The stark black  and  white of Madonna’s “Vogue” and  the  pinks and  sparkles of “Material Girl.”  The lavish cinematic spectacle of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and  the blatant product placement and  in-your-face sexuality of Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda.” The explosive surprise launches of Beyoncé's BEYONCÉ and  Lemonade visual albums. Since MTV’s advent in 1981, hit music  videos have made a number of pop songs inextricable from the  iconic imagery of their videos; ubiquitous digital devices and  the rise of YouTube have only increased the audiovisuality of pop music.

What happens when we look at, as well as listen to, female pop icons? Taking pop music video seriously means getting entangled in fraught questions of agency, representation, race, sexuality/sexualization, bodies, commodification, and capital. In this course, students will gain  a vocabulary for talking  about both the audio and  visual parameters of music video, and  they will put  this vocabulary to use, engaging with critical frameworks for examining meaning, circulation, and reception in contemporary music  videos.