Booty by JLo Critique

Hundreds of years ago, American women were expected to be submissive and assume a role in the private sphere of the home. However, over the past century women have constantly been advocating for equal right and have gotten closer and closer to gender equality. While progress has been made, there are still a handful of types of stereotypes that women are expected to fit into. One of the most prominent, and damaging stereotypes is that of the sex object. A woman who is a sex object is only values for her seuxal attractiveness. One contemporary example of culture reinforcing this stereotype is the song "Booty" by Jennifer Lopez. Every aspect of the song and the video that accompanies it goes against principles that women have been fighting for. The music video for “Booty” perpetuates the stereotype of women as sex objects by emphasizing the importance of women having sex appeal through a big butt.

As soon as the music starts playing, images of Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea shaking their asses in bikinis start flashing. Literally the entire video is a collage of the two women showing off their asses. While it is good to be comfortable with your body, the video only leaves the impression that a woman's butt is the most important part of her body and nothing else is of value. If that message seemed subtle with the video by itself, it becomes very clear when you listen to the lyrics. For starters, the word booty is second most used word with a total of 36 uses, second only to the word big, used 66 times. Together these two words make up nearly half of the entire song. The song has an underlying repetitive nature, drilling the concept of a big booty into the listeners head. Not only does the song try to make women with big butts appealing, but aims to make women without big butts feel inferior. Near the end of the song Iggy Azalea says, "But fact we girls with the big fat booty too fancy to every play fair". This verse makes it seem like having a larger rear makes a woman somehow above the rest of the female race.

The main problem with songs like "Booty" that only talk about women's body parts (in this case the ass) is that they take away all the power from a woman's personality and actions. Only being appraised for being a sex object slowly devalues a person's character. Sexual attractiveness may be necessary for short term passion, but it isn't how real long lasting connections are made.  In addition to that, women without the features deamed attractive are made to feel inferior by society. These stereotypes also influence men by impacting what they think should be inportant about a woman. Overall, the trend of pop songs to which "Booty" is a part of is reinforcing the idea of valuing women for a certain physical trait, an idea which destroys the integrity of the female personality.

"Booty" by Jennifer Lopez feat. Iggy Azalea