What a Video Queen is to a Male Artist: the Social-Semiotic Analysis of Music Videos and Lyrics in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper is set to examine the representation of women by male artists inbongo flava. It aims at disclosing the discursive practices taking place betweenmen and women in the music industry. The study used Teo van Leeuwen ' ssocial semiotics to analyze the data through exclusion, role, specific andgeneral, and categorization. The linguistic analysis showed that a woman issubservient to man; she is permissive with her body, allowing the camera tofocus on her boobs and buttocks. The dancing styles and flaunting are to attractthe viewing audience. In the lyrics she is a harlot, slut, lunatic, killer, involvedin commercial sex, unsettling in relationships and all she sees is money.Interviews with male artists show her as a means to the male artists ' end, sheis ready to do anything for money because she is a prostitute. Focused groupparticipants, being unsophisticated viewers, do not take this woman to be aspecial kind of woman; she represents other women rather than the ones she iscategorized with. She is a product of the habitus whose socio-cultural andeconomic situation needs to be interrogated.Key words: bongo flava, bongo movie, discursive practices, video queen, socialsemiotic analysis, Tanzania; wadangaji