Sex in pop culture is traditionally a heteronormative display of male fantasy. In music videos, there are countless examples of passive, bedroom-eyed women, scantily clad, gyrating for men. Even as “feminism” becomes this year’s pop buzzword, we’re still not immune from music videos like
Justin Bieber’s “
What Do You Mean”, which flaunts the Victoria’s Secret cookie-cutter beauty of its female protagonist, or
Drake’s “
Hotline Bling” which, at the same time as being a song admonishing women for so-called ‘loose morality’, features a lot of women twerking. The male gaze dominates music videos, and even women we view as empowered – like
Selena Gomez in “
Good For You”, and
Tinashe in “
All Hands On Deck” – kowtow to it. And while embracing the sheer power of sex appeal is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s always refreshing to see something that deviates from the sea of passive, objective femininity that dominates the music video visual landscape.
As the discussion around feminism, and what it means to be
seen versus what it means to
act as a woman becomes of prominence in pop culture critiques, we’re starting to see varying, and indeed, challenging interpretations of female sexuality in music videos. It’s no surprise that bold, thoughtful women are at the fore in this, with the latest
Wayne Coyne-incarnate
Miley Cyrus to take a stand against the infantilization of women in “
BB Talk”, challenging anachronistic ideals of desirability. Here’s how Miley, and nine other women, subverted the male gaze in weird and wonderful ways throughout 2015.
MILEY CYRUS – “BB TALK”
After 2013 Miley was
criticised for cultural appropriation, 2015 Miley has re-emerged with some important commentary on sex and sexuality in pop. As we watch her transform, gloriously, into a mini-Wayne Coyne, Miley uses absurdism in “BB Talk” to call bullshit on the way women are often infantilized not only in popular culture, but in their everyday lives, in order to appear attractive and desirable to men. As she rasps about her boyfriend’s vomit-inducing, reductive baby-talk – “
you put me in these fucking situations where I look like a dumbass
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