The music industry and its views of gender have been greatly affected by the technologies of the late twentieth century. Since the introduction of the music video, the industry's portrayal of gender and gender roles has been altered; quality and talent have taken a backseat to images and appearances. The music video, as well as the media sources that support it, help to create and perpetuate the gender stereotypes we know today. When MTV debuted the Buggles' video "Video Killed the Radio Star" in 1981, the music industry was changed forever.

The Pre-Video Era
Before the inception of the music video, radio and concert performances were the only available media for audiences to hear an artist's music; this promoted an emphasis on musical talent and creativity over the fashion and appearance of the artists. With radio, the music contained no visual aspect and had to be accepted or rejected based on sound quality alone. Although many early pop stars such as Elvis Presley conveyed beauty or sex appeal to a teenage audience, others did not exhibit conventional beauty at all. The late "Mama" Cass Eliot of the Mamas and the Papas, although significantly overweight during her career in the late sixties, is still remembered for her beautiful vocal harmonies more than for her physical appearance. The gut-wrenching vocals of Janis Joplin enjoyed immense popularity during the same time period; she, like Mama Cass, was by no means a conventionally beautiful woman. Fashion was frequently important; however, the favored fashions were often more classy and conservative than sexual and sensational. The Beatles made it big wearing business suits. The stars of the Motown sound, such as the Supremes and the Temptations, dressed up in fine high-class attire for their performances and appearances. Although the members of Led Zeppelin sported long hair and suggestive clothing in the seventies, they are still best-remembered for their songs, such as "Stairway to Heaven," more than their sense of fashion. Although appearance was a factor in popular music even before the rise of the music video, these examples illustrate that the music itself prevailed during the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

The Post-Video Era
In 1981, MTV was formed and promptly started playing music videos; this led to a great shift in the focus of the music industry. The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video ever to be played on the new channel. With this new medium in which not only to hear but also view the music, the industry was changed. No longer were artists respected primarily for their music; the image they presented could make them or break them. The video as a marketing tool spawned entire new genres of music. One of the more memorable ones was the "hair metal" bands of the eighties. Bands such as Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Poison, and Skid Row grew long hair and wore tight leather and makeup. These bands sold records based more on the "shock value" of their appearance than on their music. This continues in the music industry today as bands like Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and Mudvayne sell records because of the shocking image that they put across. A new kind of mainstream pop music was also spawned from the music video. Artists were featured dancing along with their music; dancing has now become a part of pop music itself as artists began to put down their instruments and pick up choreographed dance numbers instead. Shock value has often played a big role for these artists, too; fans in the eighties and early nineties eagerly awaited as controversial new videos from Madonna pushed the boundaries of social propriety ever further; one video, "Justify My Love," had to be banned from television as a result of its explicit sexual content. Recalling Diana Ross in her evening dress and white gloves twenty years earlier, one can easily see the shift from music to image that occurred at the onset of the music-video era.
Gender stereotypes and unrealistic body images have also been perpetuated in music videos. Males are often shown pumping their fists with upper lips curled in an angry pose, as in Billy Idol's "White Wedding." Michael Jackson's "Black or White" depicts vandalism and sexual images: the artist grabs his crotch repeatedly. Females in videos are typically very attractive, scantily clad, and portrayed acting out male sexual fantasies. Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" shows the innocent yet sexy school girl image. This image of beauty promoted in videos, which always includes the pressure to be unrealistically thin, has had a negative impact. Paula Abdul, popular in the early nineties, was a talented singer, dancer, and choreographer who developed bulimia after experiencing pressure from instructors at her dance academy; although physically fit, she was shorter and stockier than the dancers typically featured in music videos.

The media has contributed to this idea that people need to look a certain way to be in the music. Before the music video, the covers of magazines such as Rolling Stone usually featured a musician's face or the musicians with their instruments. Today, many covers show provocative pictures of barely clothed or naked artists. When women appear on the cover, the headlines usually focus on their appearance and fashion; some do not even mention the music itself. Covers featuring male artists, on the other hand, usually sport music-related headlines such as "Monsters of Rock" or "The New Faces in Hip-Hop." Media interviews exhibit the same trend. When the artists walk down the red carpet at award shows, men are asked about their music while women are barraged with the question, "Who are you wearing?" This style of reporting has made fashion more a part of pop music than the music itself, especially for female artists.

This preference for image over talent has left many gifted people out of the scene altogether. C&C Music Factory, in the early nineties, hit it big with the song "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)". The video shows a beautiful woman mouthing the words to the song; however, the voice did not belong to that woman. The singer was Martha Wash of the Weather Girls, a group best known for their classic dance hit "It's Raining Men." Although the Weather Girls were talented vocalists, they were very large women; this excluded them from the appearance-oriented world of the music video. Wash later successfully sued the record company executives who controlled C&C Music Factory, as she had not agreed that her voice would be used for anything but background vocals. Unfortunately, discrimination against people like Martha Wash will continue to happen as long as the music industry caters only to artists who are young, thin, and willing to be portrayed as sex objects rather than real people.

By following the history of popular music from the fifties and sixties to the present post-video era, one can conclude that music videos have had an enormous impact on the industry and its fans. In the past twenty years there has been a dramatic shift in the business's value structure; musical talent and ability have been pushed into the background as beauty, sex, and body image assume the dominant role in popular music today.

Suggested Readings:
Brown, Jane D. & Kenneth Campbell (1986) "Race and gender in music videos: the same beat but a different drummer". In Journal of communication, 36:1, pp. 94-106.

Hansen, Cristine H. & Ranald D. Hansen (1988) "How rock music videos can change what is seen when boy meets girl: priming stereotypic appraisal of social interactions". In Sex roles 19:5/6, pp 287-316.

Jhally, Sut (1994) "Intersections of discourse: MTV, sexual politics, and Dreamworlds". In Viewing, reading, listening. Audiences and cultural reception. Edited by Jon Cruz & Justin Lewis. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 151-168.