CMT research project

Summary of Findings
Women in music videos on MTV are depicted differently throughout different genres of music. On MTV women were mostly dressed high to moderate in rap videos and usually showed a mix of Caucasians and African Americans. Women in rock and alternative videos were dressed low and were mainly white.
Summary of Previous Studies
One study done previously, by Reichert & Lambiase, 2006, Sex in consumer culture: The erotic content of media and marketing, mentioned how women are depicted in certain roles. The book argued that women are displayed sexually in music videos. Chapter 10 (Beer, Sex & Ads) hits our topic exactly. Also a research thesis called African American Women in Rap Music Videos: A Visual Formal Analysis by Redelia Shaw discusses these same topics. Women, especially African American women in rap videos, are sexual icons.
Corpus and Method
Our study concerns how women are depicted in today's most popular music videos. We conducted qualitative and quantitative research to see how each genre portrays women. We used various music video media outlets: MTV, BET, VH1, FUSE and CMT, to see how woman are used and displayed in the videos. For the week of November 12th we watched the top 10 videos from each media channel and studied each video for research on our topic. My section of research was MTV.
By monitoring the top 10 music videos on various media outlets we are attempting to see if…
1. There is a difference in the way woman are dressed?
· Low
· Moderate
· High
2. There is a difference in the ways which females in videos are portrayed? Their roles.
· The victim- reliance the man, sad, hurt etc.
· Sexual- sexually interested, experienced, etc.
· Party girl- fun, social, club girl, etc.
· The other woman- home wrecker, sexualized to tempt the man, etc.
3. There is a difference in the role and race of the leading lady.
4. What is the different genre of music within the media channels chosen?
Each of these questions will be broken down into different categories and defined by the music channel.
The first question will be defined as how they are seen by the eye in the video. Is there a difference in the ways which females in videos are portrayed? Their roles could be the following: The victim-showing a reliance the man, sad because of a man, hurt from a man, etc. The Sexual woman- sexually interested, experienced, promiscuous, etc. The party girl- A fun, social, club girl, etc. The other woman- also known as the home wrecker, or she is sexualized to tempt the man to stray, etc.
For the second question we will break each female on how they are dressed. Low will mean fully dressed, with little to none of her body parts showing. Moderate will be appropriate clothing, legs showing but covered; midriff is only showing slightly, and little to no cleavage, similar to a conservative outfit. High will mean that cleavage is present, shorts/skirts are very short and cut high above the knee, and body parts are emphasized.
The third question will be defined as each leading female's race as well as the role she played as mentioned in question one. An example of race will be Caucasian, African American, Asian, and Latino.
The last question will define what type of music is present. Each song could possibly have a different genre such as: Rock, pop, rap, country, R&B, or alternative, this is because of the various media outlets we will be recording information from. We will record the genre of music to see if the music type also plays a role in the way women are exposed.
An additional note if there are no leading ladies are females in the Music Video then the response in each category will by N/A.
The research conducted in this paper is over the channel CMT. CMT is the country music television show. This research was taken from the week of November 12th 2007. The research was taken from the top ten country music videos. The show is hosted by Lance Smith, a Caucasian male in his early adult years. He is dressed conservative in jeans, and a button up shirt. This show airs every week as Lance counts down the top music videos in their entirety. At the end of the show he reveals last year's number one video. CMT is where the information from this part of the research will be conducted for: How women are depicted in music videos.

Video #10
Clay Walker “Fall”
The leading lady in this video is dressed high. She wears a sexual night gown. She just walks around the whole video sexy in her night gown in a river. She is a Caucasian female, playing a sexual role. The video is very simple in the fact; it is the singer and a pretty female in a river.
Video #9
Garth Brooks “More than a memory”
This video has no females present.
Video #8
Sugarland “Stay”
This video is very simple. The lead singer of Sugarland just stands in front of a black screen singing. She is dressed low. She is wearing jeans and a shirt. She plays a role of a victim, because her expressions are sad because of a man. She is also a Caucasian woman.
Video #7
Josh Turner “Firecracker”
This video is pretty non stereotypical except for race. Everyone is Caucasian. The leading female plays just a social lead, so I’m categorizing it as party girl. The leading female is dressed moderate because she is in a mini shirt, but the shirt is covering, and it is not perceived as a sexual role.
Video #6
Brad Paisley “Online”
There are not many females in this video. The video focuses on a male online trying to be cool. All the members in the video are Caucasian. The females that are present, that flash in and out, are dressed moderate; skimpy tops and mini shirts. The females play a sexual, party girl character.
Video #5
Sara Evans “As if”
This video is different from all the rest. The males are being portrayed sexually. The singer Sara is the leading female. She is dressed moderately because she is showing a lot of legs and chest. She wears a mini baby doll dress. Sara is a Caucasian woman, and the role she plays in this video is a dominant, social party girl character.
Video #4
Rascal Flatt “Take me there”
The leading lady in this video is dressed very high. She is wearing a bathing suit, and undressed from clothes to the bathing suit in a very sexual way. This leads to how she is portrayed in the video; sexual. This guy thinks she is hot, so she is playing the role of typical ‘hot’ girl. The girl played in this video is Caucasian.
Video #3
Kenny Chesney “Don't blink”
There is not a predominant woman in this video. There is a wife who is present, but mostly it is males in this video. The wife that is present is Caucasian, and dressed moderate. Moderate because she has tight fitted clothes with chest being emphasized. She is portrayed as a housewife.
Video #2
Taylor Swift “Our song”
In the “Our song” video, Taylor shift plays the leading female role. She is dressed moderate. Moderate, because it is cute sexual way. The clothes she wears are covering, and they are low cut, but you don’t see anything. She has 4 different outfits in this video. Three of them are dresses which look like prom dresses, the other outfit is really short shorts and spaghetti strapped tank top. All these outfits do cover, but they are portrayed in a sexual cute look. The race in this video is Caucasian, and the role portrayed in the video is more party girl type.

Video #1
Carrie Underwood “So small”
In the video “So small” Carrie, is dressed moderately. She is wearing a mini baby doll dress that is short and shows a lot of legs. The top of the dress comes down really low and shows off her chest. Carrie is the singer in the video, but there are clips of a story going on in the background as well. The female portrayed in that part of the video is a teenage girl struggle from depression. The teenager is dressed low. Fully covered, and is of Caucasian background. Both singer and teenager are charted below with the singer being the first stat. and teenager being the second stat.
Conclusion:
I was disappointed to find out that women are portrayed in country music videos just the same as any other genre of music. I thought country videos seemed more wholesome. I was shocked to find out, that the way women are portrayed is the same throughout. The victim, sexual, and party girl images are the same in every video. Our groups study was for all genres of music and women were equally displayed as the same characters throughout all genres of music. Our group was not too surprised on the results, but I thought country might have been different. The results are a trend right now of how women are looked at. Hopefully the more studies that are done, the more people will notice these trends to eventually change this image.


Resources:
CMT country countdown. Retrieved: Novemeber 12, 2007.
Lambiase, Jaqueline & Reichert, Tom. (2006). Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media And Marketing. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Shaw, Redelia. (2004). African American Women in Rap Music Videos: A Visual Formal Analysis (Research Thesis, Geirgia State University, 2004). Retrieved from ProQuest.