I very rarely tune in to VH1 or MTV for music videos anymore because they seem so irrelevant, BUT on a whim the other morning I just happened upon Christina Aguilera's new music video entitled, "Not Myself Tonight". To begin with, I could barely tell the difference between Miss (or is it Mrs. now?) X-Tina and that of Lady GaGa and the mid-nineties version of Madonna...I remember having such an affinity for Aguilera because of her obvious talent but also because of her distinctive style that differentiated her from everyone else (Britney Spears). Apparently this distinctiveness is no more.
The generic-ness aside, I noticed a lot of different things within this video that were relating exactly to what we have been studying during class in relation to scopiophilia and sadistic voyeurism. The music video touches more than once or twice on the notion of sadism and masochism and also her portrayals of sexuality in a way that appeals strongly still to the heterosexual viewers all the while showing interactions between her and that of the same (and still opposite) sex. Men are turned on an intrigued by her sexual escapades with other women in the video and have the opportunity to narcissistically envision themselves in the male’s position as she sensually interacts with them as well.
I understand the appeal this may bring to viewers but at the same time, I have always been disappointed in how Aguilera distracts from her pure talent by using over-the-top sexual antics to get noticed. Her “Dirty” video back in the day certainly garnered attention for its overtly sexual tone, but I wonder sometimes about how her children will feel as they grow up and see their mother in these necessarily-censored videos. Why is it that someone with so much talent feels that they need to “hyper-sex” their image to get noticed when it has been clear over the years that their talent speaks for itself?
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Nice point re: her derivative nature (same-y-ness). So, is she the active person in the video (meaning does she act on others)? Do you think that makes it something different than Mulvey? In Mulvey's discussion of HW cinema, women have on power. They are just there to be looked at. How does this differ if Christina (a) is the author of the video and (b) she acts ON people in the video rather than just having others act on her? Nice job.
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