“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
Celebrities are influencers who influence people to be more like them and what they stand for. The image these women have crafted for themselves, and these women are influencers of their audience. Is their image one that is ruining women (doing more harm then good, degrading women, ruining women socially or psychologically, negatively affecting a woman’s valuation of herself)?
Every generation is becoming more and more hyper-sexualized all by themselves. Sure, maybe it’s because celebrities are portraying themselves more “sexily” than ever these days, but it probably has more to do with the extreme ease that content can spread across the world. Our easily impressionable youth learn about things much earlier in their lives than they used to.
The birds and the bees? Is that ever still told anymore to children? I myself still don’t know what the story is. And I’m pretty sure the young girls I ever interacted with don’t either – but they do learn fast what guys like and how to make themselves more attractive to them. Celebrities are probably to some extent playing off of the fact that they can be popular by being “adult” – by looking “hot” and being “sexy” or “sexual.” Then it might become somewhat of a vicious cycle. We learn from each other.
Second of all, not all celebrities portray themselves the same way, especially with the recent & ongoing backlash against impossible body image standards. There are the Miley Cyruses in the world, but there are also the Jennifer Lawrences in the world. Young women see both, and they can form an opinion on which image is better.
And on that note, even if they can’t form an opinion on which image is better themselves, the media does it for them. When Miley Cyrus shamed herself at the VMAs, people were so horrified and critical. Women across the world likely subconsciously etched into their minds that doing such a thing was not a good idea.
However, then you have Jennifer Lawrence: she trips up stairs and laughs at herself, she speaks whatever is on her mind, she drinks and eats whatever, and in all of it, she’s incredibly graceful. The world loves her. The media loves her. She’s young, beautiful, and real – and whether or not that’s her marketing image doesn’t matter at all. Women across the world probably consider her more of a role model and influencer.
So you have two spectrums and a guiding force. I think it is safe to say that even if women for some reason decide, no, Miley Cyrus and trying too hard to be sexy is better than dignity and grace, society will push them. And if that’s just who they are or end up being, then that’s their problem.
So what is a pop stars life about? Does he or she have to play an exemplary role to society, that is to stay behave normally, or on the contrary, the whole story is about the strectching of the boundaries, finding new horizons, forgetting odd, ingrained patterns which may be considered hypocritical and redundant? Art was always a form of resistance against the rigid expectations of the society, the status quo, am I right? Let’s see 6 of the top popstars of our time:
6. Britney Spears
The singer’s first clip was the “…Baby One More Time” in 1999. She formed a bored high school student, who of course is also terribly hot, despite her odd hair style.
Seventeen years passed since then, and Spears made a retro trip to the eighties in her latest music video last year, in Pretty Girls which she perfomed together with Iggy Azalea (but if you are wondering what the last clip is like, in which she is only somehow cool, is the Perfume from 2013, can be viewed online).
5. Christina Aguilera
She also opened in 1999, with the Genie In A Bottle, especially in a music video where she tumbles on the ocean shore, or she seems bored in a house.
Fortunately, at the end she finds good company for dancing. Her recent clip appeared in 2013, this is Let There Be Love – and she does not even appear in the clip after the introduction. Instead, the fans send messages to the world of beauty, love, acceptance, equality.
4. Beyoncé
The singer was still singing in the Destiny’s Child when the first clip was ready, this was No, no, no, and it was already obvious that she had a larger individuality than to be a singer among many singers in a girl’s team.
Her last clip is Formation where she lingers which long, consciously and with plesaure on the pop culture pedestal which she won meanwhile.
3. Taylor Swift
Ten years have passed between her first and last clip, and the change in style is incredibly impressive: she became a hot priestess conquering all natural forces from the wavy haired country girl who wallowed in negliges on the lakeside.
Check out Taylor’s new video “New Romantics” off her multi-platinum release 1989.
2. Lady Gaga
The first clip of the singer is Just Dance from 2008, which made several things clear: she likes to dress weird, she likes to tell stories in a clip and she has a very, very good voice.
Her last classic clip is Applause from 2013, which in turn has made it clear that Lady Gaga still likes to do the same, but she improved in it (her most recent publication is Till It Happens To You, but this mainly consists of documentary details).
1. Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus’ sassy, exuberant sexiness cajole many of us. Her birth name was Destiny Hope Cyrus. His parents thought with this name she will surely accomplish great deeds.
She played the role of Hannah Montana in the famous TV series. His dad was also a famous singer, but in another style: country. Miley -who has heart problems by the way- is even richer then her dad. She lived in Canada for 3 years.
The reason many people buy pop records, is that pop artists are aiming to sell lots of records. The clue is in the name of the genre – popular music. It’s not like all musical artists set out with the same aim, and then some just happen to sell more records than others. Pop artists are making a conscious effort to write songs that will be popular with the masses. They know what sells and what doesn’t, and will bear this in mind while writing.
Pop artists are making a conscious effort to write songs that will be popular with the masses. They know what sells and what doesn’t, and will bear this in mind while writing. Likewise, other artists are fully aware that by writing certain kinds of music, they are never gonna be as popular as people like Bieber.
They just don’t care about that, and they’d rather express themselves in their particular way, regardless of whether or not the maximum possible number of people will buy their records. Pop music is very much a ‘genre’, which has certain expectations that must be adhered to. If you don’t do these things, you risk alienating a portion of your potential audience…
If you want to write a pop song, you want as many potential listeners as possible. Therefore you will probably want to keep the songs to subjects everyone can relate to. Not only that the writers of pop music (which it’s important to note – isn’t actually the artists themselves in many cases) are very clued up on psychology – they know how people work and what they like, and are writing with this in mind. For example, pop writers may write a song about how much of a stupid idiot your ex boyfriend or girlfriend is.
Most people will have experienced this, and so they’ll be able to relate to the song. Right there you basically have a potential audience of almost everyone on the planet – no one is excluded. A song like that is also not ‘challenging’ the audience in any way, in fact it’s making them feel good about themselves. Subconsciously they’re thinking “yeah, Justin I am so in the right, my ex is such a douche“. This is especially effective on kids and teenagers, who tend to think in very self centred ways. In general they are fixated on their own relationships and emotions, and will therefore buy music that is written about those things.