Beautiful: Christina Aguilera Reflection
The music video I chose is Beautiful. It’s one of the famous song from Christina Aguilera’s second formal album, Stripped. Christina first earned her fame in the TV show of Disney company and her first album reinforced her figure of the American sweetheart. In this beginning period, she fell in the type of “good girl” in Lieb’s video. However, Stripped became her turning point, like Lieb said, “taking her clothes off.” While, for me, this song contains more than just sex and treason. One comment under this video posted that “this song helps me to get out of my depression.” A “bad girl” song will never receive such comment! In Beautiful, Christina use her graceful voice to set up the confidence in the heart of the people who are not admitted by the mainstream. Although it entangled with some sensitive elements, the song, as a whole, is aimed to express that everyone’s identity and orientation should be protected and praised. Surpassing the teen-pop star with similar age, Christina, with a broader view about social issue, targets herself as a diva who attract attentions by the content and the quality of her music. Perhaps she acted so provocatively in Stripped simply because that’s a quick and effective way to get rid of the teen-pop star stereotype that people had on her.
The Lieb’s Ted Talk also reminds me of another singer, Miley Cyrus. Miley is so famous by acting Hanna Montana that she earned million dollars as a teenager and became widely known as a typical American sweetheart. However, as long as the TV series of Hanna Montana ended, Miley shocked the world by trying rock and hip-pop music, cutting her hair extremely short and wearing less and less in public. Indeed, she wants to get rid of Hanna Montana, madly. I still remembered that she once said in Saturday Night Live, “Do not mention Hanna again. She is murdered by me.” However, is the “bas girl” period good-for-nothing? Isn’t the public pushing her too hard to fit into their stereotype that she doesn’t even like? Even though Miley is blamed by her radical behaviors, I admire her of the confidence and bravery of showing her natural identities. After all, she is still a kind girl who wrote a song for her died pet fish. Gender stereotypes has been an invisible hinder, what we should do is to overcome it with the belief of expressing true identities.
