Cher’s music videos. Gender as a performative construction

Resumo

This paper aims at presenting the way Cherilyn Sarkisian’s - “Cher”’s music videos are a powerful source in helping her question and deconstruct classical representations of gender, carrying a message of empowerment to women and other minorities and proving that Cher’s performance has strong social and political connotations. Of particular interest are Cher’s video clips of the songs Believe, Strong Enough, Walking in Memphis, and her performance of the song Perfection in Extravaganza: Live at the Mirage (the first live music video title by her). I will examine how these videos depict narratives in support of hybrid identities by studying her choices of wardrobes, the presence of Cher’s impersonators by her side on stage, and the association of her image to that of a cyborg through the use of the auto-tune in a powerful carnivalistic transgression. Cher is able to deconstruct what Mikahil Bakhtin called the “classic body” and prove that gender is performative.