Response to Dream Worlds 3 by Dakota Peschel

Since when is deli meat considered sexy? After watching Dream Worlds 3, the music industry will never look the same to me again, and not only because of the videos I watched of women being plastered with bologna. Never will I watch a music video and not analyze how women are portrayed in the one dimensional view that Dream Worlds pointed out: sex object for men. Females and sexuality are the vehicles to sell mediocre pop and rap music; men crave control and power over females, and this power balance is always ideally portrayed in the music videos we watch.
Growing up, my mother never allowed me to watch MTV or VH1, and now I completely understand why. While pop music itself can be harmless, the way that bodies and gender are portrayed in music videos is intensely graphic and inappropriate, especially for children. I see now that all of these graphic sexual portrayals went right over my head, yet they probably sent and continue to send the wrong messages about sex and gender to children. I was always very jealous of the kids in my class who would tell me about how cool these channels were, but now I know that my kids will never watch MTV or any music videos like this, and I’m glad that my mother felt strongly enough about the images in the videos to ban them from my household. I do not want my own kids thinking that these are the gender roles that they need to conform to within society, or even that they are normal. Luckily, MTV and VH1 rarely show music videos anymore, so I’m not to worried that this industry will influence the minds of future generations as much as they have already.

The media sends kids these messages about gender identity that perpetuate the ongoing cycle of gender inequality that already exists in the United States today. Men feel entitled to treat women as their objects; it is almost as if they are disposable tools to use for their pleasure. Music videos show men surrounded by women, sending the message that if one woman isn’t interested, there are many more available. This translated into the real world with the horrible incidents of men mistreating women that were shown in the video. These normal men took scenes of degrading women from music videos and essentially performed these in real life. While music videos are often set in a private setting, these acts were performed out in public and literally in plain view of onlookers. It’s scary to think how life can get so out of hand, and these poor women were sacrificed in the name of male greed and power, and it’s horrifying to think about how these guys got swept up in a mob-like mentality and degraded these women. They will be scarred for life, and it is all because these men took images of sexual violence in music videos and performed them in real life.