Project 5

What is Honky Tonk Badonkadonk?

Honky Tonk Badonkadonk is a song written and performed by Trace Atkins in October 2005. The song is about objectifying women's backsides and basically saying it's all their good for. According to Jean Kilbourne, "Advertising tells women that what's most important is how they look, and ads surround us with the image of ideal female beauty. However flawlessness cannot be achieved." Trace feeds into this idea by portraying women as nothing more than objects for men to gawk at. The video had barely clothed women with their backsides hanging out of their shorts. This was done on purpose by the director in order to portray a more sexual connotation and feel to the video. As a perfect example according to Jean Kilbourne in, "Killing Us Softly 4" she states, "Women's bodies are often dismembered in ads. just one part of the body is focused on." Trace Adkins focuses only on women's behinds.

Images Within the Music Video

The visuals within the video are primarily women's behinds. Girls in skirts and shorts so short they look like underwear, are featured throughout the entirety of the video. The tops the women are wearing are also extremely revealing and skin tight, but the main focus of the video is the women's behinds. The director has numerous close ups on the women's backsides. We see more butts than we do the women's faces implying that the only asset they have is their butts. The women's hips are seen swaying side to side in each close up. At the beginning of the video, three men walk into the bar and they are seen licking their lips and rubbing their hands together as if getting ready to do something with the women. They appear to only be interested in looking at women's backsides. Kilbourne talks about advertising tells women what's most important is how they look and in this particular video the men are focusing only on how the females move their hips. During several moments in the video women are sexually dancing for Adkins and in a few cases they are on polls. In many shots, including the one I added above this, the women are provocatively dancing in the singers face.

The Lyrics

Most of the lyrics to the song are in the title "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" Adkins repeats this phrase over and over in numerous parts of the song. At the very start of the song he says "Left, left, left right, left". He's imitating how the women's hips move while they walk because that's the only thing him and his two friends are focused on. Kilbourne says, "We all grow up in a culture in which women's bodies are constantly turned into things and into objects." This is clear in Trace Adkins song when he says "Now honey you can't blame her for what her mama gave her. It ain't right to hate her for workin that money maker." as well as "We hate to see her go but we love to watch her leave." implying that it's ok to stare at women in a inappropriate non consensual manor and she's nothing more than a money making object to the men.

The Music Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNVguvNE7qc

Works Cited

Killing Us Softly 4. Perf. Jean Kilbourne. Dir. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation, 2011.

Trace Adkins Official Video "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" (2005)