WHAT’S HIP, WHAT’S HOP? DISHARMONIZED REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER IN MUSIC VIDEOS

Media representations of gender have always been an avenue forcontestations in feminist media studies. feminists have been concernedwith how preoccupied the media are with women’s appearancesand bodies whilst at the same time giving focus to what mendo with them. more often than not, the media emit a particularcultural message: men are players and master, while women areobjects and subject. such a message is abundant in popular musicvideos consumed by most young people today, including those inmalaysia. a content analysis study of three hip-hop music videosthat had the highest ratings in the mtv chart during the fourthweek of january 2007 – that’s that, dangerous, and tell me -discovered various oppressed representations of the female, whilemen are represented as powerful and central to everything. thehip-hop music videos focus on the female bodies (‘hip’) and howmen behave towards them (‘hop’). such representations belittlethe increasing effort of malaysian policy makers to propagate genderharmony in the home, the workplace and society at large. whatare the implications of such media consumption on the genderconsciousness and sensitivity of young malaysians? the articleexplores this issue based on a focus group discussion of male andfemale students in universiti kebangsaan malaysia.