Music videos can be a very strong way to express oneself visually, but people usually criticize the aspect when it comes to using gender and ethnicity as commodities. This affair brings up a lot of issues, ethics, and culture which will be discussed about art as the creative and commercial side of it.

The representation of gender in music videos is often embedded in the use of a lot of sexual objects and poses, which is usually for women. While some artists use this to challenge societal norms, others perpetuate stereotypes that reduce women to visual objects. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s WAP, for example, was highly praised for embracing the sexuality of females but it also received some critics’ comments about conveying messages that may be seen as women’s sexual empowerment tropes that are commodified. The line between agency and commodification becomes blurred when empowerment is put in a package for consumption.

At the same time, ethnicity is a lot of time just a prop to make more money in music videos. Western artists usually take the symbols of the other cultures and don’t know their significance which means that those traditions are presented as if they were just visual props. Katy Perry’s Dark Horse, which presented Egyptian motifs, was criticized for misrepresentation, thus, the song is a perfect example of the fact that

cultural elements are reused to add exotic appeal to videos rather than to serve

as meaningful stories. This commodification spreads past individual artists to reach the whole of the music and entertainment industry and to a greater extent, show the systemic issues. In most times, the intention of being liked by a wider audience overwhelms the necessity of truth which leads to the ineffective appearance of people. These sorts of ideas are discussed when we look at the main problems of who tells whose stories, in what way are they framed, and how this process can be a part of the consumption economy. The solution to these issues is that the creators and the industry have to be committed to telling the stories authentically and stop favoring profit-driven narratives.

Sichen Liu 33775722