On September 7th, 2021, Latin American artist’s J Balvin and Tokischa released the music video “Perra”. The video gained widespread attention for it’s racist, sexist, “Machista”,and misogynistic lyrics and imagery. The video begins by showing a black child, shirtless, depicted as a dog. It continues on by showing us a crowd of black women dancing. Then it cuts to a first point of view scene of a person laying down a dog bowl with food to (which we find out later in the video) the black woman that sings in this song, Tokischa. In later scenes we see Tokischa in a neon green bodysuit and with green zebra print gloves and mask. When we get a wide shot of Tokischa on a car and see the crowd of majority black people, many of them are either in dog makeup or wearing a wolf/dog mask. At several points it cut back to see white Hispanic singer J Balvin walking two black women, in dog makeup. Additionally, it shows us black women held up in cages as well as black men looking angry and possessive in their dog makeup. Giving the overall appearance that this is definitely no family friendly video.
As seen in Figure 1, we see singer J Balvin “walking” these two women through an alleyway. The image blatantly shows the women as being submissive and under the control of J Balvin; he very literally has them on a leash. In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “ ”Two ways Women Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence”, she states that “Male violence is subtly encouraged by ads that encourage men to be forceful and dominant, and to value sexual intimacy more than emotional intimacy”(pg. 489, par3). In this specific scene, the women are walking on their hands and knees and physically lower than J Balvin. Throughout the whole video J Balvin is in a position of power, he’s meant to be more valuable than the people around him; especially over all the women. This dangerous concept gives the idea that both the man is meant to dominate over women and that the women aren’t considered people; dehumanizing them.
Throughout the whole song, the lyrics degrade and devalue the existence of women. The first line of the chorus, “Yo soy una perra en calor, Estoy buscando un perro pa' quedarnos pegao”, modestly translates to “I’m a bitch in heat, and I’m looking for a dog to get with me”. As we can see in figure 2, when it cuts back to Tokischa, we can see her full face because it’s covered with a zebra print mask. Kilbourne states that "Sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women, and because it fetishizes products, imbues them with erotic charge"(pg 489, par2). It’s not a surprise that Tokischa's face is unrecognizable for most of the music video. Most ads/music videos are meant to sell something; and clearly in this case, it’s meant to sell Tokischa’s body. The female singers value is now just the willingness she would give to have sex with any man. They paint her as a person that has no desire for intimacy and is for the disposal and pleasure for any man that wants to have with her.
In the first verse, J Balvin sings “Cuidado, que este perro anda sin bozal (yeah)”, this translates to “Careful, because this dog is walking without a muzzle”. Kilbourne expresses that “Sometimes there seems to be no question but that a man should force a women to have sex”. The lyric demonstrates that a man can’t be “tamed”, and that he’s a wild dog that can’t control himself. The lyric also reveals a great deal about a problem in Hispanic culture, “Machismo”. This is the idea that the man is in power and makes all the decisions for the home, and that it’s normal for men to have full control over their female partners. This includes emotionally and physically. At a young age it is taught that the women are to be submissive to the man, and to keep quiet if anything happens. And as we see here, the man in the situation is not responsible for anything he might do to another woman.
Throughout the whole music there are very clear signs of "machismo", sexual harassment, and over all objectification of women. The lyrics of the song make it very clear that women are nothing more than sex objects and simply want to pleasure men. The visuals only show young beautiful women dancing and looking happy while they're saying these immensely vulgar lyrics. Both the lyrics and visuals implant the seed that women have no desire other than to please men and be at the disposal of men. Not only this, but the clear race power dynamic throughout the whole music video with having almost all the black people depicted as dogs.
Work Cited
Kilbourne, Jean. "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt." Rereading America 10th ed., edited by Colombo, Cullen, Lisle, Bedford/St. Martin's , 2016, pp. 488-513.
Perra, Youtube, 7 Sept. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXQk8uxfOFo. Accessed 10 Nov. 2021.