Rewind&Reframe

We at Rewind&Reframe are encouraged by David Cameron’s decision to trial age ratings on online music videos. It is great to see that the government, together with other stakeholders, are beginning to recognise the potential harm some music videos can cause through their – often sexist and racist – content. We are also pleased that Cameron has acknowledged that the internet should not be exempt from the rules followed by offline media, where age ratings are commonly used to alert consumers of their graphic content.

  However, we are disappointed that the Prime Minister is describing the age ratings trial as a way “to help parents protect their children from some of the graphic content in online music videos”. Whilst this is an admirable goal, we do not agree with the view that music videos – many of which propagate negative stereotypes of women and people of colour – can only be harmful to children.

  As a group of young women, we firmly believe that everyone in society is affected by the stereotypes which underpin sexist and racist behaviours. In particular, young people often find themselves bombarded with media that portray women as passive sex objects, use women of colour as hyper-sexual, exoticised props and portray men as hyper-masculine. Most young people have not been taught in school how to think critically about the media they are consuming and are therefore ill-equipped to question the messages that racist and sexist music videos give out.

  Age ratings are certainly a step forward in that they will give parents greater power over their children’s viewing habits. They will also give older viewers more information regarding the content of a video and help them to decide whether or not they want to watch it. We hope that the pilot will spark a broader conversation about the messages that are being sent out by a form of media which is all too often dismissed as harmless. Ultimately, we need to broaden the way we think about the harm that music videos can cause, and empower young people to understand what the music videos they watch every day are telling them about ‘race’, gender, class and sexuality and how to challenge those messages.

  “I’d like to ask Mr Cameron – at what age is it acceptable for us to view music videos which depict people of colour as playthings for white people and women as sex toys for men? An age ratings system is a step forward in recognising the harm done by these apparently innocuous videos which subtly underpin our worst prejudices, but we need to open up the conversation and ask everyone to think more critically about what the music videos we consume say about power relations between different groups of people.” – Rowena, age 25

“At first I was a little bit disturbed by the angle Mr. Cameron took when he announced this new pilot scheme. It had a very unsettling classical patriarchal feel to it; of him as the head of the household keeping an eye on what is being watched in his household – which in all fairness is a part of being a parent. For me this is about people, particularly young people, being more conscious about what they are watching. I would like to see the narrative shifted from a focus of parental control to a conversation about agency, media literacy, critical reflection, sexism, racism and the choices we make.” – Pauline, age 24, @ThePauzi

Excerpt from David Cameron’s speech on families 18th August 2014:

  “But helping families with children and parenting shouldn’t stop at childbirth. To take just one example – bringing up children in an internet age, you are endlessly worried about what they are going to find online. So we’ve taken a big stand on protecting our children online. We’re making family friendly filters the default setting for all new online customers, and we’re forcing existing customers to make an active choice about whether to install them.

  And today we’re going even further.

  From October, we’re going to help parents protect their children from some of the graphic content in online music videos by working with the British Board of Film Classification, Vevo and YouTube to pilot the age rating of these videos.”

  From the project:

Comment from young women involved in Rewind&Reframe, 21st August 2014

Comment from Imkaan, 19th August 2014

  From the media:

Age Rating Plan For Risque Online Music Videos, Sky News, 18th August 2014

Music videos to get online age rating in UK pilot scheme, the Guardian, 18th August 2014

Online music videos get age ratings, BBC Newsbeat, 18th August 2014

Sexism & Racism Endemic in Music Videos - New Report 

Calvin Harris, DJ Snake, Basement Jaxx and Robin Thicke criticised by women’s groups citing evidence that music videos feed sexism and racism; call for age ratings

As songs with highly sexualised and racialised music videos including Calvin Harris’ ‘Summer’ and Basement Jaxx’ ‘Never Say Never’ fill the Summer charts, a new briefing on the sexist and racist content of many music videos is published today (8 August) by women’s organisations who are challenging such portrayals of women.

The briefing paper, ‘Pornographic Performances’ by Dr Maddy Coy, reviews available academic research on sexism and racism in music videos and finds the portrayal of women as sex objects, and especially black women as hyper-sexualised ‘endlessly sexually available’ objects, to be endemic in music videos.

It also sites evidence that those who view such videos have been found to have an associated tolerance of racist, sexist and even rape tolerant attitudes.

Pornographic Performances was commissioned by the EVAW Coalition, Imkaan and Object and is being sent to music industry leaders, media regulators and politicians with recommendations for change. Government and regulators are asked to consider urgently the ‘stick’ of introducing compulsory age ratings for music videos, while music industry leaders are asked to take the ‘carrot’ of reviewing the evidence as presented, listening to young women’s views on the content of many music videos, and changing what they choose to commission and portray accordingly.

