<\/p>\n
Everyone has a story about where they were when they first saw Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller\u201d\u2014arguably the best music video of all time (of all time)\u2014or how they would run home from school to catch a clip of their new favorite artist, or what it felt like to watch Mariah Carey\u2019s <\/span>Glitter<\/span><\/i>-era crash out. My sister and I would have Saturday night dance parties to MTV Club when we were too young to go to the actual club.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, after 44 years, MTV\u2014the channel that once defined the zeitgeist\u2014will no longer screen the medium in which it made its name. On New Year\u2019s Eve,<\/span> several of MTV\u2019s dedicated music video channels, including MTV Music, Club, Live, and \u201980s and \u201990s, will go dark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The network also recently canceled the internet clip show <\/span>Ridiculousness<\/span><\/i> after 48 seasons. It long ago abandoned its music-video exclusivity for reality TV, beginning with <\/span>The Real World <\/span><\/i>in the early 1990s to <\/span>Laguna Beach <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>The Hills <\/span><\/i>in the mid-aughts\u2014but those genre-defining shows have also fallen to the wayside. <\/span>Ridiculousness<\/span><\/i> was basically all MTV had been airing for the last decade.<\/span><\/p>\n So what exactly will it broadcast now? With all the recent Hollywood owner shifts<\/span>, it remains anyone\u2019s guess what will become of MTV.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In light of the news, I\u2019ve read a number of MTV histories and look-backs, but most have been male-centric,<\/span> focusing on the sex, drugs, and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll of the 1980s, or the debauchery of 1990s rap videos, and video vixens therein. Few, if any, highlight women\u2019s impact on the medium\u2014<\/span>from pretty much everything Madonna did, to Missy Elliot\u2019s sci-fi productions, to Beyonc\u00e9 fundamentally changing the game with her 2013 visual self-titled album.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Beyonc\u00e9 changed the game again in 2016 when she premiered\u00a0Lemonade on\u2026HBO. And then she completely<\/span> did away with visuals for the subsequent albums,\u00a0<\/span>Renaissance <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Cowboy Carter<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>Instead, she and her contemporaries are selling out movie theaters with <\/span>concert films<\/span><\/a>. Maybe they\u2019ve contributed to MTV\u2019s downfall\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n In any case, in honor of the ultimate <\/span>gay guy music-video night<\/span><\/a>, New Year\u2019s Eve, and to commemorate the end of MTV as we know it in true <\/span>Jezebel<\/span> style, we\u2019re counting down the top ten feminist\u2014or outright revolutionary\u2014music videos that not only helped shape the channel, but also our understanding of feminism in the culture at large.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s common, if ironic, lore that \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star\u201d by The Buggles was the first video played on MTV when it launched on August 1st, 1981. But I bet you didn\u2019t know that Pat Benatar\u2019s \u201cYou Better Run\u201d was the second.<\/span><\/p>\n Steve Casey, the network\u2019s first program director, told Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum in their book <\/span>I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution<\/span><\/i> that they wanted their first two videos to be \u201csymbolic.\u201d Since MTV was widely predicted to fail in the early days, the programmers wanted to be a little subversive with the lineup. So why not make a feminist statement? Casey said Bentator\u2019s video \u201cwas a message to the record labels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Benatar was actually uncomfortable with marketing herself visually in the video\u2014a sentiment shared by many artists in the pre-music video era. Obviously, MTV became a massive success (for a time), and performers eventually cottoned on to the power of the image to enhance their music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When you think of appointment music video viewing, Cyndi Lauper\u2019s \u201cGirls Just Want to Have Fun\u201d is likely one of the first. It indelibly captures the frivolity of the accompanying song, which signalled the dawn of a new breed of empowered female pop stars who called the shots. (Madonna\u2019s early visage is a clear homage to Lauper.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe needed videos that represented women better,\u201d Lauper has said. \u201cI had women of every race in my videos, especially \u2018Girls Just Want to Have Fun,\u2019 so that every girl who saw the video would see herself represented and empowered, whether she was thin or heavy, glamorous or not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Lauper\u2019s own mother played her mom in the video, while the wrestler Captain Lou Albano was cast as her dad, ushering in the \u201cRock \u2019N\u2019 Wrestling Connection,\u201d a partnership between music stars and wrestlers like Albano, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Hulk Hogan (who appropriated the idea with his <\/span>Hulk Hogan\u2019s Rock \u2019N\u2019 Wrestling <\/span><\/i>cartoon, as the controversial wrestling star who died in 2025 was wont to do) that is largely credited with the mainstream acceptance of wrestling in pop culture.