Therepresentationofblackfemalesexualityinpopularmusic Essay

Therepresentationofblackfemalesexualityinpopularmusic - Essay Example This will be achieved by first having discussing the images got from the popular music about these women as well as the contradictions that exist. In other words, the popular music shows how Black women are portrayed sexually in their daily lives within the popular music industry. Most Black women in the are represented and grounded in the popular culture through ideologies that surround the Black womanhood in the American society (Emerson, 115). These ideologies can be said to be the images that at most times reflect the degree in which Black women are marginalized (Emerson, 115). The media as well as the popular culture have been the sites for such ideologies on Black womanhood. For example, there are music videos that have received sharp criticism because their content was objective and exploitative in the manner they depicted women of all races and ethnicities. In other words, they have represent Black women according to images like hyper sexualized ‘hot mama’, ‘jezebel’, ‘the asexual’ and ‘the welfare recipient’. Apart from the representations drawn from the controlling images, the performances staged by Black women in popular culture also bear representations that counter the ideologies held on Black womanhood (Emerson, 117). Therefore, popular and expressive culture exists as a site to help resist such ideologies and representations (Emerson, 117). For example, performances staged by Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters showed how assertive they were in their empowerment and sexual subjectivity (Emerson, 117). Most videos done by Black women show how gender has been constrained and limited the independence of Black women (Emerson, 117). The context under which these videos were produced is shown in the images they portray. They are actually made porous by the controlling images that stereotype the Black woman (Mayhew, 64). This in the end brings about different stereotypes.