Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos

In many hip-hop music videos, women’s value is reduced to sensuous display of sexuality. As a result visual pleasure is created through the representation of women as eager and willing sexual objects. This article assesses the techniques and ways women are sexualised in South African hip-hop music...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ntebaleng Mpetsi, Toks Oyedemi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Johannesburg 2022-10-01
Series:Communicare
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/1555
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832593755099627520
author Ntebaleng Mpetsi
Toks Oyedemi
author_facet Ntebaleng Mpetsi
Toks Oyedemi
author_sort Ntebaleng Mpetsi
collection DOAJ
description In many hip-hop music videos, women’s value is reduced to sensuous display of sexuality. As a result visual pleasure is created through the representation of women as eager and willing sexual objects. This article assesses the techniques and ways women are sexualised in South African hip-hop music videos, and how their representation attempts to create visual pleasure for those that consume these videos. Four critical elements are adopted from Laura Mulvey’s seminal theoretical discourse about the positioning of women in narrative cinema, to study the gender representation and sexual presentation of women in two popular South African hip-hop music videos. The analysis reveals that appealing to the male gaze, processes of objectification, gender division of labour and camera techniques are ways of presenting a sexualised spectacle of women for the visual pleasure of male characters and audiences of the videos.
format Article
id doaj-art-1b9431f1949b443da4068d279dc76456
institution Kabale University
issn 0259-0069
2957-7950
language English
publishDate 2022-10-01
publisher University of Johannesburg
record_format Article
series Communicare
spelling doaj-art-1b9431f1949b443da4068d279dc764562025-01-20T08:56:24ZengUniversity of JohannesburgCommunicare0259-00692957-79502022-10-0137210.36615/jcsa.v37i2.1555Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videosNtebaleng Mpetsi0Toks Oyedemi1University of LimpopoUniversity of Limpopo In many hip-hop music videos, women’s value is reduced to sensuous display of sexuality. As a result visual pleasure is created through the representation of women as eager and willing sexual objects. This article assesses the techniques and ways women are sexualised in South African hip-hop music videos, and how their representation attempts to create visual pleasure for those that consume these videos. Four critical elements are adopted from Laura Mulvey’s seminal theoretical discourse about the positioning of women in narrative cinema, to study the gender representation and sexual presentation of women in two popular South African hip-hop music videos. The analysis reveals that appealing to the male gaze, processes of objectification, gender division of labour and camera techniques are ways of presenting a sexualised spectacle of women for the visual pleasure of male characters and audiences of the videos. https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/1555Global hip-hop cultureSouth Africanhip-hop music videosscopophilic spectacle of womenthe male gazeobjectification
spellingShingle Ntebaleng Mpetsi
Toks Oyedemi
Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
Communicare
Global hip-hop culture
South African
hip-hop music videos
scopophilic spectacle of women
the male gaze
objectification
title Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
title_full Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
title_fullStr Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
title_full_unstemmed Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
title_short Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos
title_sort global hip hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in south african hip hop music videos
topic Global hip-hop culture
South African
hip-hop music videos
scopophilic spectacle of women
the male gaze
objectification
url https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/1555
work_keys_str_mv AT ntebalengmpetsi globalhiphopcultureandthescopophilicspectacleofwomeninsouthafricanhiphopmusicvideos
AT toksoyedemi globalhiphopcultureandthescopophilicspectacleofwomeninsouthafricanhiphopmusicvideos