<\/span><\/p>\n If only all artists could combine clips from their previous videos into one uber-video, as Grace Jones did for \u201cSlave to the Rhythm,\u201d incorporating clips from \u201cMy Jamaican Guy\u201d and \u201cLiving My Life,\u201d both of which riff on minstrelsy and blackface. Directed by Jean-Paul Goude\u2014who was in a relationship with Jones at the time\u2014the video features the artist\u2019s infamous eponymous photo of Carolina Beaumont, also known as \u201cThe Champagne Incident,\u201d which later inspired Goude\u2019s 2014 <\/span>Paper <\/span><\/i>magazine \u201cBreak the Internet\u201d photoshoot of Kim Kardashian. Ahh, the appropriation critiques of \u201cSlave to the Rhythm\u201d still remain relevant 40 years later\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n One is spoilt for choice when it comes to Madonna: whether it\u2019s the notorious video for \u201cLike a Prayer\u201d (1989) which angered the Catholic Church and was banned on most other music video channels; the similarly-banned \u201cWhat It Feels Like For a Girl\u201d (2000); or the culturally appropriative \u201cVogue\u201d (1990), Madonna created the concept of a pop star having \u201ceras\u201d long before Taylor Swift made billions doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n With each era, Madonna courted controversy, perhaps none more so than her early 1990s exploration of sex in her 1992 album <\/span>Erotica<\/span><\/i> and her accompanying coffee table book <\/span>Sex<\/span><\/i>\u2014both of which pushed the boundaries of what a pop star could say and do, especially in the wake of the HIV\/AIDS crisis, which Madonna was a vocal advocate for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But \u201cJustify My Love,\u201d off her 1990 greatest hits album <\/span>The Immaculate Collection<\/span><\/i>, prefaced this era, exploring sex work, BDSM, voyeurism, and queerness in a black and white clip that was banned by MTV, setting a precedent for Madge. Erotica would also be subsequently banned by the station.<\/span><\/p>\n Compared to the maximalist videos thus far, Sinead O\u2019Connor\u2019s \u201cNothing Compares 2 U\u201d pioneered the power of an unadulterated banger that needs nothing more than a striking bald woman belting to elicit a response.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was a time when you hadn\u2019t really come across angry women,\u201d O\u2019Connor said of the video. \u201cI wasn\u2019t standing there with blond hair, saying, \u2018Oh baby, do me.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like Madonna, there\u2019s a strong case for including nearly all of Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s music videos on this list. The rap trio, which consists of Cheryl James, Sandra Denton, and Deidra Roper, flipped the script on the misogynoirist conventions<\/span>\u00a0of male-dominated rap and hip hop. Their lyrics and videos consistently turned the male gaze into something more<\/span> egalitarian, ultimately paving the way for artists like Missy Elliot, Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhatta Man\u201d topples a lot of these tropes, placing the women of both groups as the drivers of their own desires. During the group dance scenes, the women are dressed casually in denim shorts and flannel shirts\u2014this was the early \u201990s when grunge reigned supreme, after all\u2014having fun, taking up space, and calling the shots.<\/span><\/p>\n While the video for \u201cWindow Seat\u201d was filmed in Dealy Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, and meant to evoke his assassination, the parallels to Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was shot dead by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman just two years after the video was filmed, are clear.<\/span><\/p>\n Badu begins the video wearing a hoodie\u2014the garment Martin was also wearing when he was murdered, which became a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement\u2014and gradually peels off each layer of clothing in a guerrilla-style one-shot. She is eventually nude, but pixellated, at which point she is shot by an off-screen gunman, an act of violence that is pointedly not censored. \u201cThey are quick to assassinate what they do not understand,\u201d Badu says in the voiceover. \u201cThis is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual. A single person within a circumstance can move one to change. To love herself. To evolve.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the camera pans away from her dead body, she is reincarnated as a nude woman with braids, a reference to \u201cthe character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Being a Black woman in the music industry who had previously decried feminism, Beyonc\u00e9 long drew the ire of feminists, including bell hooks, who once <\/span>called<\/span><\/a> her a \u201cterrorist\u201d for her perceived capitulation to <\/span>capitalism<\/span><\/a> and white beauty standards. But we all learn, grow, and change our politics\u2014and if there was ever any doubt about whether<\/span>\u00a0the trailblazing Queen Bey supported gender equality, \u201c***Flawless\u201d put that to bed.