Pop stars who claim to be feminists while stripping down to their underwear in music videos are merely promoting a culture of pornography,” Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde recently said without naming individual singers. “I don’t think sexual assault is a gender issue as such — I think it’s very much all around us now,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. “It’s provoked by this pornography culture. It’s provoked by pop stars who call themselves feminists. Maybe they’re feminists on behalf of prostitutes, but they’re not feminists on behalf of music if they are selling their music by bumping and grinding and wearing their underwear in videos. That’s a kind of feminism — but, you know, you’re a sex worker is what you are.”
This is in contrast with what Debbie Harry, Blondie’s iconic front woman — who once made an equally iconic statement: “I’m against the idea that rock stars have to live a life that’s completely understandable or predictable to their audience.” — told popular news website The Daily Beast this year about twerking queen Miley Cyrus: “The kind of criticism that Miley’s been getting can only do her good in the long run. I really think that. I think people realise that her talent is strong and she’s unstoppable.”
Inappropriate content of music videos is now such a big issue that it has become mandatory (since August ’15, though a pilot programme was launched in October ’14) for all videos made in the UK to have clear age ratings on YouTube and Vevo. Joanna Shields, minister for Internet safety and security, has said: “Technical tools are a real help for parents, but we also need to have ongoing conversations with young people to ensure they are able to process, critique and cope with the sometimes upsetting or confusing things they see online.”
So, who is Chrissie cross with? t2 picks the top seven likely suspects on Hynde’s hit list!
[Pssst: Madonna is missing from this list because almost every popular female singer around has stolen a part of her DNA. The 57-year-old is the real McCoy and even books — like The Madonna Connection — have been written to explore her “erotic semiotics”. Get?]
RIHANNA
Age: 27
RiRi’s latest video is Bitch Better Have My Money, which talks about getting money through torture and violence, and ends with a shot of the singer naked and covered in blood lying around with cash. The debate this has triggered? Is there a (well) hidden feminist message or is it ear-/eye-dung. From the chained-up lover in Disturbia to a stripper in Pour It Up, from the sexual bondage and sadomasochism of S&M to booty-popping in Rude Boy, the Barbadian singer has successfully used the power of sensational videos since her 2006 debut. Rihanna has even extended this to fashion and Instagram (she was banned from Instagram for six months last year for posting topless photos). Former Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm or Mel C said last year: “My five-year-old loves Rihanna. But she has no idea what her idol looks like because there’s little footage that I’m happy for her to see. It’s a shame that a talented, successful woman expresses herself in such an overtly sexual way.”
Wild cat moment: Umm… Her Barbados Crop Over festival outing? Sparkling sheer stocking dress at the CFDA Awards? Posing topless for the French men’s magazine Lui?
Video-gasm: Pour It Up, S&M, Rude Boy
JENNIFER LOPEZ
Age: 46
The Queen of Tight Pants has had to work hard over several videos and concerts to win this assolade! Consider this. The video of I Luh Ya Papi begins with a short speech about the need to “objectify men”. It does, complete with the line: “If you wanna hear your name, I shout it”. Next, the video for Booty (featuring Iggy Azalea). It’s steamy, sticky and grabby between the two hot bods while they sing “Throw up your hands if you love a big booty.” Then in Dance Again (featuring Pitbull) she rolls on a sea of men. In short, it’s booty all the way in her videos. And she refuses to change the theme for her gigs. Check out her iHeartRadio Music Festival appearance in Las Vegas earlier this month where she slayed in a white bodysuit, and her last year’s American Music Awards outing. Age is clearly the least vital statistic.
Wild cat moment: The green Versace silk chiffon dress she wore to the Grammy in 2000 with a neckline that ended several inches below her navel. In January 2015, Google president Eric Schmidt said the dress was responsible for the creation of Google Images!
Video-gasm: Dance Again, Booty, I Luh Ya Papi
BEYONCE
Age: 34
Queen B’s fame now surpasses that of her idol, Whitney Houston. But when it comes to reworking material for the stage, she is second to none, something the Flawless singer proved easily at her ‘Made In America’ concert (sponsored by hubby Jay Z) in early September. The material was old but instead of getting into autopilot mode, she took all the dance moves we have seen in her videos to a new level by slipping in and out of bum-chum numbers. If her videos are brilliant, her gigs are iconic. It feels like her videos and concerts are planned simultaneously. All the moves we have seen in her 2008 video Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), which has 422 million views on YouTube (besides being the reason for Kanye West’s infamous “Imma let you finish” speech directed at Taylor Swift) or the sexual romp in Drunk In Love (yes, the duet with Jay Z containing the famous line, “foreplay in the foyer, f**ked up my Warhol”) is given mind-blowing twists during gigs. The visual message is clear: If you have it, flaunt it! And she has the voice to match it.
