Article Review #2 - Abbie Minsker

Abbie Minsker

WGST 202

T/TH 9:30- 10:45

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Women in Country Music

Article Review #2

Andsager, Julie. Roe, Kimberly. (1999). “Country Music Video in Country’s Year of the Woman.” International Communication Association 49, no 1: 69-82.

In “Country Music Video in Country’s Year of the Woman”, Julie Andsager and Kimberly Roe discuss the research conducted on the comparison of male and female artists in country music. In 1997 the country music industry names it’s Year for the Women, while other genres were known for being ‘symbolically annihilating’ or disrespectful in their music videos by sexist images and references toward women. Andsager and Roe begin by explaining the importance of music videos and comparing other music genres as well. They then discuss their research in the hope to prove if it really was the ‘year for the women’. They obtained their results by looking at multiple categories of country music videos. These categories were called ‘coded variables’, and were noted as the as the number female and male appearances, the role of women in videos, the clothing worn by both male and females, the ages of artists and the messages portrayed in the songs. Andsager and Roe stated that after analyzing 285 CMT  (country music television) videos they found that “the ratio of male to female artist’s videos was 3 to 1. Although the data suggest country video is similar to pop or rock video of the mid-1980s, the country videos were qualitatively different in their portrayal of gender roles” (69).

 

First, to support their research Andsager and Roe explain the past portrayals of women in music videos of all genres. They explain how “rock music videos have been criticized repeatedly for their patriarchal promulgations of sexism and violence toward women” (71). Also they discuss how woman in many genres are portrayed as sexual objects or in patronizing ways. They are also known to not obtain as much air time as males and are seen more in scandalizing clothing. Andsager and Roe also explain how “trivialization and condemnation would be apparent through sexist portrayals of women’s roles, overt emphasis on women’s bodies and youth, and scanty or alluring clothing that would increase the potential for objectifying women” (71). They lead into their research questions of, how does the portrayal of male and female’s roles, characteristics appearance differ in country music videos?

 

Next, Andsager and Roe explain the methods used in their music video research. Their experiment consisted of watching a random sample of CMT videos aired during the last two weeks of January 1997, to prove whether or not female artists did indeed have an overpowering year. They coded for the category of the song (what was being sung about) as well as “consciousness level of both female artists and main characters, the role of the main characters, body type of artists (male and female) and main characters, clothing of each, approximate age range and the number of minority characters” (74).  Clothing was coded as neutral, somewhat alluring and alluring. They also characterized female portrayal as condescending; sex objects, keep her place; some strength and skill but in traditional woman roles, contradictory; dual role in which the woman has independence but was still traditional and lastly as fully equal which has no stereotypical portrayal at all. They used this method to organize their data and to truly see if women in country music videos appeared any different than other genres where they are portrayed as traditional, passive or as a sex decoration.

 

Andsager and Roe’s results showed that 60 male artists were played in a 24-hour period, whereas only 25 females were played. They also concluded that “female main characters were more likely to appear in male videos most often someone’s lover and the man main characters were more likely to be working” (76). Female and male artists are equally likely to sing songs about romance and heartbreak, but female artists often perform “female emancipation” songs (6.3% of the sample) in which “describe how a woman burned down the house with her husband and herself in it to end his abuse” (77). In aspects of clothing, female artists usually wear neutral clothing like jeans, or a lot of times they wear alluring clothing like very short dresses, shorts or a male’s shirt with nothing underneath. Only 4.9% of the sample of males wore alluring clothing like tight jeans, but most wore jeans and a western shirt. Lastly country videos in the sample there was many white male directors. But it was hard to tell because in the sample such a small majority of female singers were played. Andsager and Roe explain their observation that “women in the videos, whether artists or characters, tended to be younger than the men, especially when the women appeared as lovers for the male artists” (78).

 

In conclusion, Andsager and Roe state that “in terms of the frequency of female artists appearance, portrayal of women’s roles, and appearance, our findings suggest that country music videos is remarkable similar to other genres” (78). They state this conclusion to argue the point that even though the country industry said that 1997 as the year of women, the ratio of female artists played compared to men have proven they have not yet reached equal balance with male artists.  It was found that in female artist’s own videos, women were played as fully equal if not superior to men; whereas men seem to portray women in their videos as playing very traditional roles. However, Andsager and Roe conclude that even with women on a lower scale compared to men, “country music offers a fertile arena for tapping into the ways in which society grapples with the transition from, traditional to not-so-traditional gender roles” (81).  The idea of this article is similar to the article “Women in Country Music Videos” by Janelle Wilson. Wilson focuses on the comparison of male and female artists, which is a lot of what Andsager and Roe do in this article. However, Wilson also explains how women in country music fight for gender equality by portraying the dominant role instead of the male. That differs from this article which is written to prove the fact that women are not portrayed equally to men in country music. Overall this is a great article and I highly recommend it to readers who are interested in women’s role in the music industry