Laura Mulvey

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in the 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"

Laura Mulvey's theory of the 'Male gaze' was influenced by Freud and helped establish feminist film theory. Her theory states that women are represented as visual pleasure to men. Through the camerawork the audience is forced to look at women from the perspective of males. It is common in music videos for women to be objectified so a lot of the time they are background dancers and they don't have an actual role in the video. Hip Hop, RnB and Rap follow some of the conventions that Laura Mulvey talks about in her theory although there are some artists who challenge this theory, for example, Missy Elliot, Emeli Sande, Adele, Lauryn Hill.

Dizzee Rascal's video holiday is a good example of a video that demonstrates Laura Mulvey's theory. All the women in this video are dressed in bikini's and are showing a lot of flesh. The women are constantly dismembered in this video and we are through the camera work we see them from the male perspective (shot/reverse shot, pan, track). The women are constantly dismembered in this video, we see their legs and thighs and bums and mouth but not them as a whole. Dizzee Rascal is dressed in a suit (he's covered) in this video giving him status and also it gives the idea that men are more important than women as he is seen as the person in control - he has an entourage. The men are enjoying looking at the women in this video and the women seem 'happy' to be looked at in that way.

Another Good example is Beyonce's video Naughty Girl and Beyonce as an artist too. You'd think as a woman she would want to go against stereotypes or she would contradict Mulvey's theory but she does not. Even her lyrics refer to the male gaze 'I see you look me up and down, I know you like my body suggesting she has no problem with it and

being objectified. In the video she dances very provocatively and her actions are done in a way to catch the attention of the males in the video as if she is performing for them. She shows a lot of flesh in this video. Although She isn't dismembered a lot in this video but the camera does move up her body, in the beginning we do not see her face first but the camera moving up her body (male gaze). At one point in the video she is dancing behind a screen and you can only see her figure (and the other dancers) their body is the main focus and not them and there isn't much to differentiate them.

There are quite a few artists that contradict Mulvey's theory. The examples I'm going to use are Emeli Sande and Missy Elliot.

This video contradicts Laura Mulvey's theory as when the camera is on Emeli Sande it's usually a close up so the focus on her (the artist) and her performance rather than her body and what she is wearing. She isn't at all provocative and she is wearing black dress which isn't very interesting but it means the attention isn't on her costumes but you're forced to watch her as a person and not as an object. She is not dismembered at all in this video.

Similar to Emeli Sande's video there are many close ups of Missy Elliot so we are forced to focus on her but when we do see her as a whole in this video she is covered - dressed in a trash bag costume, dressed in similar clothes as the male dancers except she's wearing a jacket not revealing flesh and all her other costumes don't accentuate particular parts of her body. She is the dominant person in this video and it is clear. The male dancers are dancing around her and not the other way around as it usually is. There are also female dancers in this video but they are not dismembered in the way they'd usually be.