Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506060024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK GUNTHER KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This isn't exactly new. Critics have complained for years that music videos portray women as little more than sex objects. Now, though, some people are taking action to counter the attitude of music videos.
Kenneth Yates, a businessman and TV producer, runs a channel called Z Music Television that promises music videos with Christian themes that won't degrade or exploit women.
And Sut Jhally, a Massachusetts College professor, has produced a 55-minute educational video tape for students and parents designed to challenge the images delivered by MTV and VH-1.
Says Yates, ``Television today carries so many negative images, images of violence and immorality. Z Music Television offers the positive alternative.''
And Jhally says, ``We need to start educating kids about the cultural environment we live in.''
MTV, for its part, says the images of women in music videos have improved over the years - and that the network remains sensitive to the issue. But Carole Robinson, an MTV vice president, says MTV and VH-1 reflect a pop music culture which has always been partly about sexuality - going back to Elvis. ``There's a big difference between sexy and sexist,'' Robinson says. ``Sexuality has been a part of music forever, and it will continue to be.''
Perhaps so, but Yates, 47, who produced the ``We Are the World'' video, hopes to offer a wholesome alternative in Z Music Television. The 24-hour Nashville-based network premiered in 1993, and now reaches about 27 million homes, although some cable operators run it for just a few hours a day.
Z calls itself ``positively radical.'' ``It's music that provides answers,'' says Yates. ``The lyrics provide hope and encouragement. It's music that makes you feel good, and inspires you to look within yourself and your own resourcefulness to deal with your problems. Look to improving your life by giving to others. Acknowledge that there are spiritual values in life that you can turn to.... It's a radically different message. It goes against the grain.''
The channel isn't preachy, though. Take the name, which grew out of research that found most people think Z is the most exciting, liveliest and distinctive letter of the alphabet. (Q and K aren't far behind.) Yates says, ``If the network were to be called Christian Music Television, that probably would turn off a lot of youth.''
The music is entirely contemporary. There's an afternoon rap show, and a late-night program called ``Brimstone Chronicles'' aimed at youths in their teens and 20s who are attracted to what Yates calls ``the music nobody else can stand,'' such as heavy metal.
Z's prospects are bright: The Christian music business is growing rapidly, accounting for about 5 to 7 percent of all music sales in the U.S. And Z is a unit of Gaylord Entertainment, which also owns TNN (the Nashville Network) and CMT (Country Music Television).
Jhally, 40, approaches the issue of music videos from a different perspective - that of an academic who believes corporations like MTV, VH-1 and major record companies use powerful sexual imagery to grab the attention of viewers and sell their wares.
He has produced ``Dreamworld 2: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Videos,'' an updated version of a 1991 video, to show how limited women's roles are in music videos. Most often, he reports, women are backup singers, dancers, strippers, prostitutes and exhibitionists, frequently seen in various states of undress.
Jhally says, ``When you look at hundreds of videos," the story "is that women are principally defined through their beauty and their bodies. That's sexist, not sexy.''
Among other things, Jhally examines the techniques used to present women in videos - how the cameras pan the female form and isolate breasts or legs, reducing women to ``simply body parts, to be watched and used.'' Typically, the women appear to revel in the attention.
Jhally says he doesn't object to the sexuality in music videos, but wishes it were more varied, to reflect diverse experiences and viewpoints. In the meantime, he says, the best that parents can do is talk with kids about the images they see so they can promote critical viewing. He has sold his video to PTAs and colleges,
Censorship is probably the worst parental response, if only because it's a hopeless strategy. ``If these images aren't on cable, they're in magazines,'' Jhally says. ``Or in commercials. There's no way you can block it out.''
The video ``Dreamworlds 2'' can be ordered from the Media Education Foundation, 26 Center St., Northampton, Mass. 01060. Prices range from $75 for individuals to $195 for colleges. The foundation's telephone number is (413) 586-4170.
by CNB