Music Videos: Imagery and Lyrics

Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
Beyoncé - Run the World (Girls)

Cultural appropriation is a sociological concept which views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture as a largely negative phenomenon. With the wide variety of cultures in our country, people adopt styles, music, foods, and many other cultural traditions from one another. Although there are some instances where accepting and adopting parts of different cultures can be positive, i.e. multicultural restaurants or fashion trends, sometimes this idea can be taken too far. Many popular artists are guilty of cultural appropriation in the lyrics of their songs, music videos, and fashion statements. I found two music videos that can be used as examples of this concept, Shake It Off by Taylor Swift and Run the World by Beyonce.

The first music video is a recent song from Taylor Swift, a pop singer and feminist. The song, Shake It Off was instantly a hit due to the catchy rhythm and light hearted lyrics. In the music video, Swift has a variety of costumes in the scenes. The ones that stand out are a break dancing scene where she is dressed in a flat top hat, leather pants, a varsity jacket, and holding a boom box. There are men behind her of different races posed in attire similar to hers with “tough” looks on their faces. In another scene she is dancing in an animal print cropped jacket, with layered gold jewelry and big gold hoop earrings. In this scene there are women of different races shaking their butts behind her. The ending of the video is a group of people in everyday outfits dancing with Swift. The beginning of the video exemplifies cultural appropriation because of the highlighted racial and cultural stereotypes.

The second music video is from Beyoncé’s recent top hit, Run the World. This video is an example of cultural appropriation and hegemony for a variety of reasons. The scenes are of women dressed in gladiator attire. The women encounter men ready for battle and Beyoncé begins dancing sexually in front of them. The attire is also sexual in many of the scenes including one where they dancing are in lingerie and heels. The video contradicts the lyrics of this song which is supposed to promote female empowerment, however the sexual dancing and costumes portray submissiveness or using sexual demeanor to have the upper hand against males.

Both music videos are surprising for the artists who are known feminists. If these pop culture icons strive to relay feminist messages to the public, it would help for them to avoid cultural appropriate or hegemony in their videos, watched by millions.