The ‘Hotline Bling’ topic students should be talking about
November 4, 2015
If dance is intended to evoke emotions from the audience, Drake definitely accomplishes this goal in his music video for “Hotline bling”—as long as the emotions are confusion and perhaps a bit of discomfort. The music video, released Oct. 19 on Apple Music, set the internet ablaze with memes and discussion posts focused on the rapper’s unchoreographed, and entertaining, solo dance scenes.
The director of the music video, Director X, defended Drake’s moves in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying “real men dance.” Director X went on to point out that men in particular often feel too self-conscious to dance and tend to focus on their image rather than simply having a good time.
While Drake’s carefree dance moves do not stand up to the likes of Michael Jackson, it is admirable and refreshing that instead of trying to look cool, he’s dancing without contemplation of viewer’s opinions and judgement.
Though this is great and all, many of us can get down with the idea of not caring too much about what others think, and guys should not think twice about their dance moves. Unless they’re in a tutu. However, if “Hotline Bling” is a depiction of a “real man,” what does this say about real women?
Every female featured in the music video, which is not being shown through many of the recent parodies of Drake’s video, have something in common: they are all adorned with considerably large gluteus muscles—that’s “booty” in Drakespeak. The video opens with a scene of a call center with only female employees. All of the ladies wear a matching uniform of tight, high-waisted jeans and a cropped, pink top that shows off their assets, and they can be seen answering phone calls, twirling their hair and taking selfies.
Another questionable scene shows only their silhouettes while they dance in slow motion and pose in unnatural, sexual positions. The use of silhouettes and matching outfits takes away the women’s individual identities and portrays them as props more than human beings.
One woman in the video, a professional dancer, has more impressive moves than Drake himself. Yet in the scenes she shares with the rapper, she is treated as more of a sexual object than a dance partner. Yet again, another scene that many students fail to see because of its loss in the mocking videos of Drake’s moves. Drake can be seen picking her up while she straddles him and using her buttox as a pillow while she lies on the floor and twerks.
Unfortunately, overly sexualized depictions of women is the norm in the hip-hop genre and the music industry in 2015, in general. Although many people praise the curve-loving movement led by women like Nicki Minaj for moving away from the thin, model-type bodies typically seen in popular culture, it’s just a step in a different, but still demoralizing, direction.
Body movements encouraging women to love their curves and widespread images of thin models all contradict each other. Instead, women, and everyone else, should be reminded to love themselves for who they are and not what they look like.
Ideally, this attitude will one day be adopted by the masses and people will stop talking about the female physicality altogether.
After all, women are more than just bodies.