Pornographic Performances is available to download here.

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NUS Scotland's Zone Conference brought together experts and campaigners from a range of fields and backgrounds to inform and inspire their officers, to help them to think differently, and ultimately to help them develop future policies and campaigns.

First published in Bristol Woman, Autumn 13.

We are currently living in an intense environment of popular culture dominated by music videos, which are focused on traditional images of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity.  Music videos may have changed over the course of modern history, but have certainly grown to be bigger, bolder, some would say sexier and more controversial. The reason for finding music videos problematic may be because of the unrealistic images of the human body and the messages that are being portrayed and sold by major music industries. 

Music is one of the major things that connects the people of Bristol, both within and beyond the city. It allows people to feel a rainbow of emotions and express themselves in countless ways.

Music can take us on a trip down memory lane, it can give us a sense of total freedom during the private moments when we dance around in our underwear and for some, music is their lifeline.

However, much of the popular music produced today is accompanied with videos that present distorted images of sexuality and objectify women’s bodies. This is particularly the case of Black women’s bodies which are often exotified, have their behinds’ fetishized and are continuously limited of their autonomy because of their race,ethnicity, class and gender.

Music videos for commercial pop music are dominated by idioms of Black youth and working class culture. This distinctive and very lucrative portion of the music industry was articulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hip-hop culture but gained momentum in the 1990s, which saw the mass mainstreaming of music videos – not exclusive to hip-hop culture, but also found in genres of teen pop, punk, metal and indie. 

It would now be appropriate to list some of the recent and previous artists who are featured in popular music videos that reproduce the stereotypical controlling images of (Black) womanhood and the idea of macho, yet glossy and groomed masculinity. I am confident that you can name three artists as a minimum - such as Rihanna, Nelly and Miley Cyrus.

If one were to pay closer attention and spend time dissecting such music videos, you will find that women’s bodies are being emphasised, chopped up, twisted and modified to live up to the dominated images of what has been constructed as attractive. These music videos are often one-dimensional. Women are active in a decorative manner with almost no existence of sexual diversity - this is the case for both the leading and background entertainers.  Also, women often act as subordinate male sponsors whose sole purpose is to sexually pleasure and entertain the opposite sex.

The images presented in music videos are familiar to most of us and we also see them across other forms of visual entertainment such as films, television series and games.  However, commercial music videos represent one of the most popular forms of entertainment that can also have profound implications for young people, who are the primary audience. Continuously being exposed to hyper-sexualised images can lead to (young) people exacerbating gender oppression and antagonism in relationships. In addition, becoming increasingly accepting of interpersonal violence against women, supporting rape culture and stereotypical gender role attitudes. 

Criticising the music industry is not to deny the fact that in some cases, female artists use the realm of popular culture and performance for the purpose of social commentary, in order to respond and resist the controlling images of women. Not to acknowledge that contemporary commercial music videos are a larger social and political problem is risky and troublesome. On the other hand, it is understandable that some turn a blind eye to this, because of the amount of sexist and racist material that we are exposed to daily. At some point, all of this becomes white noise - noise that clearly has a much darker side to it. 

  I often reflect on my position in a ‘multicultural’ society as a young South Asian woman born and raised in London and still getting the dreaded question “But where are you really from?”

The daily battle of fighting against racist and sexist stereotypes unfortunately still lives on. But recently, the much needed heavy debates around the representation of women of colour in mainstream media, has got me thinking about the portrayal of  (and lack of) Asian women in music videos.

I remember in 2004 the hype over Gwen Stefani going solo from No Doubt and everybody talking about her new style and vision for her album ‘Love.Angel.Music.Baby’. I respected Stefani; I even put up with the bindis, but this respect was soon lost when I saw her music videos for the album. Repeatedly seeing a successful white pop star using four nameless Asian women as props to show her ‘admiration’ for Japanese culture and fashion is just another example of the unquestioned sense of entitlement that white people have over women of colour.

Sadly, Stefani wasn’t the first and isn’t the last person to fashion this appropriation of Asian cultures into mainstream music videos. More recently we have Iggy Azalea. We all know that she’s a blatant racist and homophobe, but her video for ‘Bounce’   was the icing on the cake for me. In this video we see Iggy in a “fantasy” world (India), dressed in sarees, riding an elephant, dancing Bollywood style whilst singing “Shake it, break it, make it bounce”. What’s the big deal I hear you say? Isn’t it just a bit of harmless fun or even a celebration of Indian culture by mainstream society? Actually it achieves quite the opposite. By making South Asian women invisible and ‘otherising’ them to the extent that the only representation of them left is cultural symbols like sarees and bindis, this highly-sexualised white-dominated industry further exotifies and objectifies them.

