The ‘Video Vixen’: Women Are Not Sex Objects

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By

John Chizoba Vincent

“The phenomenon of the video vixen dates back to 1989, when the 2 Live Crew brought Miami base to the hip hop scene with the joint “Me so Horny“, turning the scantily clad woman into an archetype. Over the past three decades the genre has become a career path for countless young women trying to get on in a male dominated industry that gives aspiring models, dancers, and performers the space to present their bodies as objects of desire” – HuckMagazine.

The industry has gone bad in many ways; women are treated like sex toys; as flirt objects or rather an object of satisfaction. It is very common among our directors these days giving a green light to these ladies who take turn to visit them one after the other so they could be called upon for the next job. In so doing, these directors end up not using them at the end of the day. This is not inclusive to all music video directors, film directors or model agencies; we still have a good number of them out there who are truly mean or dedicated to their jobs or career.

Although these women are just working in the system where the majority in power are men, giving them a unique advantage is very necessary in order not to push them into believing that you must sleep with a music video director before you can secure the job. Or rather, having most directors believe that these ladies who are out there exposing their body in the name of fending for themselves could be used as a sex toy.

In a 2007 interview with video vixen Melissa Ford she stated how girls have to fight for attention because there are up to 90 women on set willing to do anything to get camera exposure. For most women in a music video, they do not get much airtime and it does not elevate them to other opportunities. Kevin Powell chimed in saying that you can still have females in a video, but there has to be a balance between that and other themes like the 1980s and 1990s.

My personal opinion is that there is nothing innately wrong with women being proud of their sexuality in videos and entertaining the audience, but having the whole depict fifty women shaking their buttocks in front of the cameras, when men are not doing same thing, is just wrong. With them having to satisfy the artiste or the director at the end of the video shoot is uncalled for. There should be a balance between them and their career. Their body should not be used as an exchange for the money they are supposed to collect at the end of the day. Don’t allow any artiste to rough handle you on set in the name of you trying to shake your buttocks in front of the camera or trying to please the audience that will watch the video later. Place a value on your body. Get a manager if possible and that manager should be in position to tell the client what you can do and those things you can and would never do. You are a vixen and not a sex toy or tool for immorality.

For years the modelling industry has been criticized for how it does not protect the rights of its workers. Many ‘vixens’ and models have spoken out about the sexual harassment and emotional pressures faced by underage girls in the business, and their health and prospects are the subject of heated argument. Do these girls have a future after exposing their body in countless videos? Can a man still see them and look back with a smile of how pretty their body is? What does the future hold for these women?

These are questions and more and more of them we continue to ask ourselves regarding these women on every screen in our home. Do they really have something that triggers them to do this work or are they doing it for its pleasures? How can we help these ladies to become better women in our society? Let’s save these ladies, they are vixens and not sex objects.

John Chizoba Vincent

John Chizoba Vincent is a cinematographer, filmmaker, music video director, poet and a writer. A graduate of mass communication, he believes in life and the substances that life is made of. He has three books published to his credit which includes Hard Times, Good Mama, Letter from Home. For boys of tomorrow is his first offering to poetry. He lives in Lagos.