"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive / female. The determining male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly". - Laura Mulvey, 1992
What I believe Mulvey is trying to express with this quote is that women in music videos are purely for males to gaze upon, as we are styled to dress up in music videos, yet we are seen a objects and not women, this shows the sexual imbalance between male and female.
The kind of representations for women expected in these music videos is that they are dismembered, close ups of legs, bum and boobs. Viewing women as objects, and males to be dominant, this is Laura Mulvey's opinion, which in fact is very true as in class we view some videos which proved Mulvey's points.
A particular genre I believe to follow Mulvey's theory is R'n'B, as in class, when we thought of this genre, people thought, girls, girls in bikini's, girls half naked! Then we had the cars the big house, the single rapper / singer. For example, artists like 50 cent, Pitbull and Ludacris.
There are some artists that completely go the opposite way of Mulvey's theory, for example Beyonce, Lady GaGa and Rhianna, these ladies all are the dominant character in their music videos, not being afraid to look into the camera, and connect with the audience. Proving Mulvey's views of dismemberment wrong, although women get dismembered in make artists music videos, these women do not dismember males.
I believe that Mulvey's opinion relates more to the society now than ever, although there might be dismemberment for males as-well-as women women are more exposed with flesh, women are just standing around to be exposed. I believe that sexual imbalance is more obvious in music videos than before.
What I believe Mulvey is trying to express with this quote is that women in music videos are purely for males to gaze upon, as we are styled to dress up in music videos, yet we are seen a objects and not women, this shows the sexual imbalance between male and female.
The kind of representations for women expected in these music videos is that they are dismembered, close ups of legs, bum and boobs. Viewing women as objects, and males to be dominant, this is Laura Mulvey's opinion, which in fact is very true as in class we view some videos which proved Mulvey's points.
A particular genre I believe to follow Mulvey's theory is R'n'B, as in class, when we thought of this genre, people thought, girls, girls in bikini's, girls half naked! Then we had the cars the big house, the single rapper / singer. For example, artists like 50 cent, Pitbull and Ludacris.
There are some artists that completely go the opposite way of Mulvey's theory, for example Beyonce, Lady GaGa and Rhianna, these ladies all are the dominant character in their music videos, not being afraid to look into the camera, and connect with the audience. Proving Mulvey's views of dismemberment wrong, although women get dismembered in make artists music videos, these women do not dismember males.
I believe that Mulvey's opinion relates more to the society now than ever, although there might be dismemberment for males as-well-as women women are more exposed with flesh, women are just standing around to be exposed. I believe that sexual imbalance is more obvious in music videos than before.
Here is the video we watched in class, showing the clear outlines of Mulvey's Theory.
- Dizzee Rascal : Holiday
Within the first 2 seconds of the video we get a quick flash of boobies.
18 seconds.
30seconds.
And clearly it does not take long to explain Laura Mulvey's Theory, music videos express the theory alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment