Also dancing this line is Jennifer Lopez’s April video

Also dancing this line is Jennifer Lopez’s April video for “I Luh Ya Papi,” which opens with a meta scene: J.Lo and her female entourage dream of filming a music
video that objectifies men instead of women, featuring Lopez lounging on a bed surrounded by “a bunch of naked guys, for no reason.” So Lopez brings in a crew of
immaculately-toned male models to lay naked on her bed, wash her car with their asses, don speedos on her yacht, and comply silently as Lopez pokes at their glistening
abs. But while Lopez takes on the role of objectifier to these men—she snaps creepshots of the guys with her tablet and pours a drink down one of their swimsuits—she
herself functions as an object for the video’s viewer. Her short shorts, plunging jumpsuits, and pantsless leotards aren’t any less revealing than the guys’ getups,
and her dance moves are as sexualized as they are in any of her other videos. Meanwhile, French Montana, who raps on the song, somehow gets through the entire video
wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Lopez’s dancers writhe before him in animal-print leggings and bikini tops; the male artist is never expected to drop his pants.
Compared to Maddie & Tae’s version, it’s a victory that the men in Lopez’s video aren’t simply meant to look ridiculous—they look legitimately hot, too. Still, it
’s telling that none of these music videos manage to flip the script all the way around, even for the length of a five-minute fantasy sequence. Part of the problem
may be that the “role reversal” switch is a little too limiting for both women and men. A pop-feminist vision of sexuality shouldn’t literally require a full
switch, wherein women in hoodies ogle men in speedos. Amore equitable vision of sexual expression, where everyone’s allowed to be sexy without adhering to strict
gender roles, seems more fun for everyone involved. Back in February, Ingrid Michaelson took a stab at that version of sexuality with her video for “Girls Chase Boys.
” The video starts out as a straightforward gender reversal of Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible: As Michaelson sings, gorgeous men dance in red lipstick and
hot-pink tank tops. But as the video progresses, women join them, and by the time the song ends, they’re dancing side by side.


Is Maddie & Tae’s Girl In A Country Song a successful gender flip or fail?
Music video trends come and go: once upon a time it was all about the sweeping, Michael Bay-esque crane shots (Will Smith’s Miami, we hardly knew ye), then the well-
timed celebrity cameo (do you think Ben Stiller wonders whether Bad Boys For Life hurt his Walter Mitty Oscar chances?). And lest we forget the brief, mind-melting era
when everyone wanted an Eric Wareheim Techincolor nightmare-fuel vid.
Evidently in mid-2014, the music video trend du jour is to play fast and loose with a bit of gender role reversal. You know, instead of armies of video vixens, female
artists are surrounded by Calvin Klein-poster-lookin’ hunks: think J-Lo’s I Luh Ya Papi, and now country artists Maddie & Tae’s Girl In A Country Song, in which the
duo literally flip an industrial switch labelled “ROLE REVERSAL” before dudes kitted out in Daisy Dukes flood the screen.
Girl in a Country Song gif
Well, it’s a trend if you take Amanda Hess’ latest XX Factor column for Slate at face value - and doing so would also require you to believe that gender role
reversals in music videos do nothing to dismantle the objectification of female artists.
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In the piece, Hess argues that little is solved by Country Song, because, “Maddie & Tae’s role reversal switch only works on one gender. The objectified women from
the first shot don’t get a masculine wardrobe change; throughout the video, they’re filmed pushing out their butts as they play at farming and making eyes at the
camera as they writhe on a tree swing. Meanwhile, the gender-flipped guys are styled and directed to appear purposely ridiculous, not actually sexy.”
It’s true, the women don’t get a wardrobe change, but I have a different reading, which is that their continued presence alongside the sexy outfits of the dudes
works precisely because it illustrates that the notion of “girl[s] in a country song” is as “ridiculous” as the farmer dudes wearing crop-tops and cut-offs. The
viewer has to read the dudes’ presence as silly in order to understand the point of the song and video; if it’s dumb to have a half-dressed farmer dude making out
with a strawberry, it’s just as stupid for a woman to do it.