Music has become a media to express the idea of love, sex, gender or race. In contemporary, the expression of sex becomes explicit. Timbaland’s music video “Carryout” portrays females as hot, sexy and attractive objects, and males desire them. The lyrics of this song depict the males like these females work in “Hot Cakes”, and they want to take these females home and for the night. This music video represents the distinct characteristics of male and female, which reflects the Devor’s idea of gender.
The clothing of female models in the video suggests the characteristics of femininity. As Devor notes in “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” … the goals of femininity and, by implication, of all biological females are presumed to revolve around heterosexuality and maternity”. (“Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes”, Michael Omi) Maternal femininity is thought as being responsible for housework and child rearing. There are females wearing maid-dresses and serving cakes in the video, which suggest maternity of femininity. Females in maid-dresses are more desirable because maid-dresses are symbols of servants who were usually females. They dealt with housework, so this kind of clothing gives an image of housewives. They are serving cakes to the male who is sitting on a chair, and there is a female standing next to the male, which suggests the superiority of male and inferiority of female. This scene also gives an image of housewives and being compliant. Besides maternity, another characteristic that the clothing suggests of femininity is heterosexuality.
According to the article “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” by Aaron Devor, “Feminine styles of dress likewise display subordinate status through greater restriction of the free movement of the body, greater exposure of the bare skin, and an emphasis on sexual characteristics”. (“Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes”, Aaron Devor) Femininity is required to match the ways of heterosexual orientation, which shows the most feminine side. Female models are wearing high heels and thigh-high silk stockings, which limit their free movement and make their legs look longer. High heels and thigh-high silk stockings are symbols of femininity. Female models in short pants or short dresses, naked-shoulder and back-naked tops expose greater bare skin, which look hot, and match the requirement of a heterosexual orientation. As the lyrics note, “Baby, you're looking fire hot; I have you open all night like an iHop; I take you home baby let you keep me company”. This suggests that the female models are desirable and attractive to males. They want these females because they look hot and sexy, which show the feminine sexuality.
Postures of the female models also suggest femininity heterosexuality. Female models put their figures in their mouth and with their charming eyes looking at the males. They are waving around the car which suggests the hot postures of femininity and the purpose of this music video is to express the idea of perfect femininity for masculinity. In the lyrics, “You look good, baby must taste heavenly; I'm pretty sure that you got your own recipe”, and the background words “Hot Cakes” suggests that they images the females are as cakes which are sweet and pretty, but they have different tastes, and all taste good. “Hot Cakes” symbolize females in this music video. Some female models have different cakes and they enjoy these cakes in different ways which show their own style of sex. One female model enjoys her cake directly; one with folk, which represents femininity because sweet is regard as feminine favorite. As the lyrics note, “Have it your way, foreplay; before I feed your appetite”. A female model in pink sexy nightwear pets herself and there is a cake next to her, which structures a sweet sexy woman. This scene corresponds to the lyrics, “Take my order because your body is like a carry out. Let me walk into your body until you hear me out. Turn me on, my baby don’t you cut me out; turn me on, my baby don’t you cut me out”. This part of the lyrics repeats eight times in the song. The use of repetition emphasizes how lovely the females are and how much they want these cake-like females. The lyrics also suggest males in this music video see females as heterosexual objects. Female models dance in the scene; their dance is hot and attractive, which can perfectly show their feminine body postures.
Contrast to the clothing and postures of females in this video, males look masculine with their clothing and postures. There is scene that a male and a female stand together. The male is taller and stronger than the female. He puts on the headphone for the female, which suggests dependence of femininity and masculinity of male. They ask the females their phone number, which suggests males are active. According to Devor’s article, people who expanse their body postures are appeared physically masculine. (“Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes”, Aaron Devor) Males try to maximize their body size, which make them look masculine. A man sits and stands with his legs apart, which contrast to the small body postures of females when they keep their arms and legs close to their body. Males are wearing suits and standing straight, which represent gentle masculinity. The lyrics also show masculinity since is about men pays court to women.
The contrast of the clothing and postures between male and female give an image of ideal masculinity and femininity. Timbaland’s music video “Carryout” suggests the ideal form of male and female, but these characteristics are also stereotypes of gender.
It was quite obvious how women are portrayed in the video. We both included Devor's Ideas about how the woman were being used as a domestic stereotype with their maids outfits and serving the men. I also included how the man the men more superior and it demeaned the women. The attractiveness of the women related to their relative heterosexuality was also a major point in my blog. I failed to include the quote by Devor that in your blog adds significant supporting detail. When referring to the women i only briefly mentioned their relative attractiveness while you went into great detail about specific details of their outfits. I also failed to quote any lyrics in the blog. I also used a significant amount of my blog to describe the masculinity of the males using their posture, verbiage, and appearance. When I wrote my blog I tried to use about half the space to analysis the racial stereotypes present and the other half to analysis the gender stereotypes going on. I talked about how the black man was very ghettoized and used some examples from Omi to back my clams. I also strayed away from Omi and even used some examples from pop culture comedians who speak of racial stereotypes. I used Chris Rock, And Kat Williams because in their stand up routines they directly speak of racial stereotypes of black men. So I used their examples to back my claims of the black ghettoization that was going on in the video. I used their dress and car mostly. I also used Omi work of how sounding sexually aggressive was part of a stereotypical black mentality. I’m surprised that you didn’t include any racial aspect of the video, but because of this you were able to include so much more detail on how the gender stereotypes were fulfilled.
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