Empowerment or Objectification

Beyoncé recorded her hit song and music video “Run the World (Girls)” in 2011. The video takes place in a war zone that has been transformed into a dance off space between a large group of men and women. 

 

Beyoncé has always been famous for her upbeat and fun songs that are easy to dance to. She is also known to write and sing songs that are meant to empower women and the feminist movement. However, in her music video “Run the World (Girls)”, she does not exactly reflect the meaning behind her lyrics by focusing on sexualizing women instead of actually empowering them.

The lyrics are quite repetitive and she continuously sings the line, “Who run this world, girls”. So by listening to the song, one would think that this song is all about empowering and lifting up women. Watching the video, however gave off a completely different message.

Instead of portraying women in ways that show how capable, strong, and independent they are, they are sexualized and put on display for the male gaze. Male gaze is when women are essentially set on display for men to stare at. Male gaze allows men to objectify women and see them as nothing more that a body.

           

According to Lana F. Rakow, women and men have always had a very different relationship to pop culture then men do. Beyoncé’s music video completely supports that claim with something as subtle as clothing. When Beyoncé and her female backup dancers are wearing tight, revealing clothing, she is feeding into the idea that it is okay for women to be valued and judged by the appearance of their bodies. All while all of the men in this video are fully clothed and barely have any skin exposed at all.

           

This is important because while the lyrics speak of girls being running the world without the help of men, she gives the power right back to men in this video by focusing on beauty, physical appearance, and the shape of their bodies, while the men in the video are not judged and valued on their physical bodily appearance.

           

A symbol that Beyoncé used to try to convey the feminist movement was when she was seen stealing a man’s wallet. She was made out to be strong and dominant when she stole the mans wallet, but in actuality the connotation of that is that women have to commit crimes and do bad things in order to be viewed higher than a man.

           

A true feminist would have showed a woman doing something out of character or something that that honored the female gender as a whole. It instead portrayed women as malicious and manipulative, which is not how any woman wants to be portrayed.  

           

Therefore I conclude that Beyoncé failed to truly support the feminist movement with her “Run the World (Girls)” music video. She had a great opportunity to portray women as something more than just a body and pretty face, but instead she fed into the stigma that women are on essentially on display for men objectify.

Someone who has as much influence on American pop culture as Beyoncé, should have thought more carefully about how she wanted to present women as a whole in her video. She holds a lot of power and is very much in the public’s eye, so the things that she says and do matter and influence millions of people across the globe.

           

So although this may be a fun and energetic song to dance and have fun to, this music video failed actually move the feminist movement in the right direction. She continued the stereotype that women will do what ever it takes to please men.