Music has been there by our side for a long time, being there for us no matter how our mood may be. Furthermore, music videos may have a significant behavioral affect by desensitizing viewers to violence and sexual needs, making teenagers accept premarital sex. It is estimated that up to 75% of videos contain sexually explicit material, and more than half of these music videos contain violence that is often committed against women. This increases the patriarchal mindset within the society, motivating men to act more viciously than before.
Since music videos aim for perfection, attractive actors are asked to play the music video either as the villain, the hero or both. Approximately over 80% of music videos contain violence played out by good-looking and eye-catching role models. The idea of racism and sexism is majorly developed in these music videos a lot of times, such as males are shown to me three times as likely to be the aggressors, blacks are overrepresented and whites underrepresented.
Effect of Music Videos on Children
Women are portrayed to be toys filled with “junk”. This affects children’s attitudes about gender-specific roles, showing them a disgusting image of how an ideal sexually attractive girl should be like. Women are shown to be nothing but materials to be played around with and not given any respect, even if she is your own mother; take Eminem’s videos as an example.
The gender-specific roles are modified in a gruesome way and molded into what the fashion trend states our gender roles to be like.
Music videos may reinforce the wrong stereotypes. Additionally, music lyrics have become increasingly explicit, directing towards sex, drugs, and violence. This is an alarming factor for parents and pediatricians; they should try to limit their child’s access to such music videos. On the other hand, the pediatrician should bring this up in anticipatory guidance discussions with teenagers and their parents. The exposure of adult figures in inappropriate dresses may influence your children to wear the same type of clothes.
Parents need to try to limit their children’s daily consumption of the television and if they cannot do so then make them watch shows by recording them and first checking them yourself. In fact, do not introduce your children to the world of television or any other form of media, in order to protect their innocence. It may be hard at first, but that does not mean that we should give up and let our children fall into a pit they can never climb out of.
