Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf: A Cultivation Analysis of a New Wave

Video and Cultural Marker

Frank G. Pérez

(Class Sample Essay)

University of Texas at El Paso

 Duran Duran’s Rio: A Cultivation Analysis of a New Wave Cultural Marker

Duran Duran entered the global music scene in the early 1980s, their success a product of then

revolutionary Music Television (M-TV). They influenced the decade’s fashion trends for young men

(particularly from 1981-1985), took the lead in producing visually sophisticated videos, and enjoyed

global success. In 1982, Duran Duran’s sophomore album, Rio, produced multiple Top 40 singles. For

example, their first single, Hungry Like the Wolf. The second single and title song solidified their status as

more than a one-hit phenomenon. Rio peaked at number 14 onthe US Billboard Top 20. benefitting from

heavy rotation on M-TV. The video and future ones influenced adolescent male fashions during the era.

The current essay will analyze the video using a theoretical approach that suggests that the mass media

shape perceptions of self and other, cultivation theory (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). The theory posits that

heavy media consumption has a mainstreaming effect that leads people to see the world along similar

terms. Duran Duran has had an uncommonly long career for a pop band. In 2020, they celebrated their

40th anniversary in 2020, releasing a new album, Future Past in late 2021 and touring in 2022. Their

influence on 1980s pop culture and in the present merits an exploration of Rio vis-à-vis its

representations of gender, race, and class, as a time stamp of the decade that saw the band become

international pop stars.

Rio opens with a black screen with a small circular opening that highlights a young woman

smiling. After three short segments, the circle shows a broken mirror apparently returning to its original,

unbroken state. A young woman, presumably “Rio,” appears in a series of vignettes that highlight a

different fantasy of each band member. First, keyboardist Nick Rhodes is shown spying on Rio with a

35mm camera with a zoom lens. The view then zooms in on Rio with a heavy focus on her posterior.

Next, she is shown approaching Rhodes on a pier and in a variety of outfits, a bikini and a yellow dress

among them. This is followed by an image of three band members dressed in sport coats sitting on a

yacht as Rio passes before them. A short montage of photos show Rio covered in a mix of bright body
paint as well as in a yellow dress, leaning on a tree. Next, a young shirtless man, presumably a band

member, steers a boat as he is doused with water. As Rio leans on the tree, the band walks past her on

the beach and is shown from behind, with a focus on her posterior in a pink dress follows. She is again

covered in bright yellow paint. Next, drummer Roger Taylor sees Rio stepping out of the ocean in a bikini

and with a knife strapped to her leg, an homage to Ursula Andress’s famous scene in Dr. No (1962). A

crab bites Taylor as he walks to her, Rio laughs and she kicks him to the floor. Viewers then see the

entire band sailing on a yacht, wearing bright-colored suits.

Rio appears to have stowed away and wanders around the yacht. She is again splashed with

bright colored paint. Next, Rio appears on a small platform floating in a small bay. She sits on a wicker

chair and answers a pink phone that someone swims to her. Le Bon picks up a blue phone on his yacht

and calls her. His message coincides with the song’s lyrics: “I’ve seen you on the beach and I’ve seen you

on TV. To all the million stars . . .” Rio laughs yanks the telephone’s cord, pulling Le Bon into the water.

Next, bassist John Taylor is shown reading a war-themed comic book and imagines himself a soldier

storming a beach. When he dives into the dirt and lifts his head, he finds himself directly facing Rio’s

midsection. Someone pours a martini from a shaker into a glass, using Rio’s stomach as a table.

A montage follows, showing a map with the cove where the video’s story line presumably takes

place, images of Rio swimming, in a purple dress. Rio tosses a giant animated red ball at Le Bon. He runs

after it backwards, until the ball knocks him off a pier. She then captures Roger Taylor in a fishing net. A

hand reaches out from the water and grabs a pink drink which Le Bon attempts to drink under water.

After a brief musical interlude, Rio is shown sneaking around the yacht, making eye contact with Rhoads.

Images of a tropical island and the yacht are also interspersed throughout the remainder of the video. It

highlights the band on the yacht in bright suits and Rio is a bright, rainbow-colored dress, ending with a

panning shot of the band a medium distance singing the song’s final vocalizations.
 The idea that the media influence perceptions of self and others is termed cultivation theory

(Gerbner & Gross, 1976) and operates from the following assumptions: the media influence perceptions

of self and other, the media have a mainstreaming or homogenizing effect on viewers, and that heavy

media consumption leads to perceptions of a violent world. Although the theory posits that heavy

viewers will see the world as a violent place, the video has no violence. Thus, the concept of mean world

syndrome (Gerbner & Gross, 1976) does not apply. The remainder of the paper examines the video’s

potential influence on viewer perceptions of gender, race, and class.

Gender is represented in the video along a heteronormative binary consistent with the era’s

commonly mediated ideals of beauty. Rio is young and thin. Her clothing is considerably revealing for

the time. However, she is neither blond haired nor blue-eyed, a break from common media tropes. The

video’s sexualized framing of Rio, for example, the emphasis on her posterior and it being splattered

with paint carries a strong sexual connotation. Her ability to intimate five of the world’s most popular

and media-labeled attractive young men, shows Rio has sexual power over them and presumably other

men. The band’s fetishization of Rio suggests that men cannot resist her, or her as an archetype of an

attractive young woman. Yet, her reaction does not apparently concern the band. They continue to

enjoy the yacht in their trendy fashion. Thus, the video potentially cultivates viewers to view attractive

women as those who are young, slender, with no apparent physical flaws. It also suggests to women

that their power lies in their body’s appeal to heterosexual men. It potentially cultivates the idea that

women, particularly young and thin women are to be pursued for romantic liaisons and that men should

remain unbothered when their romantic advances are rejected.

One can also argue that the video also suggests that women are not worthy of any meaningful

interaction. There is no apparent dialogue between any of the men and Rio. The one man who calls her

remarks that he saw her on the beach and TV. This portion and the accompanying lyrics suggest that
physicality and, perhaps, celebrity are what matter about Rio. Thus, female romantic partners should be

young, attractive, heterosexual, and popular.

Here, I would address race in a few paragraphs.

Here, I would address social class in a few paragraphs.

In conclusion, Duran Durans’ Rio is an important artifact from the early entry of visual media

into teenage popular culture. The band and the video of study both reflect and influenced adolescent

trends during the early 1980s or New Wave era. The video’s hypersexualization of the woman portraying

Rio, its emphasis on heteronormative ideals of sex and beauty illustrate the biases of this era. Progress

has been made; however, many of today’s pop singers and acts continue to employ these elements with

varying degrees of (im)modesty. The video also impacted the understanding of race, potentially

cultivating viewer’s perceptions along the lines of (I would add/comment on what I found here). Finally,

the video’s representation of class is (again, I would write about what I found). Duran Duran continue to

perform to sold out crowds at music festivals and in arenas throughout the world and their early music

videos impacted several of today’s bands, many of whom cite them as an influence.

The current essay examined only one music video by one pioneering 1980s New Wave band.

Other scholars may want to examine more videos by Duran Duran or videos from different bands of the

era to better understand the potential cultivation effects of bands of the New Romantics movement on

teen culture. Others may want to compare early music videos to contemporary ones to analyze how

they have evolved over the past thirty years. Whether one grew up with the Fab Five, as Duran Duran

were called, or Nirvana, Kanye West, or Bad Bunny, among many others what remains clear is that music

videos continue to shape the adolescent landscape and popular culture.

 References

Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication,

vol.(issue), XXX-XXX.