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Description
Hairspray, tight pants, and rock and roll, but that was primarily the men on MTV during the 1980s. While men represented approximately 90% of the artists aired on MTV, women artists created a different dialogue on the channel that was both meaningful and visually appealing. Female artists used self-fashioning to create personas that enabled them to create new dialogues about gender through the misogynistic medium of MTV. The videos by men on MTV were primarily about sex with women being objectified. Women artists changed the dialogue on MTV from women being sexual objects to one where they were the subjects. They created videos using the female gaze that addressed female sexual agency, sexual diversity, and female empowerment that included dialogues about the strength to leave abusive relationships. These new messages about female agency foreshadowed third wave feminism. This thesis traces the rise and construction of glam metal music in Los Angeles in the 1980s and the effect it had upon MTV. Music videos by female artists or bands with female leads such as Berlin, 'Til Tuesday, Romeo Void, Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper, and Joan Jett illustrate competing dialogue that emerged by women artists on MTV from 1981-1988. Music videos, memoirs, and interviews from women and male artists of the 1980s were analyzed, using the methods of post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, visual analysis, and textual analysis. The 1980s were a hostile time in the United States for feminists; however, this group of female artists crafted personas that enabled them to visually interest viewers and to promote feminist issues on a misogynistic medium that was MTV.
