Dance

There has been a lot in the news lately about children and how the music videos, films and television programmes they are exposed to are inappropriate.  Looking back on the things I used to view as a child I'd have to agree. There were always raunchy performances on Top of the Pops. I still remember my mothers outrage at the performance of the the Lambada because too much knicker elastic was visible.

However over all it wasn't too bad. Female pop stars were not all about showing flesh or sexy dancing. Some of them even did dance routines which we tried to learn when we were little girls.

I really think things have shifted in the wrong direction these days and that it isn't just bad for young children and teens but for all women.

I hadn't realised how bad things had become until a few months ago when I was flicking around the international channels on Sky. I sometimes watch some of the Indian soaps on Star Plus (as long as they have subtitles - my hindi only extends to the words 'yes' and 'father') and I happened to catch part of a new pop song. This wasn't subtitled so I can't tell you what it was called - but I found myself mesmerised and drawn into the female dancers performance. Even though I couldn't understand the words I had some idea of what she was singing about because of her dancing. She used her body to express her emotions and to communicate how she felt about her relationship with her love interest. In just two minutes of watching her dance I understood that she was strong, that she was a no nonsense kind of girl, that she loved this man but there was a limit to the concessions she was prepared to make. I felt her joy about being alive and even her sense of humour.

I cannot remember the last time I felt that way watching a music video produced in the west. These days dancing in music videos in the West is just about sex, or to put it more accurately looking as sexually desirable  to men as humanly possible. They're not even expressions of female sexuality and desire, just a series of dance steps designed to expose maximum thrusting of arse and shaking of cleavage. Even videos with a minimum of dancing will often focus on long lingering shots of a female star making so called 'sexy face' to the camera.

What ever happened to female expression? When I watch a music video I want to see what the dancer is feeling, I want to see the song given a visual dimension. I don't want to watch a very dull teenage boys wet dream.

The problem with these music videos is not just that they tell women being desirable to men is the be all and end all with all the dangerous emotional baggage that includes. The problem is also that they are mind-numbingly dull. Fortunately for me I was lucky enough to be taken to the ballet by my parents when I was young which was were I learnt to see dance as an art in itself. I was privileged enough to see performances so good that I wept.

Young people today are not so lucky. Music videos are the first and for most young people probably the only exposure they have to dance as medium. Are they just going to see it as a sort of erotic window dressing, a means to signal sexual prowess and nothing more? By producing ever raunchier music videos we are robbing them of one of the most powerful artistic experiences there is. All while telling them they are too fat and that women don't have emotions beyond the desire to look sexy.

Sad times.