I don’t know how the music industry got into the state it is, but it seems to love reducing things in their music videos to objects. It is the worst industry for doing it. Seeing as most singers are the main source of idols for children, it seems weird that they always seem to be portrayed in a sexual manner. In movies, if we see an actress take her clothes off, we criticize the director for reducing a talented actor to a cheap nipple shot (unless you are a boy under the age of 17, in which case you destroy your pause button), however we seem to support female artists degrading themselves in such a way, on a daily basis.
Today, I am going to satirize the living hell out of this. Therefore, I have found five things that music videos have tried to make sexy and each attempt has failed flat on its ass in a terribly funny way. Maybe this article will help the music industry buck their ideas up.
5 – CANDY WRAPPERS
It is hard to be too angry at Katy Perry’s ‘California Girls’ music video, as I am pretty sure most of the content of this music video is meant to be ironic. There are swearing jelly babies dancing in the back ground and iced buns for bikinis. It is a surreal experience that makes everyone who watches it check if their drink has been spiked. However, there is one scene that I couldn’t resist mocking.
As Katy Perry explores this weird candyland paradise, she comes across one of her backing dancers tied up in a candy wrapper. She unwraps the wrapper and has a new friend to traverse this weird place with. The girl is wearing not too much and it is meant to be symbolizing Katy Perry rescuing a damsel. However, looking at this snapshot, sexy doesn’t jump to our minds:
She looks like she has just washed up on a beach after not paying protection money to her pimp. Katy Perry is probably debating ringing the police or going into witness protection. That face when she unwraps her new friend isn’t sexual excitement, it is relief that she hasn’t actually just found a dead body wrapped in a plastic sheet.
4 – SLINKY
Kelly Rowland spends most of her music video meetings trying to come up with ways to top old singing buddy, Beyonce, so it is pretty likely that she was going to hit a few dead ends. However, I would have liked to have listened to the pitch for her music video of ‘Lay it On Me’, when someone suggested ‘sexing up’ the childhood toy, the slinky.
It’s impossible to take the moment seriously. She is there, lying down, ‘playing’ with her slinky, her mind obviously elsewhere. And as we watch, suddenly our childhoods are ripped apart, as though we suddenly remembered what the creepy next door neighbor did to us at the age of 4. Thanks, Kelly Rowland. You’re no Sasha Fierce, are you?
3 – FRIDGE
Yeah, I don’t even know where to start here. This is an album cover for Cerrone with ‘Cerrone’s Paradise’. One: this could be another case of trying to make a dead body sexy. Two: it looks like a cheap 70s porno, complete with grimy tiles for a background and the worse hairdo of the decade (which is pretty tough competition). But what I fail to understand is: why a fridge?! Is it some sort of female dominance thing? I am kind of scared, so I am just going to move onto the next one.
2 – NICKI MINAJ
Nuff said.
1 – SPIDER
OK, I get that we shouldn’t be scared of spiders. Despite being terrified of them, I have got to the point where instead of killing them, I go that extra mile and carry them out of my house. I am not going to crush them out of fear, because I feel that is cruel. In my eyes, that is the ideal way to view spiders: ‘I rather not have you in my house, but no hard feelings, bro’. However, Dev seems to think there is more to be done and with ‘Dancing in the Dark’ , she tries to make spiders sexy.
No. Spiders will never be sexy. The crawling is meant to come across as erotic, but it kind of makes your skin crawl. You’re just there trying to enjoy the music video (it is a damn good tune), but then the spider pops up and you are reduced to a whimpering mess. The only way the video could be less sexy is if Dev was dancing on the screen with clown make-up and a bloody knife, a sobbing group of school-children in the background.
Oracle of Film 
I think one of the recent standouts for this kind of objectification is Robin Thicke’s new video, which is just perverse and kind of creepy. The candy wrapping in Katy Perry’s video reminded me, as in Thicke’s video they wear these strange plastic overalls (not sure what they are but they don’t look pretty).
And what was his justification in response to such criticism (and the stalker-ish lyrics)?:
That all of the singers were married and would therefore be responsible in real life…. Huh???
Haha NICKI MINAJ xD
I acctually loved the spider-part in devs “in the dark”. The video allready had something dark in it and the part with the spider was well placed in the video. And, to be honest, I’d rather watch videos with spiders in them than with half-nacked woman. And, last but not least, spiders are my favourite animals.