Women Portrayed in Hip Hop Videos

In the hip hop video ‘Wet’ by Snoop Dogg, women are shown dancing together wearing little more than a bikini. The woman are usually shown either dancing sexually together or grinding against something, trying their best to either get the males attention or to please them. The video shows that women are not being valued for anything other than their appearance/actions. They get judged on what they’re doing rather than what their personality is.

Woman in hip hop videos are portrayed as sex objects and are usually doing something dirty in front of a man or several men. Like in ‘Wet’, the women are usually shown grinding against the wall as Snoop Dogg walks past them, as though choosing which one he would prefer. It makes the viewers suggest that the woman don’t mind doing it and it is what they like. It also suggests that the male is more dominant and it is up to him in which he prefers. In some videos, women are shown dancing sexually with each other for a man’s pleasure. Even though the women are all straight, they are shown to be dancing together dirtily and would do anything to pleasure the males. It is usually shown that the male is watching the females dance together, enjoying what they view. If males were to dance dirtily together for a woman’s pleasure, then that would be described as unattractive and the video may get less viewers. The videos make it seem as though this is what females should do when really it is false.
In the clips, the men are always shown to be the more dominant one, the one that the women want

to be with and try to impress. It is almost never the female who is dominant and the most important one.
The videos trick us into thinking what it truly is to be a female. Like said above, woman are portrayed as sex objects, doing anything to get a males attention. The viewers may be influenced into thinking that this may be how a woman is supposed to be acting and dressing. They get tricked into thinking that is it normal when really it isn’t. Some females that don’t look like that start to feel insecure about themselves and feel as though they must be like that. This makes some females start to starve themselves, trying to be as “skinny” or “curvy” as the women shown in the clips. They start to apply a lot of make-up, trying to be as pretty as the woman in the clips. What the viewers don’t get is that the women in the clips are photo shopped, fake.
Social justice it not being encouraged because the females are being judged on their appearance and not what they’re like inside or intelligence or value to society. The males and females shown in the clip are attracted to the opposite sex, unless the females are dancing together to please the males. This encourages the viewers to think that it is not alright to like the same sex unless you are female and are trying to please a male. It does not show that liking the same sex is acceptable. It shows that males are always the more dominant one and can overrule/power the female. It doesn’t show that both genders are equal, how the females try their absolute best to entertain/please the male while the male just sits back and watches.

A societal strategy that could combat these negative images is that there could be a camp held once a year where teenagers can go to learn more about these things. There would be workshops there where the teens can interact with each other and play games which would educate them. It would help encourage social justice by teaching the teens- and maybe some adults- about how woman are portrayed in the clips. The leaders could ask the students about what it means to them and that way we could get a point of view from someone else.
The workshops would be fun and the teachers would be young and cool, that way the students won’t be shy to speak their ideas. It would be an awesome way to meet new people and it would be cheap too. The camp can invite people from all over Auckland, making it easier to spread the word.
An interpersonal action to support the society strategy would be to encourage the students to go back to the area they came from and share their experiences and what they had learnt with friends, family and school. If word gets out, then people from all over New Zealand would want to join and maybe some cities would decide to hold their own camps. It would be a fast, fun way to socialise and learn.