The star that I am analysing is Christina Aguilera. She was born on December 18th, 1980 and featured in the Mickey Mouse Club along side Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears in 1993. She also sent in a demo of Whitney Houston’s ‘Run To You’ to Disney who were looking for an artist to sing the song ‘Reflection’ from Mulan. She then made a break through 6 years later with the song ‘Genie In A Bottle’. She has been in the business for around 12 years and most recently featured on the show ‘The Voice’ as a judge, and also brought out a song with Maroon 5 called ‘Moves Like Jagger’ as well as having a 7th studio album in the pipeline. She has worked in many genres, from bubblegum pop with her first single, to pop rock with her song ‘Fighter’. I will go into her many changes of genre later in the essay.
In her first video, ‘Genie In A Bottle’, her star image was established as a young, typical teenager but also with a flirtatious side by hanging out with her friends but also flirting with boys, etc. This shows a more innocent side to her due to this very young, teen image that's being represented, however at the same time shows are more dominant, leader-like representation, which reflects the idea of popularity in social groups and having lots of friends and guys being interested in you. This relates to a problem that all teenagers face by having her being that sexy, popular high-school girl that her teenage audience want to be. The innocent, young girl image is shown through her costume by either wearing combat-like trousers or shorts during her dance sequence.
This wearing of combats trousers shows an almost manly quality to her, when then creates an intertextual reference to R&B/Hip-Hop artists of the 90's as TLC (above) clearly show a similar look to what Christina's wearing even though her song is classified as pop. This then goes hand in hand with the image female artists had at that time which was that they were independent, such as Destiny's Child described in their song 'Independent Women' that was released only a year later. This therefore all comes together as she is reflecting the same image most R&B artists of that time were showing and the independence links to her clearly being popular and dominant in the video. The dominance is shown by having her the leader of the dance sequence, which is in the shape of a triangle to clearly show her at the front.
Another way her dominance is shown when she is peering over the balcony down at the boys, a clear high angle shot being used to show her control over them and all her friends also looking down to show like they are not only physically but symbolically looking down on the male gender. Other shots that show her control over men in the video are above including having him chase her and him going to hug her and her pushing away. The shot of them all looking down from the balcony can be interpreted as an intertextual reference to Greek times when 'Gods' would look down from their huge houses to everybody, and a more modern version being the royal family looking down at the public. 
The lyric that is sung when the balcony scene is shown is, 'Hormones racing at the speed of light, but that don't mean your gonna get it tonight'. This sums on the whole song in terms of the way she is being represented. She is shown as a young teenager by mentioning about her hormones racing as they are when you're a teenager, but also her control and dominance in the song as she is choosing that even though her hormones are racing, she's deciding whether she is going to do anything sexual and not the man.
Regardless of this, she is still shown as a flirtation and sexy teenager in the video, with many shots emphasising this as shown below. Another point I could mention is how this video goes again Laura Mulvey's idea of the 'Male Gaze' as voyeurism is clearly not shown in this video, with her having not sexually exploiting herself and her being in control of the man instead of the other way around. This is an interesting point as I will make a comparison later on how that will change with her later videos with her being much more sexually exploited and objectified.
Later in their career, Christina's image is changed in many ways and she has tapped into many genres over her career. I will be focusing on two different videos to show her wide difference in star image. The first video I will look at which was done in her later career would be the song 'Dirrty'. I will then compare this to 'Candyman'. In 'Dirrty', the video shows an extremely different representation of Christina than it did in 'Genie In A Bottle'. She is seen as much more sexually explicit and grown up in this video, almost everything that her first music video wasn't. She isn't portrayed as having lots of friends but instead the opposite and comes of intimidating and aggressive. Also she is shown in the video boxing, which is a very masculine sport, and she also acts very aggressively throughout the video which reflects this masculine representation. Regardless of this however, like in her first video she shows a contrast of dominance and sexuality but in a completely different way.
In 'Dirrty' even though she is being portrayed as very masculine, she is also wearing dangerously short skirts for the majority of the video with her underwear clearly on show. This brings her back from this masculinity and creates a balance between sexually attractiveness and manliness. In the first video, her sexuality is explored in a very subtle, feminine way, however the same cannot be said for 'Dirrty'. Instead of exploring her sexuality in a subtle way, it is extremely clear by the way she is dancing, how she is interacting with the men in the video and what she is wearing that she has grown out of the subtlety and is now acting very 'in-your-face' with her sexual behaviour. This is reflected by the images below.
She is clearly on screen to be viewed at by men due to her revealing clothes, etc. and this can be seen as objectified as she is constantly seen in the video as a sexual object. Not to mention how she is brought down to the boxing ring in a cage which symbolically reflects her being put into a box as a sexual object and lifted straight into the gazing view of the men all around, just as she was in 'Genie In A Bottle' with the men below. This shows a clear change in star image as she is not only represented in a much more provocative way but she is also much more dominant, with her fighting another woman in the ring and her riding a dirtbike to the cage (Photo below). That reflects the way the record company are trying to sell her as you can see they clearly want to to be sold as an object of men’s desire and the 'perfect woman' as she can ride a dirt bike/fight but also be very sexual. This is shown through many things such as her outfits or her sexual dancing including close-ups that can be seen below. Another good point to mention is that in some shots she is seen also dancing provocatively with a woman, which is most probably done to appeal to lesbian women and make the market of this song even wider.
Compare this to her video 'Candyman', and again the same basic idea is there but her representation is shown in a completely different way. In the video is in a reference to the war and the women of that time. She is much more subtle than 'Dirrty' was about sexually exposing herself, however shots such as her being on stage and the men all round her laughing displays a connection to the 'Dirrty' video when the men are surrounding her in the ring, therefore selling her in the same way as an object of male desire. However in contrast to 'Dirrty' her more subtle sexual provocativeness is what sells her as this which can be seen by the images I have provided. Also you can compare the scene when she is in a pink dress clinging on to one of the soldiers with the scene when she is dancing with the man in 'Dirrty' as they both reflect her as making herself sexually attractive to men in the video. 
This video also links to Laura Mulvey as she is also being displayed in a sexual way in this video you could even say more than in the video 'Dirrty'. This is because at the time in which the video was set in, women were seen much more in society as objects to be looked at, and this video certainly plays on that. The photo to the right in which it shows her dancing and her underwear is showing, really shows the idea of the 'Male Gaze'. This is because the camera is in the position that a man would be (so part of the crowd of rowdy guys) and its looking from below like they are trying to see up her skirt. This video really ticks the boxes for objectifying Christina and showing her as passive which shows that Laura's theory is right in having the video made for men to gaze at. Both camera-work and editing is used in 'Dirrty' and 'Candyman' to reinforce this image of her being sexually exploited to the audience. One line that is said in Candyman that represents her sexually exploiting herself is, 'He's a one-stop-shop with a real big' and ends with a moaning sound, which is obviously supposed to be the word 'cock' and shows a clear reference to sex. An example of this in 'Dirrty' is at the very end when she is being hugged from the back by the rapper of the song, showing he clearly has more status over her even though it's her song. This is shown in 'Candyman' when she is dancing around all the men in full uniform when she's in a little blue outfit all around them. These images are shown below.
By Harry Luke Mulvany
Harry,
ReplyDeleteWell done this is A level standard work: thoughtful, concise and detailed. You have explored the videos in some detail and have related the representation to relevant theory. To improve you could include more analysis of camerawork in the videos, particularly the focus of shots and movement.
16/20 B+