Gender Representation

The initial idea at the moment for my track, Lovestruck by Madness, was to have two main male performers, the lead singer/lip sync and another band member helping with the performance. I was also planning to get special guest stars to appear during the video to help with narrative and play an instrument or so. The band i chose is a rather old band which was formed over 30 years ago (around 1976) and the song's genre is towards ska/pop. The original band is an all male band so my video will also prominently be featuring males although there could be a female or two as special guests.

The pop genre also has the stereotypical notion of showing the male figures as 'masculine' in one way or another. They are usually shown as adventurous characters, unemotional and most of the time as the dominant gender. On the other hand females are shown as 'eye candy,' for the male gaze. This is not only in hip-hop videos but in pop, rock and RnB as well.

The video i want to create will most likely have some stereotype in our male lead as the track chosen is about a person getting drunk. Males socializing in a pub with friends is usually seen in a positive light. Although other stereotypical factors will not be present, our character will be shown to have been affected by the alcohol in a 'not so good' light as he proceeds to make a fool out of himself by confessing his feelings to a lamp post. Our main lead will be shown as an emotional character. Even though the main focus of the video will be on male performers, the idea for female characters was not to make them look like the inferior gender but be on equal terms or even more superior to the male gender. The initial idea was to get a female character to drop a rock on the foot of the male lead (whilst someone else steals his hat).
Another idea was to get a random female passing by watching the male lead making a fool out himself as he confesses his feelings to a lamp post....the female would just ignore the male and walk on.

My plan was to stray off the path of male and female stereotype in music videos, even if it was only a little. I wanted to show that males are emotional creatures that can be affected by the world around them, not powerful and dominant. As well as trying to show that females can take care of themselves and can cause some serious damage to a man's foot.