Women, violence and postfeminism in Madonna’s music videos

Abstract

Several authors identify the 1990s as a turning point in gender representation in the media. Women have been depicted more diversely since then. In recent years, this has had a bearing on the idea of empowerment, which has been redefined as far as women's representations are concerned. This renewed capability women are currently ascribed appears to be linked to their equally revived sexual agency —but also to an aggressive kind of behavior and to violence— within an overall individualistic framework. By way of illustration of how this transformation has manifested itself, we think Madonna's music videos to be much to the point as to how significant these traits have become in shaping today's new femininities and, more specifically, as to how empowerment is being increasingly linked to violent attitudes and demeanors. We have chosen Madonna in view of her being a truly global popular culture icon, but also because of her long career in pop music and how much interest she has drawn from scholars in gender studies. In an analysis of four of her music videos —two from the early 1990s and two from the 2000s— we have found how, over the years, Madonna has changed the way she characterizes herself vis-à-vis violence, from a position of violence's victim to one of executioner/avenger. As a victim, in spite of the power of her seductiveness, she could not escape her subordinated condition. However, in her later vindication as a tough woman, she (her on-screen persona, that is) overindulges in a personal, individual (and suicidal) revenge on men, while (resorting to seduction) reaffirming herself in her (quintessentially post-feministic) role as a triumphant female.