"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. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly"
This can be simplified down to a sentence: "In a world where power is imbalance, men play a more active role than woman do"
MALE ARTISTS
There are quite a few music videos that contain sexual references and symbols, many women in these videos are presented accordingly to a create a fantasy for the male presence. One perfect example of this is Kanye West's 'money making' Gold Digger video.
This video shows the lack of respect given to women through most men's perspectives, they are just sex objects obsessed with money. These women are dressed (or undressed shall i say) to an extent where they may as well be naked! (Even Tarzan wears more clothes!) You could state that the less clothes woman wear the more appealing they are to the male gaze. These women in the video are not portrayed to have any intelligent or self respect, the flirting and sexual movements towards the men show how much power men have over them.
^ The women above give a sexual pose whilst dressed in a way that covers a majority of men's fantasies, there is a fantasy for each guy, the cutie, sweet stuff, hot fun ect. They pose in front of a magazine formatted backdrop which looks like these women are being advertised to the audience, making the men lust for them more! These images do not show any factors of female dominance.
EXPLICIT!!!!!!
Camera focusing on female parts.
Sex SELLS! Creating a video with sexual reference attracts hell of a lot of viewers, increasing the chances of them to buy the album/single. Not only does this pleasure the audience but the money out of the video pleasures the artist and their music production team.
HOWEVER!...
HOWEVER!...
It is more likely for a male artist to attract the attentions of female viewers, men who show that they understand the emotions of women and respect the way they are are more likely to receive points from them. Take Ne-Yo, Miss independent. A great example of a man being honest about them, these woman are portrayed more dominantly than the last video.
First of all the video is set in an office, much better than women prancing around half naked in front of a fake backdrop or green screen for that matter. As it is set in the office we are immediately drawn to the presentation of women, them dressed in work office wear shows that they are mature, sophisticated and they especially looking pretty powerful! (Y)
These screenshots are taking from the video, compared to Kanye West's video these women are well respected towards themselves, i've noticed that hanging on the wall of the first screen shot is a sign saying 'Powerful' then next to it a woman writing something down fully covered with what is know as clothes. Her eyes are not to the camera but to the notepad which shows she has no interest in seducing the audience but instead showing them how serious she plays her role as a female.
The second screen shot is interesting, shows dominance through animal reference, as it is said "a dog is a man's best friend" this screen shot can show that dogs can be a woman's best friend too, also the term 'bitch' is used to claim over power - also bitch meaning female dog. As this woman is walking down the streets she is showing that she is in control and not the bitch.
The final screenshot is pretty simple, instead of the camera panning into her breast, it pans into her workbook, the camera (our gaze) respects her body parts as well as the woman herself.
FEMALE ARTISTS
Like i said before, sex sells. An artist would do anything to sell their album/single even if that means adding inappropriate things into their music video.
Rihanna's Rude boy is one example that promotes the artist with sexual references. Not only are the lyrics explicit, but her dance moves! The roles have switch, Rihanna dominates over the men in this video as she takes over the male role, she does all sorts of masculine things like play the drums and rides a motorbike even her lyrics are dominant as she intimidates the men "come on rude boy can you get it up?"- these factors can challenge Mulvey's statement.
In the imaged below she is the one at the front passenger seat whereas he is behind her, she controls the bike and where they head of too (if the bike does move) which shows her dominance over the guy.
Other artists such as Laura Marling scrap the heavy make up, lack of clothing and attitude in her video, she maintains the idealistic role models of women. Marling sticks to the purpose of creating music, to share to the world, she approaches the audience with simplicity with only her voice and guitar skills in her video New Romantic. With these types of music videos, the audience would not be watching for the materialistic goods of the artist or physical appearance but further into the core purpose of watching a music video, to listen and watch the talent be performed. Popularity in this music video wil arise straight from her talent for creating music. Other artists such as Adele and Alicia Keys are also good examples.
These representations vary on the different types of music genre, it is mainly R&B/Hip-Hop and Pop music that contain these sexual references.
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