Charlotte Church attacks 'sexist' music industry

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24528022

Charlotte Church attacks 'sexist' music industry

The music industry has a "culture of demeaning women" that forces stars to sell themselves as sex objects, according to singer Charlotte Church.

Church said she was "pressurised" into wearing revealing outfits in videos by male executives when she was 19 or 20.

Now 27, the star said young female artists were routinely "coerced into sexually demonstrative behaviour in order to hold on to their careers".

She made her comments during BBC 6 Music's annual John Peel Lecture.

Her stinging attack on sexism in the music industry comes amid a heated debate over the sexual imagery used by pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Rihanna.

The music business is "a male dominated industry with a juvenile perspective on gender and sexuality" and increasingly wants "sex objects that appear child-like", Church claimed.

The star accused record labels of encouraging young singers "to present themselves as hypersexualised, unrealistic, cartoonish, as objects, reducing female sexuality to a prize you can win".

She continued: "When I was 19 or 20 I found myself in this position, being pressurised into wearing more and more revealing outfits.

"The lines that I had spun at me again and again - generally by middle-aged men - were: 'You look great, you've got a great body, why not show it off?'

"Or: 'Don't worry, it will look classy, it will look artistic.' I felt deeply uncomfortable about the whole thing, but I was often reminded by record label executives just whose money was being spent."

She recalled feeling "massively uncomfortable" about dancing suggestively in little more than a basque and knee-high boots in the video for her single Call My Name in 2005.

"Whilst I can't defer all blame away from myself, I was barely out of my teenage years and the consequence of this portrayal of me is that now I'm frequently abused on social media, being called slut, whore and a catalogue of other indignities," she said.

"Now I find it difficult to promote my music in the places it would be best suited because of my history."

(continued)

[MarkS]

Sounds about right. I notice a regular feature of mainstream female recording artists seems to be: innocent schoolgirl (probably trained by Disney) "grows up" by a year or two and comes out as a sexy type performer. But young ambitious people are, i suppose, easy to manipulate in a situation where they think they have to play ball to get what they want. Probably a lot of them don't even care.

Not a very good lookout for serious female artists though.

[Audley Strange]

I have to admit I do agree with that quite a bit. I recall reading a discussion years ago, I think in NME or Select Magazine about a young American singer who was being encouraged to date "Bad Boy Film Stars" by the Record Company to project a sexy image. She was 19 at the time and they were trying to get her to date someone in his mid-thirties. She went out for a few dates with him and then it was onto the next one. It seemed from her descriptions almost like procurement to me and she said she felt like she was being passed around. She had some popular career for a while then went all indie. I wish I could remember who it was.

I'd imagine for folks like Miley Cyrus Taylor Swift etc it's no better.

[PsychoSerenity]

[Seabass]

The article makes some valid points, but I do think it's a bit unfair to absolve the parents of all guilt, and lay all blame at the feet of the music industry.

I also think it's unfair to vilify the entire music industry. Outside of mainstream pop, artists can generally wear whatever they want. Unless of course they're in a symphony orchestra or choir.

[samphony]

Boo fucking hoo. If twats like Church can't work out the game at 18 or 19 years of age then get out. Just say no - it really is that simple...but then all that money, attention...someone else will enjoy it. Yes, enjoy it.

Don't think for a second that Church's management haven't approved her latest remarks. Having harvested the child star then rebellious, sexy teen markets they're now repositioning her for the next big play. Watch Cyrus' team do the same in about 2020.

[cronus]

America needs to clean out its entertainment closet like the UK is doing, amazing how many dirty old men infest the pop/rock industry. They don't only hold back female artists they could be the reason popular culture is dumbing down and explain a lot of the idiocracy.

[JimC]

Pop videos are simply a branch of the advertising industry, and have as much connection to art as my left testicle has to the theory of relativity...

[samphony]

Pop videos are simply a branch of the advertising industry, and have as much connection to art as my left testicle has to the theory of relativity...

Imagine someone bouncing your left testicle on a moving train...

[Tyrannical]

Ironic that before women's rights, this type of sexual exploitation by men wouldn't be tolerated, and people would be looking at jail time for immoral behavior. Now that women have equality, men routinely sexually exploit them through the mass media.

[Audley Strange]

Boo fucking hoo. If twats like Church can't work out the game at 18 or 19 years of age then get out. Just say no - it really is that simple...but then all that money, attention...someone else will enjoy it. Yes, enjoy it.

Don't think for a second that Church's management haven't approved her latest remarks. Having harvested the child star then rebellious, sexy teen markets they're now repositioning her for the next big play. Watch Cyrus' team do the same in about 2020.

All of this is valid, I agree.

However in some cases those kids are bred to be entertainers and are conditioned by domineering parents, agents etc to conform to such at an early age. As you point out, many of them are child stars first and I do get the feeling that some of these people, not all of them but some, are pressurised for so long from all sides to conform that looking back it does seem like exploitation.

She still has a point though. She's a singer all the rest of the marketing bullshit all that "sexy teen" shit they play with is not pertinent to her talent and is not about her selling records, but rather selling an image that she may or may not have been comfortable with. I said years ago, upon first seeing Britney Spears video "Hit me baby one more time" that the song and video were so questionable" that they probably had to have someone who was broken in the first place to do it and that she was likely to end up going off the rails.

[Coito ergo sum]

Forces? Hardly.

I bet the "pressurization" came from the mere fact that if she didn't dress and act sexily, the producers would find someone else who would. Big deal? Hardly.

Grown women can fend off that kind of pressure just like men can. By Church's logic the porn industry "pressurizes" women to get naked and have sex on film because if they didn't, then they wouldn't be hired to do the movies.

Yes, the music business sexualizes women, and men, but that's what customers apparently want. They want to lust after their pop idols, and it's been happening since Elvis shook his pelvis. The skirts get shorter, and now Miley Cyrus twerks and sits naked on a wrecking ball to sell albums. Nobody is "forcing" this to happen. If they are, then call the police because they ought to be in jail. It's only be stretching the definition of "force" to include financial pressure that the logic holds. If I'm going to sponsor a recording artist, and part of my requirement is that she wear a bikini all the time, then it's not "force" to require Charlotte Church to wear a bikini. She doesn't have to do it. She only has to do it if I'm going to pay for her record album.

[cronus]

Forces? Hardly.

I bet the "pressurization" came from the mere fact that if she didn't dress and act sexily, the producers would find someone else who would. Big deal? Hardly.

Grown women can fend off that kind of pressure just like men can. By Church's logic the porn industry "pressurizes" women to get naked and have sex on film because if they didn't, then they wouldn't be hired to do the movies.

Yes, the music business sexualizes women, and men, but that's what customers apparently want. They want to lust after their pop idols, and it's been happening since Elvis shook his pelvis. The skirts get shorter, and now Miley Cyrus twerks and sits naked on a wrecking ball to sell albums. Nobody is "forcing" this to happen. If they are, then call the police because they ought to be in jail. It's only be stretching the definition of "force" to include financial pressure that the logic holds. If I'm going to sponsor a recording artist, and part of my requirement is that she wear a bikini all the time, then it's not "force" to require Charlotte Church to wear a bikini. She doesn't have to do it. She only has to do it if I'm going to pay for her record album.

I've noticed the women complaining appear all past their shelf life. That isn't to say they've got it wrong. I think women can cause men to have concentration issues. Years ago what women wore(or not) didn't bother me. Now I'd rather they cover up. No need to go the full binbag but sophisticated dress....like that fifties look myself, enough on show without giving away the prize.