Wild cat moment: Her 2013 Super Bowl performance… the one in which she was dressed in all black and danced wild, wild wild.
Video-gasm: Drunk In Love, Partition, Pretty Hurts
ARIANA GRANDE
Age: 22
Cat Valentine from the Nickelodeon sitcoms Victorious and Sam & Cat turned in her squeaky-clean image for a futuristic-looking garment that shoots missiles out of her boobs in the video for Break Free, and then came a black bodysuit and knee-high boots during her Bang Bang performance at the Y100 Jingle Ball in December 2014. And she proved a ‘cheeky’ one at last year’s Bambi Awards performance. Oh, also check out her passionate performance of Love Me Harder with Justin Bieber from March.
Wild cat moment: Soon after she dumped boyfriend Big Sean for rapping “I ain’t even gonna lie, I got a million dollar chick/ With a billion dollar p***y/ Every time I c*m, I swear to God I feel like I be rich” in the song Stay Down, she was spotted licking her backup dancer Ricky Alvarez at a doughnut shop!
Video-gasm: Break Free, Love Me Harder
NICKI MINAJ
Age: 32
Rapper Lil’ Kim brought bedroom prowess to videos, changing the way female rappers were perceived. And Nicki is her booty-ful successor — on screen and stage. Her butt-jiggling routines seamlessly connect her album covers, videos and live gigs. But she claims there is a message in a sexually-charged video like Anaconda… the part where she chops up a banana: “It’s always about the female taking back the power, and if you want to be flirty and funny that’s fine, but always keeping the power and the control in everything,” she had told GQ. Now, would you believe the star who has indulged in some very very dirty dancing with the likes of Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne, Drake and even retired basketball player Steve Nash on stage?!
Wild cat moment: “And now back to this b**ch that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press — Miley, what’s good?” That’s the live message she had for Miley Cyrus, who had accused her of “being jealous”, at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
Video-gasm: Anaconda, The Night Is Still Young, Only
LADY GAGA
Age: 29
Gonzo wigs, outlandish to nowhere-in-sight costumes, unsettling sexuality (“I want your ugly, I want your disease”, she sings in Bad Romance)… Lady Gaga marches on with her nutty streak, trying to blur art and pop culture. What you see in her videos — read clamshell bikini (and the lack of it) in Applause or a predatory doctor (R. Kelly) telling her “I’m putting you under, and when you wake up, you’re going to be pregnant” in the leaked but unreleased controversial music video for Do What U Want — is what you get on stage. In other words, she has turned the stage, videos and even the red carpet (disco ball bra, bubble dress, meat dress…) into her gallery space. Yet, the nonconformist pop star has managed to win over friends like Tony Bennett (their collaborative album Cheek To Cheek won a Grammy this year) and enemies like Madonna (the feud reportedly started with the similarity between Express Yourself and Born This Way).
Wild cat moment: The Poker Face singer maintained a poker face when she decided to change her clothes at a Madison Square Gardens concert in May 2014. She was left wearing a nude thong and fishnet tights.
Video-gasm: Applause, Bad Romance, Poker Face, Telephone
MILEY CYRUS
Age: 22
“If people are talking about me, I must be doing something right. All press is good press.” The We Can’t Stop singer’s message after twerking Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards announced loud and clear: One plus one equals tongues on the floor and that she had outgrown the Hannah Montana role. She is Britney Spears 2.0. In other words, like the member of Disney’s Mickey Mouse club who once focused on wholesome relationships (like with teenage star Justin Timberlake), it’s now all about sexual antics (and hopefully she wouldn’t have to suffer Britney’s mental breakdown). She gropes herself in the video to Adore You, perches naked atop a wrecking ball in Wrecking Ball and takes all these to a tongue-wagging level during concerts — mock orgies, straddling giant hotdogs, stroking herself, derriere biting of backup dancers.… We’re not even touching on the photoshoot for Interview magazine (where she is seen touching herself provocatively)
Wild cat moment: Twerking Robin Thicke or being a wild child in the summer issue of Paper magazine? Toughie!
Video-gasm: Wrecking Ball, We Can’t Stop, Adore You
Are these women peddling porn in the name of music? Tell t2@abp.in
