Research: Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

In the music industry music videos are a big part of the industry itself, so it is important to artists and the institutions to present the right things in music videos to the audience. 

And this is the reason as to why Laura Mulvey's Theory of the male gaze is so important. The Theory is that the camera is almost presented in the eyes of a man and although usually in music videos it has a primary focus level on the star artist, it also has a fair amount of focus on females and their assets. (lips, general body, Backside and Blouse areas.)

They do this because this is appealing to a male audience and it is pleasing to their eyes, in modern day music videos men have the tendency to look at females in a sexual manner and objectify them.

The male gaze happens to be most common the the genres:

• Hip - Hop 
• Pop
• Bashment / Dance hall
• R&B

In the moving image on the right we can clearly see mainstream pop artist, Nicki Minaj flaunting her female assets to the camera. It is because of this which is why in the eyes of feminists they see the theory in 3 different ways:

• How men look at women.
• How women look at themselves.
• How women look at other women.

In music videos men tend to play the more active and dominant roll whilst females play a passive roll as they have nothing to gain from it.

Another music video that plays on the male gaze in Satisfaction from Benny Bennasi. This is because the music video presents women using construction tools in a phallic manner and portraying sexual activities and flaunting their female assets. As the theory says int the music video the cinematography used in terms of the males perspective  focusing on their body parts and objectifying them. 

However this theory comes with its own set of criticisms:

• Excludes social opinions.
• No religious and cultural value.
• Don't value the female opinion.
• Considers all males gaze as a heterosexual one.
• Exposing something that the people may not want to see. 

To conclude I believe that the male gaze is quite a sexist and objectifying theory that many people may disagree with, however it is something that the general people want to see because since the late 90's when people was coming around to such controversial acts it seems to sell because the people want to see more otherwise the distributors wouldn't sell it and it wouldn't have come this far.