Dreamworlds 3

Media 2: Dreamworlds 3 Desire, Power & Sex American culture has learned to become sexist and misogyny with the influence of the sexual exploitation of women in the music, media, advertising and entertainment industries. For instance, today music videos are the latest expression of sexuality and gender stereotypes; however these music videos are often condemned for its exploitation of women. In the documentary Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Power & Sex, Director Sut Jhally analyzes how music videos both inform and are informed by our culture’s dominant attitudes regarding femininity, masculinity, sexuality and race. Sut Jhally begins to illustrate a unique and powerful understanding to the continuing influence of music videos and its storytelling, in terms of its cultural behaviors and attitudes. With the help of Sut Jhally in addition to analyzing the interrelated social problems we are able to investigate the social constructs of music videos and examine how they are drawn and shaped within our culture. People socially construct sexuality just as they create the rest of the reality they experience. The symbolic interaction analysis highlights the variable meanings people attach to sexuality. In Dreamworlds 3 Jhally opens the documentary with the observation that music videos are forms of advertisements and these images of sexual female characters in music videos enhances the productivity. Thus these music videos, like other forms of advertising, rely heavily on storytelling and sexual imagery to fulfill the function of selling merchandise. Jhally demonstrates the growth of sexual imagery through the use of women of these music videos. Furthermore, Jhally demonstrates that these music videos cast women as money hungry sex objects by exploiting them to all genres of music. It is clear that women’s bodies have formed a purpose as important advertising tools, however producers of these music videos fail to see the influence of their work on our culture and how society forms sexual meaning to this kind of exploitation. Sexism is the system of prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory behaviors toward people because of their sex. The social conflict analysis highlights the paradigm between social inequality and its relationship between sex and power. For this reason, the growth of sexism in our culture as learned behaviors seem through various media sources. According to Sut Jhally, “there is a great sexual presence in media, but media executives fail to understand the full extent of their influence.” Jhally illustrates that the problem is not that there is too much sex in music videos, but that there is no diversity in the stories being told since they are monopolized by the heterosexual male imagination. Moreover, Jhally clarifies that female objectification itself is not the problem; the problem is that females are only being portrayed as objects. Once again, the key issue for Jhally is the lack of diversity between sex and power and how gender is represented. Jhally states, “…surely, it is the male heterosexist pornographic imagination constructing the dreamworlds of music videos to draw in male viewers.” For example on June 11, 2000 in Central Park, New York City on the Puerto Rican Day Pride Parade; the public space of central park was turned into a war zone as hundreds of women were sexual assaulted and stripped bare of their clothes by groups of men who felt entitlement to do so. Jhally illustrates that these men were only doing what they viewed through music videos. According to lecture, sexual stereotypes are socially shared beliefs that certain qualities can be assigned to men and women based upon their sex. For this reason, the individuals who participated in the sexual assaults at Central Park on June 11, 2000 learned this form of sexual stereotyping through the exploitation of women in today’s media. In music videos we only taste the male heterosexual pornographic image, and its perception of women. It becomes a problem when theses ideas are placed on women as sexual stereotypes. Jhally states that there is nothing wrong with being in tune with ones sexuality; it is an essential part of life. However, the lack of diversity in music videos causes much conflict. Though the aims and strategies of sexualizing women in music videos are thoroughly covered, Jhally explains that one is left wondering how sexuality and objectification works in terms of images of men. The question of how women viewers receive and respond to all this imagery is also left somewhat unclear. When these ideas of male entitlement and power become glamorized in media, we have to ask how we must stop it. Censorship of music videos and media sources is one way sexism can be reduced. Education is another step in changing gender relations within culture. Society needs to be aware that women's rights and ideas, so they are accurately portrayed to prevent conflict. Each individual must stop sexist thoughts to stop sexist behavior. Furthermore, knowing the history of exploitation of women can help keep history from repeating itself. A change in the music culture collectively can spread to the larger population and subsequently gain knowledge to speak out against the exploitation of women, not only in music videos but also in advertising and entertainment industries and all cultures everywhere.