First things first, I would like to state that, as a male, I do not feel too comfortable enough trying to state what is feminist and what is not, as have not lived the experiences of a female from a first person point of view, therefore I’m unable to make and objective and definitive conclusion, so I will limit myself to create a set of questions that can be a guide to arrive to a somewhat definitive answer by someone who has had a first hand contact with the issues during her life.
For this essay I will be analysing a very controversial music video by Spanish urban artist, Bad gyal.
In this video the intention to challenge the male gaze is constructed by a ‘’self-hypersexualization’’ of the female body, but instead of being placed as submissive being like in most male artists music videos from this genre, it is Bad Gyal’s own body the one presented while she sings her song.
But this type of hypersexualization raises a set of questions when it is done by women to their own bodies. Is it still done with the values of the male gaze? Or is it an opportunity for women to subvert those values that have been making profit out of their bodies?
After the controversial music video was published, Alba Farelo (Bad Gyal), felt, as she stated, hurt and confused by the critics of the public, as most women in her generation have grown watching reggaeton music videos in which women were dancing dressed in ‘’sexy’’ clothes, and that it was those women who inspired her and her generation, and that no man should be able to decide who deserves respect or not for showing themselves in certain ways, as she also said: ‘’any men from the music genre who dares to say that we don’t deserve respect for something they have been doing for ever is being a hypocrite.’’
I think Bad Gyal’s intention when sexualizing her body is to use it as a tool for subversion, similarly as the appropriation of the word ‘’queer’’ by the members of the LGBT+ community.
But my question is, does this really work or is it just another manifestation of the patriarchal society to maintain its hegemony?
To explain this I would like to present the example of ‘’OnlyFans’’, a platform in which people can post their content to their followers in exchange for an economic contribution. This platform eventually turned into a hub for young women to sell their explicit photos and videos in order to earn money. At some point, this issue was presented as empowering for women, as it allowed them to earn a living with the money of those subjects who are the building blocks of the patriarchal society. In reality, this ‘’female empowerment ideology’’ was more of an strategy created by the patriarchy to encourage very young women to objectify themselves and commodifying their bodies, in my opinion a form of ‘’modern prostituion’’ in the sense of putting a price to consent, which is something that under any circumstances, cannot be bought.
‘’We must fight body shame, but we need to fight it at its source: the idea that the appearance of our bodies is the most important thing about us… …If this fight is really about empowering women, we have to be careful. We have to recognize how severely the objectification and dehumanisation of female bodies has stunted girls and women. How the epidemic of self-objectification, or constant fixation on appearance (whether you like your appearance or not), has crippled generations of women who could have used that mental energy on much more meaningful pursuits.’’ (Lindsay Kite, 2016)
I find this quote really crashing with the way the music video discourse is constructed, especially in a certain set of shots where the artist is placed on a spinning display just like if she was a product that could be bought.
I read a comment under a small talk video about male gaze by a women that stated that her generation grew up watching successful and ‘’beautiful’’ women that were always portrayed through this male gaze, and that it was now them the ones playing the role of the camera through social media platforms, not knowing to view themselves from a point of view outside that gaze.
I think this comment is a good way to show why Bad Gyal’s music video can be damaging to women and the feminist movement when portraying the female with their bodies as the protagonist, or maybe the encoding of the music video wasn't done right enough for people to decode it in a subversive way, as in my opinion it lacks a deeper message of resistance.
Although reading the comments of the video, it is true that a lot of women feel empowered by the video and take Bad Gyal as an idol that has turned the female body as a weapon to fight those structures that try to oppress them.
With all this said I think the real question we should ask ourselves in regard to the intention of subversion by Alba Farelo is, Can the Master’s tools really dismantle the Master house?
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