Representation Of Women In Pop: Katy Perry.

Women needing make-up.

In this image, taken from screenshots of the music video for E.T - Katy Perry and Kanye West. These two are shown as binary opposites, with Katy Perry being colourful and very made-up and fake, whilst Kanye West is shown in monochrome. wearing sunglasses.  These contrasts portray Katy Perry, and women, as needed to be very made up to be attractive. It also gives the impression that they are very fake, and make up and other accessories are esstential for beauty. In comparison, the message given from Kanye's picture is that men not need make an effort to appear attractive (because I think he's going for that in this picture...)

One of the main colours on Katy Perry's face is pink, which is traditionally considered a 'feminine' colour, whilst Kanye West is completely blue, which is traditionally considered a 'masculine' colour.  Katy Perry also has blue on her, but it is paler and more of a baby blue, to feminise it. It shows her as weaker than Kanye and more frail because her blue is lighter, unlike Kanye's which is bold and in your face. These colourings reinforce traditional gender roles. BAD KATY.

Women as over-emotional and obsessed with love.

Katy Perry's video for Hot N' Cold fuels the stereotype that women are overly emotional, especially when it comes to love. This image in particular portrays this, because her make up is smudged, as if she has been crying, and she is wearing a wedding veil, suggesting that she is emotional over love. This is also reinforced by her facial expression, in which she is wide eyed and looking crazy. The whole plot of the video is Katy Perry imagining her husband to be saying no at the altar and then chasing him on a bike in her wedding dress, which aids the stereotype. BAD KATY.

Women as sex objects.

I think this picture speaks for itself. BAD KATY.

Her costume here is revealing, exposing her midriff, legs and arms. It is basically underwear, and this sexualises her because she has no real clothes on. She also has whipped cream cans on her bra, which is an obvious sexual metaphor. Naughty Katy. It is also red, which signifies lust and love. In the video, there are many other women dressed similarly, and they are have the same facial expression: happy. This suggests that the women are happy to be considered as sex objects, which doesn't exactly promote good vaules for her target audience of young girls.



In contrast to Katy Perry's "clothes", Snoop Dogg is wearing a suit that doesn't expose any skin except for his hand and his face. This is because, supposedly, men don't get sexualised. As Berger said on the male gaze, "men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at", so there is no 'need' to sexualise the man in this video because the women will not be looking at him in a sexual manner.