A Mastodon Induced Rant: Why I HATE Music Videos

I’m no big fan of prog rockers Mastodon, but I’ve just seen their recent video ‘The Motherload’. And I’m sorry for all you keen fans of MTV, VH1 and other big music channels out there, but I’m going to have to agree with the critics and say this video is a crock of sexist horseshit, laden with ridiculous stereotypes of black women.

And to twist the proverbial knife even further, I’m going to reveal that I am an audiophile who hates music videos to the core.

Like I mentioned in the recent post on Feminist Frequency’s videos on tropes, there are plenty of terrible clichés in music videos that have put me off them almost entirely. And since discovering the ‘artform’ I’ve always asked the question: ‘Do we need music videos? Isn’t music for listening to?’

Music videos for me are a classic example of an ‘unnecessary art’. Most of the videos I watched growing up contain narratives or scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with the song being played. ‘The Motherload’ isn’t a bad song but having to slope to the lowest of the low with that video gave me the impression that Mastodon must be in some sort of crisis. Most likely they’re low on money and want to broaden their airplay on whatever music channels play videos anymore and titillate enough young men to give them their money.

The Male Gaze

One friend best described the ‘Motherload’ video as an example of the ‘male gaze’, a theory derived from film theorist LauraMulvey. This is where the target audience of the film makers is a heterosexual male and the content of the film contains visuals and dialogue that only they can relate to and will titillate.

You could argue that is the case with most music videos with the amount of objectification they contain. However there have been some videos in the past which, arguably, contain sexuality that is owned by the female artists, like Anaconda by Nicki Minaj.

But I’ve already stated my case and will say that I think music videos are boring and are only for marketing and I have to agree with the Rap Critic, that this video may only gain a wide viewership because of idiotic men who can’t be bothered to find real pornography. I see Nicki Minaj as an artist who is owning her body and sexuality and I will disagree with people who deem her a bad influence, even though I can’t stand the music. And dislike how so much of that song is sampled from ‘Baby Got Back’ by Sir Mix-A-Lot, so she might as well be covering his song without giving him something in return.

In the Anaconda video, you can see she is dancing similarly to the women in the Motherload video, but the audience she is trying to reach are not the same as Mastodon are looking for. However it’s going to take a lot more progress before people realize the true nature of Minaj’s video and the song’s message and it makes me wonder why we have music videos in the first place.

Music videos may change but in summary, they shouldn’t have been invented in the first place because music is best enjoyed visually, when you watch it live, in my opinion. The majority of videos contain nothing more than the artist performing or smutty scenes masquerading as art.

Another terrible music video that came out recently was the ‘Booty’ video from Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea. This is another example of an artist stooping to the lowest of the low to gain popularity because it contains nothing more than women shaking their arses for no reason. Plus this ‘song’ was penned by woman beater Chris Brown and Iggy Azalea has a history of sending homophobic and racist tweets as Todd In The Shadows points out in this video.

(And the less I say about Blurred Lines, the better.)

But Can There Be Good Music Videos?

As I said at the beginning, almost all videos are terrible. It’s the need for them that I hate the most because they are just for marketing and undermine the nature of listening to music.

But every now and again you find the odd video where the directors were being a little more creative than usual. The videos I’ve compiled here, in  no particular order, are examples of how you can make an entertaining piece of visual art out of the music industry.

These videos contain none of the smutty clichés of the videos I’ve mentioned, and only a few times feature appearances from the artists. A lot of them feature animation, something I think works wonders if the song’s content centres on a whimsical or fantastic theme.

Take On Me - A-Ha

A very quirky mix of live action and animation, making it one of the most parodied videos of all time.

Around The World - Daft Punk

I was going to put up 'One More Time' but because it's part of an anime film I might have had to upload the whole thing. So here's to their other, more arty piece of media that doesn't involve an appearance from the duo.

Star Trekkin' - The Firm

This one is for all the trekkies and stop motion fans out there. A little comic relief from all the bile spouted here too.

I'm Blue (Da Ba Dee) - Eiffel 65

Back when CGI was a new and radical thing, came this very entertaining video to one very catchy 90s hit.

Pat Stilletto - Alchemy Drive

This was made by my friends' band and stands out as a surrealist piece of music video art by how it's heavily influenced by David Lynch's Eraserhead.

