TLC  - Unpretty - by Joanna Blanchard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2gy1Evb1Kg&ob=av2e

            As stated in the reading, “Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture,” by Douglas Kellner, “media culture provides the materials for constructing views of the world, behavior, and even identities,” (10).  Media such as, music videos, have a huge effect on our society because they are able to formulate, “the dominant values, political ideologies, and social developments,” that are present in society today.  It is also because of music videos why people become obsessed with what they are supposed to physically look like, dress like, and even what they should be buying to stay up-to-date with popular culture.  Kellner also discussed the components of taking a critical cultural studies approach towards a text from popular culture, which are production and political economy, textual analysis, and audience reception.  These components not only show why it is important for individuals to have a critical approach towards texts, but they also illustrate how to cope with the seductive cultural environment we live in today, and a way for individuals to form their own ideologies, values and beliefs without media influence.  In the following blog I will take a critical cultural studies approach towards the music video, “Unpretty,” by TLC and define and explain Kellner’s three-part approach in analyzing a text in relation to the lyrics of the song and the music video. 

Production, also known as political economy, as defined by Kellner, consists of the well-defined rules and conventions a text such as a music video has and “determines what sort of artifacts will be produced, what structural limits there will be…and what sort of audience affects [a] text may generate,” (12).  The singers in the group Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas formed TLC in 1991.  The group’s name, TLC, means “Tender Loving Care,” and is also the initials of each of the singer’s nicknames.  The lyrics to TLC’s music are said to be playful, female-empowering anthems and their song “Unpretty,” illustrates this.  “Unpretty” is also a 4:46 minute long song, which most songs run from 3-5minutes long.  The song has been labeled as an alternative rock-styled song about self-love.  The music video of, “Unpretty,” shows two ethnic women struggling with their self-images; one of the women is played by the group member Chilli, who wants to please her boyfriend and get breast implants, and a bulimic teenager.  The video shows both women compromising their health and pre-conceived notions of what beauty is to become skinny and to have good looking bodies, such things that have converted into hegemonic norms and the definition of what beauty is in our society.  All of TLC’s music gives women and men advice on becoming better people, it reminds them not to be influenced by norms displayed in the general public and the media, and also how important it is to love oneself.  

 The second component of a critical cultural study as stated by Kellner is textual analysis.  This combines with formalist analysis in that it critiques, “how cultural meanings convey specific ideologies of gender, race, class, sexuality, nation and other ideological dimensions,” (Kellner, 14).  The best way for one to truly understand “Unpretty” and its central meaning is to do a textual analysis of the song’s lyrics.  When the audience listens to “Unpretty,” they can hear that the song overall talks about women’s inner beauty and self-image.  For instance the lyrics, “I was told I was beautiful, but what does that mean to you,” “find the reflection you see to be so damn unpretty,” and, “my outsides look cool, my insides are blue,” and lastly, “why do I look to all these things, to keep you happy, maybe get rid of you, and then I'll get back to me,” all demonstrate this.  The first line of the song, sung by T-Boz, “I wish I could tie you up in my shoes make you feel unpretty too,” is what I believe to be the thesis of the song.  It targets the hurtful things people with unmarked identities say about others who have marked identities.  Unmarked identities are the norms that are taken for granted such as, being White, middle class, male, and marked identities are characteristics that deviate from the norm such as, being female, working class, and/or a person of color.  In the music video the audience can see Chilli and the bulimic teen are considered marked identities because they both are women of color and they perceive themselves as unhappy and insecure, which people of the norm would most likely not exhibit.   

Audience reception, according to Kellner, is how people, “of distinct genders, classes, races, nations, regions, sexual references and political ideologies,” are affected differently by texts.  In relation to, “Unpretty,” men, who can relate to Chilli’s fictional boyfriend in the video, may cheer him on for wanting Chilli to get breast implants because the video perceives that this is what all boyfriends want their girlfriends to do just by how the boyfriend already knew the website for the Sunshine Medical Surgery Group Augmentation Simulator.  Women who have pressure from their boyfriends or their own insecurities with their bodies can relate to Chilli and the bulimic girl by how they see Chilli wanting to please her boyfriend, and how the bulimic girl stresses about her body and puts a picture of her face on cut-outs of white women in lingerie and bathing suits on her wall.  The reading, “There Are Bitches and Hoes,” by Tricia Rose also exhibits how Black women care about their self-image and how they will do things that demean them as a woman just, “to get attention, to be desired, and to be considered sexy,” (Rose, 322), in the hip hop world.  This is similar to the influences shown in “Unpretty,” by what a woman would do to satisfy her boyfriend and what a teenager would do to become skinny.  Also, “the culture of women’s sexual behavior promoted by hip-hop videos shapes the actions of young black women in ways that will bring them attention and status,” (Rose, 324) in society, just as the way woman listen and watch the music video of Unpretty and see how important it is to love yourself and that the, “norms,” of what beauty is are unrealistic. 

 Sources:

1. Dines, Gail, and Jean McMahon Humez. "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture by Douglas Kellner." Gender, race, and class in media: a critical reader. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 2011. Pages 9-19. Print.

2. Dines, Gail, and Jean McMahon Humez. “There Are Bitches and Hoes by Tricia Rose.”  Gender, race, and class in media: a critical reader. 3rd ed. Thousand   Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 2011. Pages 321-325. Print.

3. "TLC (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2   Mar. 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLC_(band)