Gender Stereotypes In Girls On Film

In today’s media, specifically music videos, there are quite often distinct gender representations. This is shown in the music video “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran. This music video was published in 1981, expected to be played at night clubs and the “Play Boy” channel (Girls on Film, n.d., para. 4). The raunchy video created an uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for MTV (Girls on Film, n.d., para. 4). This caused the band to gain more spot light and furthermore, making two different music videos (Girls on Film, n.d., para. 4). These two versions were known as the day version and the night version, which is also known as the uncensored version. In the uncensored version of “Girls on Film”, girls act out different …show more content…
2). He noted seven phenomena that were prevalent in the representation of women in the media (Lawton, 2009, p. 5). In my analysis of the music video “Girls on Film”, I will address a few of the phenomena’s that are illustrated through-out. The first phenomena is relative size which refers to the notion that women are to be petite and are supposed to be smaller than the males they are seen with (Quail, Personal Communication, 2015). The second phenomena is the notion of feminine touch, in which a women’s hands are seen holding or caressing, but never grasping or manipulating (Lawton, 2009, p. 5). The next phenomena Goffman discusses that applies to my music video is function ranking, in which the order of who is more important and holds more power (Quail, Personal Communication, 2015). The final phenomena that applies is ritualization of subordination in which the male is the leader, decision maker and is more subordinate than the women (Quail, Personal Communication, 2015). “Few changes have been made in the images of women in advertisements since Goffman’s study in 1979 (Kang, 1997, p. 979). This is relevant as the music video was released in a time period that had different ideologies than today, however, how they represented women in Goffman’s view is still similar in today’s society and the idea of women in media. Relative size is illustrated throughout the music video, as each women you see is a picture perfect women. They are thin and when shown in opposition to men, the women are always seen as smaller. Feminine touch is portrayed through-out several of the narratives shown in “Girls on Film”. In one of the scenes, the women is washing the male, showing her soft and ‘feminine touch’ as she slowly caresses the male, being fully gentle and showing no signs of a harmful touch. These two phenomena’s Goffman discusses are displayed in