The song serves as a feminist anthem, encouraging young girls to be independent and depend on no one but themselves. They mention successful women like Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, which shows that women can also be bosses, not just men. The Fifth Harmony proudly sing about the fact that they don’t need a man as they “pledge allegiance to my independent girls.” They prove they mean business and show off their fiery side by beating the men in arm wrestling matches, kicking off chairs in their white jackets and shimmering in style during photo shoots. The ladies compare themselves to the first lady Michelle Obama because of their heavy purses and the “Oprah dollars.”
My show and tell partner and I chose this video, because this video tells that men should respect women for their body appearance. We see nowadays that women are being portrayed in hip hop songs as slutty and nasty, which is totally rude. The whole point of the song is for girls who are the about the ages of the Fifth Harmony band is to turn it on and feel confident because at that age, being insecure is a normal thing. The lyrics like “Every day is pay day, swipe my card and do nae nae” tells the audience that the women care about money and then after they do the ‘nae nae’ which means dance in excitement. The lyrics like “I ain’t thirsty for a bae” shows us that the ladies don’t care about their ex-boyfriend and they want to be independent and free. So this song sends positive messages to all girls of their age to be independent, strong and never give up.
Music videos can be very important to a song, but the song itself doesn’t change at all once it’s played over a video. Popular music tends to get a bad reputation for being lazy, over-sexualized, stereotypical, and for being performed by stars who apparently “have no talent.” It’s also often stated that pop isn’t “real music.” One of the many beauties of music is that there’s something for everyone. Not everyone enjoys pop music, and that’s okay. But saying that someone else’s method of expressing themselves is invalid just because some people don’t like it is unnecessary and ignorant. There is no such thing as “real music” or “fake music.” Pop is a valid genre of music and being a pop singer is a valid career. Writing, producing, and performing pop songs isn’t as easy as it seems.
Fifth Harmony is made up of five young women between the ages of 17 and 21. Our culture has tons of varying “expectations” on how young women should look and behave that often create double standards and the unnecessary pressure to fit an unattainable perfect image. The girls of Fifth Harmony appear proud and confident of their bodies and personal values, which is what the song is all about. Women constantly have to prove themselves in order to get respect, but men often get rights and respect just handed to them.
Of course, women face tons of stigma in our society based on appearance and personal sex life. The outfits that the women wear in this video make them look sexy and proud of their bodies. Not every woman, or any other person, is comfortable or confident enough to wear things like that, so it only makes sense that dressing this way should be celebrated instead of ridiculed.
The whole idea that female public figures need to be perfect role models for young girls everywhere is ridiculous. First of all, nobody should live their life solely based on how someone else lives their life. That’s not how life works. It also creates unneeded pressure on female celebrities when they already have enough to deal with every day. When people talk about these famous “role models” they only seem to talk about the effect it has on women, especially young women, but no other gender. Treating young women this way almost gives them the idea that they aren’t smart enough to live their own life, so they have to look up to someone else to choose how they live their life. Fifth Harmony proves that never needs to be the case. Women have just as much power as men do.
It’s really sad that our culture views women as degrading and trashy when they just want to show off their body a little bit (or a lot.) Even if a woman really is a stripper or a pornstar, that doesn’t give anyone the right to give them complete disrespect. Nobody deserves that.
Fifth Harmony is a group of extremely talented and beautiful, strong women. This song and music video served its purpose and the entire production was done remarkably well. Despite all the stigma surrounding something like this, it shows a truthful, positive image of pop culture today.
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