Britney Spears

Britney Spears 'Work B**ch' music video came out in October 2013 causing more attention for the pop star yet again. In the video Spears over sexualizes her female backup dancers by is having them wear sexy leather outfits, hitting some of them with a whip, having them on leash while wearing animal ears acting like dogs, and a girl being gagged with a huge white Dr. Dre beats pill. But even though there are these elements at least Spears is wearing just as revealing outfits and her and her dancers do most of the same dance moves. When she performs on stage she sexualizes the male backup dancers just as much as her female dancers. One example of this is was during her Onyx Hotel Tour, "Britney Spears's white terry-cloth robe dropped to the floor, revealing a sequin-covered body stocking. She stepped into a bathtub that, like her bodysuit, was see-through. In shadow to her left, like silhouettes seen through hotel room windows, men and women in beds mimed passionate sex with one another.

Beneath them a man wearing only tight white briefs splayed his legs and gyrated on a bed. After her mock bath Ms. Spears, wearing a pink bra and panties, rolled around in bed with him as two male dancers to their left took off each other's pants and danced suggestively together.". 

Sarah R.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/arts/pop-review-suds-sequins-and-even-a-little-song-from-spears.html

Offline Source

Hypersexualized Women Say "Come Hither" http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=120c24bc-ac80-4b88-bb54-8b0863fe6bd5%40sessionmgr113&vid=8&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=69861448

In this article, the sociologists state that the sexualization of men and women in pop culture has increased in recent years. It is common for performers to use their sexuality to gain fans, however this is becoming more common amongst women. The article gives statistics showing that over the years the male performers are less sexualized and the women performers are increasingly used as sexual objects. This directly relates to how the performers tend to use male backup dancers versus their female backup dancers. As seen in many of our posts, the performers tend to use men extras on stage while the female backup dancers are increasingly sexualized to the point of sexual objectification.

Rihanna

In Rihanna's early stages as an artist, she was not as sexual as she is today. Rihanna, especially in this video is wearing more clothes than she usually does. Her background dancers were not sexualized in Pon de Replay as they are in her music videos today. In Pon de Replay there are many background dancers and they are all wearing proper clothing and not dancing in provocative ways. This compared to her newer music videos such as Cockiness. 

As Rihanna matured as an artist, so did the content in her music videos. In Cockiness, not only Rihanna is sexualized, but her background dancers are as well. Compared to Pon de Replay, where she had many background dancers, both male and female, she now goes to having just a few female background dancers. This makes the message  of her music video seem more sexual and derogatory of women. 

Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake ‘Suit and Tie’ music video the male backup dancers, Timberlake, and Jay-z are all wearing suit and bow ties, the male backup dancers are doing the same dance moves as Timberlake and are being sexualized at all throughout the whole video. While the female backup dancers on the other hand are being sexualized by wearing skimpy lingerie, while sensually dancing with a microphone stand and rolling around and more sensual dancing on the floor in a pool of water. Timberlake’s music video for his song ‘Tunnel Vision’ was banned from YouTube last summer for violating the nudity policies. The music video features Timberlake and Timberland goggling at three nude female British models walking around and, “The models danced around strategically covering themselves at points with their arms and were also partially obscured by mist.” This video is said to follow in the footsteps of Robin Thicke’s unrated music video for his song ‘Blurred Lines’, which was also banned from YouTube.  But in one of his appearances on Saturday Night Live Timberlake got a chance to be a sexualized like a female backup dancer by doing a skit with Beyoncé in one of the 2008 episodes. The skit showed Timberlake, Andy Samberg, and Bobby Moynihan replacing Beyoncé’s female backup dancers for her ‘Single Ladies’ music video and yes they still wear the leotards and high heels.

Sarah R.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2355433/Justin-Timberlakes-new-Tunnel-Vision-video-gets-banned-featuring-topless-models.html

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1603682/justin-timberlake-on-coaxing-beyonce-into-snl-skit.jhtml

Britney/Justin Differences and Comparisons

Throughout Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s careers they have both kept up with the rapidly changing/explicit music video from where they started where they didn't need to be sensual in there videos. Spears has come from Mickey Mouse Club to ‘Baby, One More Time’ to ‘Oops I Did Again’ to ‘I’m a Slave For You’ to ‘3’ to ‘Work B**ch’. Timberlake has come from Mickey Mouse Club to Nsync to ‘Rock Your Body’ to ‘Sexy Back’ to SNL/Lonely Island favorite to ‘Suit and Tie’ to ‘Tunnel Vision’. Not only are they been sexualizing themselves but their backup dancers as well but here are some similarities and differences of how they use there dancers in their videos/concerts. Timberlake and Spears both tend to sexualize their female dancers is some way, but when it comes to male dancers that’s where they tend to differ. Britney sexualizes her male dancers either at the same level and sometimes more than her female dancers. While Timberlake hardly ever sexualizes his male dancers. But they both treat their dancers well and have even had either relationships or encounters with their dancers.

Sarah R.

Chris Brown-Backup Dancers

Much like Usher, Chris Brown also performs with male background dancers rather than females. (shown below) However, in many of his music videos, Chris, is shown with many women. This may be expected from Chris considering all of his songs are about girls, relationships, sex, and partying. The women in his videos and his performances are not always sexualized, especial not as sexualized as the women seen in Rihanna's music videos. With Chris Brown, his women background dancers in music videos such as, Say Goodbye, are more so used as props, or to help tell a story rather than just sexual items that are pleasing to the eye.

OMG: Usher ft. Will.I.Am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RnPB76mjxI&feature=kp

In Usher's song OMG featuring Will.I.Am, the use of women in order to sexualize the video is prevalent. Granted the song is about a man who falls in love with a woman on the dance floor because of the sexy way she is dancing, but also the outfits are sexualized for the mans eye, as the women are wearing a sparkly bra and panties, black stiletto boots, and a mens dress coat. Usher and Will.I.Am's dances are quite different than the female backup dancers. One particular thing I found interesting in both Usher and Beyonce's video's are that the comments don't mention anything about the sexualization. However, when I was searching for the over-sexualization of men and women as backup dancers, I did not find much. This tells us that the sexualization of them is a common occurrence in today's society. Only when I search Beyoncé in particular did I find people being disgusted at how sexual her performances are. This explains that the use of backup dancers are simply a prop and it does not matter if they are sexualized.