Some people would argue that these pop stars are showing their ‘appreciation’ and are attempting to assimilate ‘minority’ cultures (which are often portrayed as resistant) into mainstream culture. If this was truly just appreciation then why did Stefani feel the need to contractually obligate four Asian women to only speak Japanese in public? Why does it take Iggy to wear traditional Indian clothing to be ‘cool’ but when I wear it I’m seen as a foreigner and refusing to integrate?

I was so pleased when I heard about the launch of Rewind&Reframe last week. Finally a campaign to unite the myriad voices that have spoken out - sporadically but in ever-increasing numbers - about the hyper-sexualisation of pop music and the impact this might be having on younger audiences. What I particularly like about the campaign is its clear message of empowerment. Rather than merely identifying a problem and complaining about it, Rewind&Reframe aims to help facilitate individuals to take positive action, to have a voice and use it.

For the past 6 months, I myself have been part of a project with the same ethos. In an audacious and provocative protest against the world’s flagrant attempts to sexualise and commodify childhood, the award-winning performance artist Bryony Kimmings and her 9-year-old niece Taylor decided to take on the global tween machine at its own game. They invented Catherine Bennett (or 'CB' to her fans)  –  a dinosaur-loving, bike-riding, tuna-pasta-eating pop star – and vowed to make her world famous to prove that an alternative was possible. CB is played by Bryony, like a character, and is managed by Taylor (that’s right, the 9 year-old is in charge!). You can meet CB and hear her music here.

I loved Bryony and Taylor’s project so much that I decided to make a documentary about it, to capture their story and contextualise the cultural environment in which it is unfolding. Since we started, we’ve witnessed the Blurred Lines furore, Miley’s twerking (and the various celebrity responses to it), Charlotte Church’s John Peel lecture, Lily’s controversial come-back, and now Rewind&Reframe. The debate is happening, and all of these things – whether you see them as positives or negatives  – are feeding into it, which can only be a good thing. All the while CB has been racking up hits on Youtube, going into schools to talk directly to tweens about the media they see, interviewed on BBC and Sky News, featured in the Guardian and The Independent, and had one of her songs played on Radio 1 by the awesome Gemma Cairney.

The most striking thing I think I’ve realised since starting my own journey with this project is that there really isn’t anyone like CB out there right now. She is a true alternative; a quirky, fun, popstar for tweens who sings about animals, friendship, and the future whilst wearing funky bright clothes and shoes which are practical rather than prohibitive. And, you know what, tweens love her! One girl we spoke to at a CB gig said to us “I think (it’s) the type of music that I’d listen to because it’s quite upbeat and about subjects that I like.”

I’m a big believer in the phrase ‘if she can’t see it, she can’t be it’, and that’s why a range of female role models for young people in our popular media matters (If you’re interested in reading more on this see my blog for the Guardian Women in Leadership here: http://tiny.cc/j6bh6w ). But let’s be realistic, the music business won’t change for the good of humanity (the clue is in the ‘business’ bit). So it’s up to us, the audience, to use our collective power to show them that it’s in their interests to start offering something different. To start being a bit more creative and to realise that there’s a huge, untapped audience of young people who would love more music about the things that they’re interested in and for it not to be sung to them by someone who is semi-naked and gyrating against a pole/bottle of vodka/crotch/all of the aforementioned. It’s not about censorship, it’s about choice. And right now, we’re not delivering choice for younger audiences.

We really hope that the CB experiment might lead to some real change, by proving that a genuine alternative can be successful and that there is a desire amongst the audience for it. And I think that’s also what Rewind&Reframe has the power to do, through the voices it will help to facilitate. It’s time for the music industry to start listening, for the penny to drop. Because that penny could just turn into a pound or two for them.

Miley Cyrus says 'I'm a feminist' when asked about the Rewind&Reframe project set up by EVAW, Imkaan and OBJECT to give young women a platform to blog and take action about sexist and racist music videos. Listen to the interview on the Guardian podcast here (15 min in).

Sign the petition to David Cameron for age-ratings on music videos, like films and video games.

Radio 1 interview with Miley Cyrus on Tuesday 12th November 2013 about the launch event in Parliament of the Rewind&Reframe project

Interviewer: Last night at the Houses of Parliament there was actually a conversation about the kind of music videos that you make and the kind that Robin Thicke makes, Blurred Lines. They basically want to rate videos to address what they call, undermining women. How would that make you feel?