Laura Mulvey

‘THE MALE GAZE’“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” – Mulvey, 1992.

I believe this to mean that in a world that’s widely male dominated, women are sexualised accordingly to the way in which men would like to see them/would like them to look.

The media’s representation of women suggests that they are simply meant to look attractive and appeal to the male eye, remaining passive as they’re the ones being looked at. This is a negative representation. This is further shown through the ‘dismemberment’ of females in music videos, which is when the camera focuses on certain body parts, e.g: bum, legs and chest – this sexualises the female body and forces the audience to look at women in this way, which creates a different effect than if you were to look at her face/whole body for the rest of the video.

Men receive a sort of voyeuristic pleasure from this, extended to the viewers, who are also directed to look at women in this way. This makes them an active subject and most often, portrays the male gender as masculine and dominant, surrounded by scantily-clad females. This is seen as a positive representation.

School Boy Q – Man of the Year

School Boy Q and ‘Man of the Year’ is a perfect example of Laura Mulvey’s theory on representation. Dismembering of the female body is apparent throughout, like when it cuts to a shot of a woman in a revealing bikini, shown from the waist downwards (top left). It accentuates and sexualises her bum and forces the viewer to view the woman sexually, as a result of the male gaze/perspective. This happens again, however several other women are with her and camera is positioned at a low angle, showing them running from the side/behind. There aren’t any close-ups of her face as there are of School Boy Q himself which leads the viewer to see her (and the rest of the scantily dressed women) for their attractiveness and objectifies them.As the video comes to an end, there is an obvious wide shot (top right) of School Boy Q looking directly as the women’s bum, which is purposely situated in the centre of the shot, the main focus.

Robin Thicke – Sex Therapy

This music video features many different shots in which females are dismembered, but also as a whole, it strongly consists of the ‘male gaze’ and sexualisation of women. For example, the pictures on the left/middle show Thicke inbetween the bare legs of a woman and later, her leg wrapped around him in a provocative manner. Again, on the right, is a close up of another woman from the chin downwards as Thicke stares down at her breasts.

Dismemberment aside, throughout the whole video Thicke is seen fully clothed and wearing a suit, whereas all of the women are wearing ‘sexy’ outfits that leave nothing to the imagination – the supposed intention.