Dirrty: Christina Aguilera Reflection
In Christina Aguilera's music video "Dirrty ft. Redman," her portrayal can easily be identified Kristin Lieb's category of temptress, where Aguilera is clearly sexualized from the beginning of the video. The opening shot of the video has the camera pointed towards the ground until Christina walks across the shot in her underwear and the camera begins to pan up. The director then establishes a back and forth between Redman and Aguilera, cutting to him saying synonyms of "dirty" between shots of her body. However, intriguingly enough between shots of Christina's body, she also seems to repeat some of the words said by Redman to convey that she is self identifying with his classifications of her. When the song drops and Aguilera has put on her biker jacket, that is taken off almost immediately after, the next shot shows her in a cage getting lowered into a ring surrounded by nearly one hundred men. Upon being released from the cage, she is back to only wearing a bra and pants with the back cut out with all of this happening within the first minute of the video. The aesthetic through the rest of the video stays consistent throughout the remaining three to four minutes of the video, as even when Aguilera does have female counterparts around her, she is still usually surrounded by the mob of men banging on the walls and watching her thrust her hips. Toward the end of the video, Christina is also seen grinding on multiple of the male counterparts in her various revealing outfits. This video could be used as one of the quintessential examples of Kristin Lieb's concept of a temptress as a female artist in the music industry. Additionally, scrolling through the comment section of the video on Youtube, any randomly selected comment would be able to reflect the narrative and visuals in the video, as most comments are generally objectifying Christina from men and women. However, one comment criticizes the double standard between male and female music stars, "half naked girls = sluts / half naked rappers = coooool mmmm double standards?" This double standard is well documented as you can essentially watch any 50 Cent music video from his album "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," and see what the commenter is alluding to. However, I believe there is a difference in the cinematography, as Christina Aguilera's "dirrty" has deliberate close ups of her breasts and butt while you will not find any similar framing in any of 50's videos. I am not proclaiming that a double standard is non existent but the sexualization of the artist is far more pronounced in Aguilera's video.
