The documentary Dream Worlds 3, explores the sexual objectification of women in media, primarily focusing on the music video industry. The presence of sexualized female bodies in videos are meant to tell compelling stories and capture attention from viewers. Women are personified as ravenous, sex desiring, aggressors who won't take no for an answer. In a few of the videos, women were coated in gold and silver like trophies. Women are constantly depicted as empty shapes men can fill with their own desires. In many videos, directors use women's legs in high heels to frame the scene and deny subjectivity so there's no thought or connect to who the women are or of their personalities. The presence of women role-playing as cowgirls, school teachers, and slutty school girls are drawn from adolescent male fantasies.
The real damage of depicting women as being in constant states of sexual wants and arousal can be linked to the numerous rape and sexual assault cases that occur everyday. Music videos in the mainstream media show women as constantly wanting and asking for sex. In the dream world, women never say no. Society teaches us that women are supposed to resist and say no. In mainstream music videos, women are depicted as sometimes resisting a little but then giving in. If you watch Beyonce's video for her song "Freakum Dress", she implies that putting on a sexy dress is an invitation for men to make sexual advances. The invitation for men to look and gaze is linked to the effects of camera panning. In all the music videos, women's bodies are shot in many different angles and looked up and down from head to toe. This camera technique presents women as wanting to be stared and that it's okay to look and inspect our bodies whenever men desire. The objectification of women in the music video industry has damaging effects on femininity and portrays women's sole goal is to please men. The documentary raises the important question of who's fantasies are these?
Beyonce- "Freakum Dress"
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