Call of the Wintermoon - Immortal

This is a classic from the heyday of Norwegian Black Metal. It's hilarious and will warm the hearts of any fantasy fiction buff. Apologies for the poor quality as it is over 20 years old.

 

My Thoughts On GamerGate, Christina Moff Sommers & Anita Sarkeesian

I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to put a trigger warning here because this post deals with the infamous Anita Sarkeesian, and I am going to be defending her work on several points. So if you’re offended by what I have to say about the Tropes vs Women videos I suggest you get out of here now. 

With that aside lets get down to business.

I’ve been reading up a lot on the GamerGate scandal which is crawling across the internet. As a person with many feminist opinions on the world and popular culture, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing how many threats are sent to women online just because they spoke their minds on things. 

And furthermore, I am a gamer.  I love PC games in particular and have played hundreds of games in the 24 years I’ve been on this planet.

I also hang out with many video game fans, with whom I do not share the same opinions, but are always up for a debate. And yesterday, one of my friends liked this video posted by conservative feminist (two words I don’t think belong in the same sentence) Christina Hoff Sommers.  I gave the video a watch and came away liking several points raised, but have to say I disagree with Sommers’s attack on Sarkeesian and her ilk. 

Here’s the video:

Now what’s wrong with that argument?

1.      ‘Cherry picking’ in other words, they are finding the flaws and pointing out what is wrong with the games. No games are perfect, but these critics are doing what most journalists would do when they review pieces of art. People criticise sexist, racist, homophobic connotations in film, TV and Books every day – the same way as the critics here are talking about the games. And that doesn’t automatically mean the game falls into those categories, it’s always open to commentary.

2.      By passing them all off as ‘hipsters with culture degrees’ really says a lot about you ‘Sommers’. If you’re just going by someone’s appearance then that really shows how deep and researched your findings are. Plus, are you damning cultural studies? Are you saying social sciences like African American Studies or Native American Studies are irrelevant or narrow? Also, not everyone here has a ‘cultures degree’, all you have to do is go to Sarkeesian’s website and see she has a masters degree in Social and Political Thought. (I’ll jump in here as well and mention that I have a degree in political sciences which majored in Gender Studies and Political theory in my final year – and I listen to tons of Heavy Metal and Independent Rock music and have a beard – does that make me a hipster when I criticise you Sommers?)

3.      ‘They all want the male gamer DEAD!?’ Wow Christine. Words do almost fail me here. Let me just compare the criticisms of gaming tropes to the ongoing threats of rape, murder and torture; which even led to someone creating a game where you could beat Sarkeesian up. Nowhere in any of the videos and blog posts do Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn wish death upon anyone. And let me remind you Sommers, that feminism is about gender equality – how do you gain that when you wish hate and death against a particular part of the gender spectrum? Plus, the video does not even mention, that 41% of the US gaming community alone is now female. You’re pretty much saying, ‘gaming belongs to men, it always has and it always should’. Yet you say it’s becoming more inclusive. The latter point of your contradiction there pretty much gives all the more reason to bring feminism to the gaming world. And as you say, the idea of a gamer being a teenage boy in his basement is gone, therefore people of all walks of life now take part in gaming and everything that comes with it. An ideology that brings equal recognition and respect for all now seems all the more relevant – which is what these critics are trying to bring to us. But frankly Sommers, you are a conservative masquerading as a feminist who is populating the political myth that all feminism is anti-men. I would have thought someone of your calibre would know of the many feminist schools of thought and how they differ on topics, the same way as other ideologies, ie: Anarchism, Socialism, Conservatism, Liberalism, etc.

4.      And finally, yes there have been many well planned and thought provoking criticisms of Sarkeesian et al. but dismissing the jaw dropping number of rape threats, which recently reached a level where Sarkeesian was forced out of her home, as natural behaviour; I cannot fathom how you can call yourself a ‘philosopher’. What you’re saying there can easily amount to ‘victim blaming’ and you are enforcing a bigoted and infantile image of the gaming community which does not fit everyone who has picked up a controller in their life. Hell, even the friend who liked this video is no troll – I even recall him telling me how playing Call of Duty online was such a bad experience because of the number of trolls who only use the game as a forum for exchanging insults. What these gender critics are offering are not demonising diatribes against the games covered in their videos/posts etc. but they represent  a school of thought which should be employed to discuss video gaming. As you said Sommers, video games are now a part of society and should be treated as equally as film, TV and literature. I bet you in the fairly near future, you will have video game narratives analysed from as many schools of thought you find in an English Literature degree course.

