The Cultural Construction of Gender and Representation of Identity in Soaps and Music Videos

Soaps but more importantly music videos can be said to interrogate the cultural construction of gender and representations of identity. The video suggests a set of images to the viewer and usually these are a blurring of gender and identity. Music videos predicate on the representation of female gender experience. The two interrelated sign systems- access signs and discovery signs- will be discussed. Music clips that will be focused on are Madonna's 'Burning Up', 'Express Yourself', and 'Justify My Love'. The singer, who has been labelled 'Our Lady of MTV', has an amazing video appe…