Research:Mulvey's male gaze

What is 'male gaze'

Male gaze is all about how women are portrayed in music videos to please the eye of men. Women are made in videos to seduce men from the little clothing they have on to dancing in a sexy provocative way.

 

Laura Mulvey's male gaze (1975)

 

Laura is a theorist and she came up with the feminist theory. This theory looks for how an audience view the women presented in the video. For feminists, it can be thought of in 3 ways:

• How men look at women
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

She stated that audiences view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male and that men looked at women for sexual pleasure, so therefore the males are active and females are passive.  

This is a music video by "Benny Benassi" called Satisfaction. This video is full of male gaze and actions that are symbolic to sex and male genitals. If we look at this image the female is wearing a bikini and holding a drill in a very sexual way.

 



 

Here is another image of a female showing her bum this is clearly provocative for men and a good example of how women are used as sex objects just for the attraction of men. The narrative of being a builder works well as stereotypically builders are known for making a move on females.

 

 

                           

This music video is called 'TIP DRILL' by Nelly a famous hip hop artist. This music video presents a lot of females in a mansion gyrating and being used by Nelly and his rich friends. This video shows females shaking their bums in men's faces as they through money and swipe their cards between their butt cheeks. Women would look at these females and be ashamed because they may not be confident within themselves. The women in the video feel happy that they get a chance to be in Nellys video and because its there lifestyle they feel that they have stepped up by being in the music video on TV. However men look at the other men in the video and maybe wish they were in their position with all the females.

 

Criticism's of the theory: Some females may enjoy being looked at by other men and see it as a way of work and achievement. And this theory only considers a heterosexual males point of view (men are active while females are passive). lastly men can also be looked at for pleasure as sexual objects but this theory does not include this.

 

 

Conclusion

 

In my music video I do not wish to use the male gaze theory however I will use females. the way I will use these females will not be in a way to appeal sexually but to help explain the narrative.