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Sexualization in Music: Timber by Pitbull featuring Kesha
Synopsis
In 2013, singers Pitbull and Kesha released the music video to their song "Timber". The three-and-a-half minute video features the duo in separate settings accompanied by provocatively dressed models and dancers. For the majority of the video, Pitbull can be seen near the ocean with a dancing woman. Kesha is depicted in what appears to be a bar with a troupe of attractive female dancers and proceeds to dance suggestively with them in synchrony. The video is reflective of the song's energetic and sexually suggestive lyrics.
The Visuals
Jean Kilbourne's film Killing Us Softly 4, she states that "we all grow up in a culture in which women's bodies are constantly turned into things and into objects." A demonstration of that is how the Timber music video blatantly uses conventionally attractive women as mere props. For instance, Pitbull gestures to the woman dancing against him in Image 2 because she serves no purpose but to make him look desirable. Furthermore, numerous There are scenes throughout the video that insinuate risqué concepts. An example is portrayed in Image 1; by performing this gesture, Kesha is making a sexual implication.
Image 1
Kesha licks her finger while making eye contact with the audience.
Image 2
A female model dances suggestively as Pitbull gestures to her.
The Lyrics
The song itself describes women's roles in a very limiting sexual context. Consider these verses, for example: "Twerking in their bras and thongs, timber//Face down, booty up, timber," (Pitbull, "Timber"). When Pitbull raps these lyrics, he is referring to promiscuous women at a party. Pitbull implies that he often receives such treatment from women, especially when he says, "I'm slicker than an oil spill//She say she won't, but I bet she will, timber,". This lyric also demonstrates the male sense of entitlement towards women's bodies. As Kilbourne remarks in her article "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt", "Men are...encouraged to never take no for an answer," (492).
Works Cited
Kilbourne, Jean. "Three Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt." Rereading America. Eds. Colombo, Cullen, Lisle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's P. 2013.
Killing Us Softly 4. Perf. Jean Kilbourne. Dir. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation, 2011.
Pitbull - timber (official video) ft. Ke$ha - YouTube. (2013, November 25). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=hHUbLv4ThOo.
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