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Sweet Dreams: remembering the music video that broke the mould for female pop stars

When The Eurythmics scored their first global hit in the early 1980s all eyes were on Annie Lennox, the singer whose powerful androgynous look defied the male gaze.

Annie Lennox: feminine and hard as nails

The shaved orange hair, white face and black power suit.

In 1983 The Eurythmics shot up charts around the world and reached number one in the USA with Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).

, in which Annie Lennox appeared with closely cropped orange hair and wearing a man’s business suit, was both striking and surreal. Lennox’s extraordinary image was at odds with her female contemporaries.

On Rip It Up Unwrapped, music journalist Lauren Martin explained that the model for strong female pop stars at the time was was Joan Jett.

“It was generally riffing off a very hard-as-nails style of femininity that was still very hypersexualised," she said. “It was all about the male gaze.”

“So when Annie Lennox came along, what she was saying was, ‘I’m not trying to be a man, but you don’t take me seriously as a woman so I’ll just pretend to be you for a little while and see how seriously you take me’.”

“It didn’t diminish her femininity at all.”

Watch the full story on Rip it Up Unwrapped on 大象传媒 iPlayer.