Negotiating Patriarchal Relationship: Representation of Subjectification in Doja Cat’s Woman (2021) Music Video

Reno Afriano; Nurul Fitri Hapsari; Yulia Mega Puspita; Wendy Belinda Tiantini

doi:10.24071/joll.v24i2.7788

Negotiating Patriarchal Relationship: Representation of Subjectification in Doja Cat’s Woman (2021) Music Video

Reno Afriano^(1*), Nurul Fitri Hapsari⁽²⁾, Yulia Mega Puspita⁽³⁾, Wendy Belinda Tiantini⁽⁴⁾,

(1) Universitas Airlangga
(2) Universitas Airlangga
(3) Universitas Airlangga
(4) Universitas Airlangga
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study aims to illustrate the subjectification of women's bodies as one of the notions of postfeminist sensibility. Subjectification involves depicting women in a patriarchal setting as empowered individuals with agency, highlighting their reservoirs of strength and spheres of influence, challenging the perception of complete powerlessness. The object of investigation in this study is the music video by Doja Cat entitled "WOMAN" (2021), with a primary focus on examining the dynamic interaction among female talents within the context of the surrounding characters and environment. The author employs textual and visual analysis with qualitative methods and Fiske's Television Culture. In terms of theory, the analysis of the objects was supported by drawing upon Rosalind Gill's postfeminist sensibility. The study's analysis reveals that female talents, initially characterized by power and agency, faces a threat in the presence of patriarchy. This compels them to leverage their bodies and traditional roles as tools for negotiation. This study finds out that subjectification also can be an effort for women to negotiate patriarchal relationships as the bodies were used as tools to assert control and authority over the opposite sex without engaging as an object instead as a subject. This also counters the typical male gaze that makes women look passive or disempowered.

Keywords

postfeminist sensibility; subjectification; representation; Television Culture

Full Text:

PDF

References

Agirre, K. (2012). ‘Whenever a man takes you to lunch around here’: tracing post-feminist sensibility in Mad Men. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 4(2), 155-170.

Banet-Weiser, S. (2007). What’s your flava. Interrogating postfeminism: Gedner and the politics of popular culture, 201-226.

Beauboeuf-Lafontant, T. (2005). Keeping up appearances, getting fed up: The embodiment of strength among African American women. Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, 5(2), 104-123.

Brochu, L., & Merriman, T. (2008). Personal interpretation: Connecting your audience to heritage resources.

Casetti, F., & Di Chio, F. (2014). Cómo analizar un film. Traducción de Carlos Losilla.

Calogero, R. M. (2013). Objects don’t object: Evidence that self-objectification disrupts women’s social activism. Psychological science, 24(3), 312-318.activism." Psychological science 24, no. 3 (2013) 312-318.

Chang, J. (2007). Can't stop won't stop: A history of the hip-hop generation. St. Martin's Press.

Davis, L. V. (1985). Female and male voices in social work. Social Work, 30(2), 106-113.

Dobson, A. S. (2015). Postfeminism, girls and young women, and digital media. In Postfeminist digital cultures: Femininity, social media, and self-representation (pp. 23-51). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.

Earenfight, T. (2017). Queenship in medieval Europe. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Fiske, J. (2010). Television culture. Routledge.

Giannetti, L.D. (2002). Understanding Movies (9th edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European journal of cultural studies, 10(2), 147-166.

Hanson, Helen. (2007). Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.

Hamlett, J. (2009). The dining room should be the man's paradise, as the drawing room is the woman's’: Gender and middle‐class domestic space in England, 1850–1910. Gender & History, 21(3), 576-591.

Karayanni, S. S. (2009). Sacred embodiment: Fertility ritual, mother goddess, and cultures of belly dance. Religion and the Arts, 13(4), 448-463.

Kleinke, C. L. (1986). Gaze and eye contact: a research review. Psychological bulletin, 100(1), 78.

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.

Maryani, E., & Ratmita, R. A. (2023). Perspective Chapter: Subjectification and Objectification of Women in Media.

McRobbie, A. (2004). Post‐feminism and popular culture. Feminist media studies, 4(3), 255-264.

Mulvey, L. (2013). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Feminism and film theory (pp. 57-68). Routledge.

Purse, L. (2011). Return of the “Angry Woman”: authenticating female physical action in contemporary cinema. In Women on screen: Feminism and femininity in visual culture (pp. 185-198). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Rapelli, P. (2011). Symbols of power in art. Getty Publications.

Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2021). The social psychology of gender: How power and intimacy shape gender relations. Guilford Publications.

Sultana, A. (2012). Patriarchy and women s subordination: a theoretical analysis. Arts faculty journal, 4, 1-18.

Sully, J. (2010). Challenging the stereotype: the femme fatale in fin-de-siécle art and early cinema. In The femme fatale: Images, histories, contexts (pp. 46-59). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Stokes, J. (2021). How to do media and cultural studies. Sage.

Thrift (2009) "Chapter Six Beyond Bootylicious: Race, (Post) Feminism, and Sexual Subjectification with Destiny's Child”.

Toktaş, Ş. (1997). Paradigmatic shifts in the theory on patriarchy: Subjectification of ‘WOMEN’. Hacettepe Üniversitesi İktisadi Ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 15(2), 187-199.

Walby, S. (1989). Theorising patriarchy. Sociology, 23(2), 213-234.

Zahid, Ayu, and IKayanti. (2023). Kapitalisme tubuh perempuan: Sebuah pendisiplinan atau industrialisasi. RESIPROKAL, 5 (1), 115-131.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v24i2.7788