/CD survive without the scantily-clad women?" The consensus was, "Yes, people will buy the song/CD anyway if it's good." My next question was then, "So, why are these women in 90% of the videos if not to help sell the song?" One of the men told me that he knew for a fact that "The women are all being paid at least $500," another said that "It's just a good way for women to break into show business," and one man told me that I was "just hating."
The female response was surprisingly similar: one woman told me that, "It's okay to dance and act like that once you get paid for it, but if there's no pay, then it's not okay. " Another woman told me to "Look at Jennifer Lopez, she did the same thing as a 'Fly Girl' and look where it got her." When I asked about the level of self esteem that the "video women" had, the collegiate ladies replied that one would have to have "high self esteem to be in a video dressed like that, since you have to have a good body."
Throughout the entire discussion I was pretty much told that there was nothing wrong with the videos and that there was no double standard (Another question I posed was "Why were the men were almost always fully clothed or dressed like "thugs" and the women were almost always half-dressed or in "extreme" club attire?").
I know for myself that it's unhealthy for ANYONE to be judged as simply 'a piece of meat'. Yet, I often wonder how many people actually believe that anymore.
I think that many women are getting less and less respect today because some women (and sadly, some GIRLS)
A)TRULY BELIEVE that they need to act out these "entertainment fantasies" to be considered a "REAL" woman and
B) some men figure that women either REALLY ARE or SHOULD be like that because that's all they see, and
C) we as a people HAVE ACCEPTED the premise that there's nothing wrong with being "A Freak Like Me" all the time (remember Adina Howard--where is she now?).
I feel disgusted with many videos, movies, songs, and overall media because, while I understand that sensuality and sexuality is a healthy and normal part of an adult's life, I think too much emphasis is being placed on SEX--we're in an overload situation. My opinion is that we're basically being conditioned into thinking that being "hooched/thugged out" is okay. When we begin to accept that lie, our relationships with each other are going to suffer.