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Do You Want To Ride With Me?
Synopsis:
On March 10, 2001 American rapper and entrepreneur, Nelly, released his hit song "Ride Wit Me" featuring St. Lunatics to the public. The music video displays Nelly and his friends escaping hot pursuit from the police while driving semi-trucks filled with dancing young ladies to the destination of a country dinner. The video shows a multitude of women with different clothing styles, skin tones, all in different settings. Though people tend to get caught up in the story and song itself there are a lot of missed messages about women and how accustomed we are to seeing them. Images of women are shown at a great rate in today's media. Women are stripped down to their physical features and are placed on a pedestal for the male gaze.
Figure 1
Screenshot from "Ride Wit Me"
The Tactics:
In figure one, above, is a image of the back of the truck Nelly drives in the video. This is an example of using women as a brand to a certain appeal to the audience. According to Jean Kilbourne's "Two Ways to Hurt a Woman" it states, "The way that ads portray bodies - especially women's bodies-as objects conditions us...(488)" This quote aids the fact that the plastered logo is portraying women is a sexual light, and using such as a logo throughout the video. The image on the trucks are seen as a brand and a way to brand the young women being driven. Further proving the point that the women is viewed as a body and can be branded this way and not a person. This image is a great example to show the bigotry against women and how the media shows them in their advertisements.
Figure 2
Screenshot from "Ride Wit Me"
The Tactics:
In figure two ,above, is a picture of a woman with a broken down car attempting to be picked up by Nelly and his crew, despite just being married. She is shown lifting up her dress and whining her waist. In the words of Jean Kilbourne, "The poses and postures of advertising are often borrowed from pornography...(489)"
The quote pushes the point that the young woman pictured above is posing in a way that can lure Nelly towards her. This shows that she could get Nelly's attention if she could exploit herself in a sexual manner. The sexual appeal she has to Nelly helps her get a ride from the artist and driven to the country dinner. Which should have been done because she was in need of help not because she was attractive or appealing to the artist.
Conclusion:
All in all women in the media industry are seen with a erotic point of view which then allows society to look at women this way. Given, men are seen this way too but the dehumanizing and objectification of women is normalized too much and we are immune to it. Kilbourne says, "When power is unequal, when one group is oppressed and discriminated against as a group, when there is a context of systemic and historical oppression stereotypes and prejudice have different weight and meaning. (501)" and she proceeds to say, " All women are vulnerable in a culture in which there is such widespread objectification of women's bodies...(504)" The media industry is dangerous and by repeating different images into society we are becoming insensitive to what we see and what we take in. The exposure of women in television, music videos, advertisement, all media outlets, effects everyone. Men are shown what to do and women are being conditioned to believe that they need to have this and do this in order to appeal. We , as a society, need to break away from this type of erotic outlook on men and women. We have to entrain our rhetorical selves and manage what we take in and what we allow ourselves to take in.
References:
Kilbourne, Jean. "Three Ways a Woman " Get Hurt." Rereading America. Eds. Colombo, Cullen. Lisle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's P. 2013
Screenshots , and images from "Ride Wit Me" , Nelly, YouTube, 2001, Web, March 10, 2010
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