Laura Mulvey, 1992
Representations of women in music videos
“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking
has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male
gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly”
According to Laura Mulvey, women are merely represented to
give visual pleasure for men. Music videos are full of sexualised images of
women which benefits the male fantasy and the male gaze. There are several
genre of music and artist that this is specific to. For example, Benny Benassi
– Satisfaction and Dizzee Rascal – Holiday.
This screen capture proves Laura Mulvey's point about the male gaze. Here it is as if she is selling herself as a sex object. All the men will look at her creating a sexual image in their head.
Lets take a look at Satisfaction. There are several shots in
the video where we see the women being very sexual to satisfy the male
gaze/fantasy.
Again, this screen shot from Satisfaction would show Laura Mulvey's theory about the male gaze. In a lot of pop videos women are constantly used to attract a wider range of audience. This is effective but it Laura Mulvey would say that it is degrading to
women.
The dance moves that the women are doing in this video are very seductive. Although they have seem to be advertising building tools, the male viewers are concentrating on their body parts.
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