What a Girl Wants: Christina Aguilera Reflection
In 2015, Dr. Kristin Lieb, an Associate Professor of Marketing Communication at Emerson College, gave a TedX talk in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she explains that successful females in the popular culture and music world, of today, must fit into one of twelve differing categories. Some of these categories, or boxes, Dr. Lieb claims society places female pop-stars in are: “The Good girl”, “The Temptress”, “The Diva”, “The Hot Mess”, “The Provocateur,” etc. Dr. Lieb continues by stating that it is hard for any individual to remain in “one box” as humans are constantly evolving and changing. Yet, as we discussed and as I continue to ponder post class, how come females must fit into a single box? How come they cannot portray a little amalgamation of all of the above? Why is this only the case for women popular artists, and not for male popular artists? After analyzing Dr. Lieb’s theory, Dr. Solomon provided my class with the example of Christina Aguilera, and later questioned us to think if and which “box” or “bubble” she fits into. After examining Aguilera’s famous “What A Girl Wants” song, lyrics and music video, I believe, at least at this stage in Aguilera’s career, that she would have fit into the “Temptress” box. To begin, the definition of a “Temptress” is: “a woman who tempts someone to do something, typically a sexually attractive woman who sets out to allure or seduce someone.” Aguilera performs being a “temptress” as she begins her music video by walking a male over to a chair seductively, pushes him into the chair and whispers to him, “I got something for you.” After she does this, she then proceeds to perform all throughout her music video. Christina’s seductive dancing, her revealing costume – she wears a light blue belly shirt – and by the camera focusing on her face and lips, the audience pieces together that, here, she is attempting to allure this male. It is in the closing “scene” of the music video where the audience can realize that after Christina’s successful performance, she ends up intimately dancing with this male. Additionally, throughout the music video, as Christina and her back-up singers, all women, are performing, the viewer witness shots of the main male character and his male friends implementing their gaze upon these women. All of these clues lead up to me believing that she can be categorized as a “temptress.”
On another analytical level, the lyrics in Aguilera’s “What A Girl Wants” says it all. In the chorus of this song, she sings: “Whatever makes me happy sets you free, and I am thanking you for knowing exactly what a girl wants, what a girl needs.” In this single lyric, not only does the female claim that the woman “sets the man free” and not herself free, but she also then continues to thank the male for “knowing what she wants and needs.” I believe these “needs and wants” can be thought of on a mental, emotional, physical and sexual level. Therefore, although this music video consists and features predominantly females, I believe this video was produced and filmed for the desires of males. The “What a Girl Wants” music video’s YouTube page has 27,242,557 views and 5,676 comments. One comment reads: “U know she is singing about the D right?” Here, this comment claims that although some women may have felt that this song was inciting female sexual liberation, this song, was in fact doing the opposite; it was thanking males for their sexuality and therefore, for their sexual mastery with women.