5.      And finally, yes Sommers I do agree with you that games do not make people more misogynistic, homophobic or racist. I’ve been defending video games for the best part of my life and the videos and posts covered here will not stop me from gaming. But I think it is unfair to say that gender critics of gaming are expressing the same opinions as your conservative parental advisory comrades have done in the past. What is being covered in the videos are tropes of popular culture. Clichés which make stories boring. Have you even noted that the majority of the games covered by Sarkeesian follow a linear narrative akin to a film, TV show, etc. Video gaming is best summed up as ‘interactive storytelling’, though not all kinds of games are being covered in these videos. I can safely say, that in a lot of games you can pick how the narrative pans out, but because of the logistics of a game, your pathways are limited. This might be why a lot of the games I play fall into the RTS genre, because you can tell as many stories as you like using as much of your imagination because you aren’t always faced with an immediate cast of characters – characters who populate said tropes. Storytelling being bad is what I think the feminist frequency series is talking about more than anything.

 Is there any middle-ground in this GamerGate malarkey?

 While I do like the debate and concern raised by Sarkeesian, I don’t see her as the face of 21^stcentury feminism, nor of feminism on the internet.

I’ve been tracking down as many feminist criticisms of her work and I think the best place to go for this is The Learned Fangirl. It’s a pop culture and video games blog run by Kristin Bezio, a feminist video gamer and academic, who by a long shot offers the best criticisms of the Tropes vs. Women videos. If you want to go somewhere that discusses all this without being trolled by MRAs then try The Learned Fangirl.

One thing I really hate about Sarkeesian’s videos is their tendency to act like a ‘laundry list’ that can sometimes become monotonous in saying ‘this game is bad, this character is awful, etc.’, and I do doubt a lot of the sources used in researching the videos. 

  

How bad is GamerGate proving for Video Game journalism?

What worries me the most about these ‘gamers’ attacking video game critics, is that it will turn away young and enthusiastic people from entering the world of video game journalism – especially young women. 

From my experiences on YouTube, it now appears that the favoured medium of reviewing a game is a Let’s Play video. This is good and I see it as another step on the road to interaction between media and fans which could create a people’s run community that recommends new material. But, if you’re constantly under attack from infantile anti-equality slacktivists who don’t like change, then I’m very angry if this creates a feeling of dread in young online journalists who feel anxious to publish their opinions on a game.

And how do we know such feelings will cross over from the video game world into other worlds of online journalism, like music. As a music journalist, I’ll be very very pissed off if what I’ve just suggested comes into the world of Metal or Punk or any kind of music for that matter.

GamerGate is reinforcing an idea that gamers are whiny little snot-noses with nothing better to do than be as obnoxious as possible. And I will add that I sometimes get that impression from a few of Sarkeesian’s videos. But GamerGate is, above all, the prime example of why we need gender equality on the internet and in the gaming world. And Sommers, a self proclaimed ‘philosopher’ just had to step in the bullshit and feed the trolls with the impression that they are smart.

So why do I watch Sarkeesian’s videos?

Above all other things, I watch the Feminist Frequency videos because they are tackling clichés which amount to bad storytelling. 

I view myself as a learned man and would like to be seen as a representative of his age. And that age is one where tropes such as the Damsel in Distress, The Manic Dream Pixie Girl, The Straw Feminist, Women in Refrigerators and GratuitousViolence and Sex masquerading as satire; are not commonplace.

I feel Sarkeesian is that critic we needed to spark the debate on the portrayal of women in popular culture. And whether or not you agree with her, she has got us all talking about video games in a way that not all of us did before the videos were made.

And I’ll leave it here saying: if you disagree with her on every level, that’s fine. Please make your argument known and use as much information you can to back it up. But resorting to threats of violence, rape, torture, bombing or plain rudeness is completely and utterly bogus. I don’t want the gaming world seen as evil and childish and I bet you don’t either. That is why online harassment is not OK in the slightest and it will never have my support.