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing especially remarkable about the black-and-white video for the 11th track on her fifth studio album, especially compared with the stripped-down \u201cRocket,\u201d the disco vibes of \u201cBlow,\u201d or the sexual fantasy of \u201cPartition.\u201d But it\u2019s the inclusion of a portion of the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u2019s TEDx Talk defining a feminist as \u201cthe person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes,\u201d that gives \u201c***Flawless\u201d a spot on this list.<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to \u201c***Flawless,\u201d celebrities\u2014and, by extension, the general public\u2014were confused about what it meant to be a feminist, and would<\/span> often obfuscate the question. But after the video and Bey\u2019s performance of \u201c***Flawless\u201d <\/span>as part of a self-titled medley while accepting the Video Vanguard award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, during which she stood in front of a lit-up sign emblazoned with the word \u201cfeminist\u201d (my Halloween costume that year), it was suddenly cool to be a feminist. Other celebrities, like <\/span>Taylor Swift<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Kim Kardashian<\/span><\/a>, soon waded into the discourse, ushering in a full-blown new wave of feminist discussion: from \u201cchoice\u201d feminism to \u201cmarketplace\u201d feminism coined by <\/span>Bitch<\/span><\/i> magazine founder Andi Zeisler to the scourge of the girlboss. Were we ever so young?<\/span><\/p>\n In between the commodification of feminism signified by \u201c***Flawless\u201d and the next entry came the #MeToo movement in late 2017\u2014presaged by the first election of President Donald Trump and the Women\u2019s March. I attended the latter, as did the ArchAndroid Janelle Mon\u00e1e, which no doubt inspired the nonbinary singer-actor\u2019s subsequent album, <\/span>Dirty Computer<\/span><\/i>, and its lead single, \u201cPynk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The video, a celebration of the Black woman\u2019s body, features women wearing underwear emblazoned with the phrase \u201cI grab back,\u201d a reference to Trump\u2019s infamous \u201cgrab \u2019em by the pussy\u201d line from the leaked Access Hollywood tape shortly before the 2016 election.<\/span><\/p>\n Vagina iconography appears elsewhere in the video as well, most iconically in the pink ruffled pants worn by Mon\u00e1e and their dancers, from which Tessa Thompson\u2014long rumored to be in a relationship with Mon\u00e1e\u2014cheekily (or is that flappily?) peeks out from between.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If \u201c***Flawless\u201d signalled the popularization of feminism, Katy Perry\u2019s \u201cWoman\u2019s World\u201d was arguably its death knell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Perry has had a hard slog of it lately, with her breakup from long-time beau Orlando Bloom, her ill-received trip to space, and the endless pans of her most recent album, <\/span>143<\/span><\/i>, and its associated <\/span>Lifetimes <\/span><\/i>tour (because <\/span>The Eras Tour was already taken<\/span><\/a>). Sparking (or foreshadowing) this long list of bad luck and\/or decisions was\u00a0143\u2018s lead single, \u201cWoman\u2019s World,\u201d which, honestly, wasn\u2019t panned enough.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Aside from being a bad song<\/a> filled with empty platitudes reminiscent of the pop empowerment she once found success with in 2013\u2019s \u201cRoar,\u201d \u201cWoman\u2019s World\u201d was produced by Dr. Luke, the producer Kesha was embroiled in a years-long legal battle with over allegations that he sexually assaulted Kesha and kept her in a predatory recording deal. The two finally settled their suit in 2023 as Kesha embarked on a new phase of her career with the support of her fellow pop stars Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Swift, who <\/span>donated $250,000<\/span><\/a> to Kesha\u2019s legal fund. Perry was notably absent from that cohort and continued to work with Luke.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou Better Run\u201d by Pat Benatar, 1980<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cGirls Just Want to Have Fun\u201d by Cyndi Lauper, 1983<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSlave to the Rhythm\u201d by Grace Jones, 1985<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cJustify My Love\u201d by Madonna, 1990<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cNothing Compares 2 U\u201d by Sinead O\u2019Connor, 1990<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cWhatta Man\u201d by Salt-N-Pepa & En Vogue, 1993<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cWindow Seat\u201d by Erykah Badu, 2010<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201c***Flawless\u201d by Beyonc\u00e9, 2013<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cPynk\u201d by Janelle Mon\u00e1e, 2018<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cWoman\u2019s World\u201d by Katy Perry, 2025<\/b><\/h2>\n