An analysis of music video "hurricane”

Objectifying Women: The Analysis of “ Hurricane”

To objectify women means to view them as sexual objects. Women are more than just their bodies. However, the media has found a lot of ways to objectify women, especially music videos. Most music videos in different genres tend to objectify women even if it’s not noticeable (lyrics can also be sexually explicit as well. This includes dialog, hidden motifs, etc., if any). A particular music video that should be talked about is from a song called “ Hurricane” by the alternative rock band 30 Seconds to Mars.

“ Hurricane” is the fourth and final single from the band’s 2009 album This is War. The music video for this song contains many explicit content, hence it was banned from several networks in different countries. The song itself has a duration of 6 minutes and 21 seconds, while the music video (more like a short movie), has a duration of 13 minutes and 9 seconds. Many people deemed this music video as a controversy due to the video’s strong sexual imagery, even Jared Leto himself, the band’s lead singer, admits it’s a controversy as well.

“ Hurricane” is told from Leto’s character’s perspective: his fears, the consistent need to escape them, his eventual confrontation of them, and his desires – which is an opportunity for his character to portray the male gaze (in which women are visualized as an object, rather than a person from a heterosexual male’s point of view), making the man in the video to portrayed as dominant while, the women were completely submissive.

Throughout the entire music video, there were many nudity scenes that features references to sex and erotic pleasures in the form of BDSM (which stands for Bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism. BDSM is defined as a bunch power plays of sexual activities that involve an agreement between two or more partners). According to Leto, “ Hurricane” is inspired by bondage. Some examples from the video shows a scene 4 minutes and 10 seconds in when Leto’s character ties a leather blindfold on a woman, pulls her head back in an erotic gesture, and then ties a bondage ball gag over her mouth. Then a scene, 10 minutes and 41 seconds in, shows him running his hands over the woman’s breast and proceeds to kiss the woman’s stomach. Later, he grabs and squeezes her breasts.

There are other characteristics in “ Hurricane” in which women are sexually depicted. The music video features many nude women showing their nipples and private parts and other women wearing little clothing such as: tight leather outfits, nipple tassels, G-strings, bondage harness, etc. Even the dialogue that Leto provided in this video represents how women are sexually depicted. For example, a scene 7 minutes in contains a French voice over dialogue telling women to abandon themselves and sacrifice themselves to pleasure. This video also objectifies women by including multiple porn-like scenes. One example would be a scene, 9 minutes and 17 seconds in, that shows two women — a woman’s finger caressing over the other woman’s bottom (who’s wearing a G-string) and touching her butt. In a different scene, 11 minutes and 11 seconds in, the same two women on a bed, with one woman on top of the other, spitting inside of the other woman. To add even more uncensored naughtiness, the music video also included sex scenes between two women.

To sum up, the music video entitled “ Hurricane” objectifies women with the use of sexual pleasures and desires. The women were represented as submissive, whereas, the men were represented as dominant. In the end, this music video is about facing your fears, however objectification of women sells.