Laura Mulvey’s ideas on representation.

Representation consists of many parts, gender, age, ethnicity, place. Gender is an important and controversial topic within the way its represented in the music industry. This is a quotation by Laura Mulvey: “ 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.” The phrase ‘sexual imbalance’ suggests that males are seen as more dominant than women, like they have a higher status. Also suggests that women in this new generation are seen as objects, things for males to just look at.

The representation of women in music videos are mostly sexual attracting only the male point of view. An example of this is Dizzy Rascals ‘Holiday’ music video, were he has only striking beautiful women all around him in tiny bikinis. Mulvey also discuses the idea that women are ‘dismembered’ in all forms of media, that there is a focus, not on women as a whole, but a focus on parts of their bodies e.g. their body is dismembered. She argues that this is responsible for some women’s focus and obsession with specific parts of their bodies (bum, stomach, legs etc.) Men, she argues, are shown as a whole, as even though their body is on show, so is their face. Unlike in Dizzy’s music video ‘Holiday’ the camera is focused only on the girls tummy, then her legs, then her tattoo on her lower back, and bum.

On the other hand even though men have their bodies on show, they are never cut out of the shot completely and only focusing on their bodies, unlike women which only have bits of their limbs on show. For example Missy Elliot’s ‘All N My Grill’ music video includes shots of a ripped male, even though the camera pans down to show his physique, his head is in shot and never has an extreme close up of his body. Eye contact also equals power, so if only woman’s bodies were being shown and not their faces, then that further stereotypes the fact that women are seen as less significant and more something to just stare at.

The image of the artist in a music video will have been carefully planned; from the choice of clothes and style of hair to the situation or narrative that the artist is placed within. As an audience we will ‘read’ or deconstruct this representation and will interpret it based on our own cultural references and understanding. Through doing this, we also become accustomed to seeing familiar representations within the videos for particular artists/groups.