Briefly summaries what you understand about Laura Mulvey's theory on representation.
The quote in which she stated was 'in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/ male and passive/ female. This determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto female figures which is styled accordingly'
Representation consists of gender, age, ethnicity, place etc. Laura Mulvey's theory on representation was different to many others as she categorized both men and woman in two different groups. Male gaze: this was the idea that we presume a male audience is doing all the looking where woman on the other hand are styled accordingly ie portrayed to suit a more fantasy look. She therefore concluded the idea that woman are passive and men are active.
The image of the artist according to Laura Mulvey in a music video would be carefully planned from the choice of clothes and style of hair to the situation or narrative that the artist is placed within. According to this theory the audience will read and deconstruct the representation of the music video and then create a visual image based on our own cultural references and understanding. Through doing this we also have a clear representation within the videos for particular artists and groups.
Below i have indicated the way in which representation has been shown through
two videos Dizzee Rascal 'Holiday' and Missy Elliot ' All N My Grill'
Dizziee Rascal 'Holiday'
Dizzee Racal ' Holiday' is a clear example of Laura Mulveys theory, in this video we see clearly how woman are represented in which this case are sex symbols. This was a very good video to use to show woman being part of a male gaze by the way in which men look at them. Woman in this video are dancing around with bikinis revealing a lot of their body. This gives us the connotation of how woman are sometimes degraded as human beings and how men perceive them. This furthermore indicates the clear roles of active males and passive females. Throughout this music video we come across many close up of girls bodies, particularly there bums, hips and breasts which clearly seems to fantasise the mail species showing how downgrading woman are presented in society.
Below i have collected and illustrated some screen shots which clearly show woman represented as sex symbols.
Above are collected screen shots of what has been shown in this music video. Looking above we see many of the shots are of womans body parts and men looking at them as hungry animals.
Looking above womans body have been cut of showing the audience the story in which is represented through the video which is a holiday part where woman have to dress sexy in order to enter.
This is the party scene where most woman are in bikini dancing whilst men such as Dizee are in shirts more covered.
Missy Elliot ' All N My Grill
Missy Elliot on the other hand is shown to be covered up revealing less parts of her body in her video. In this video we see the typical conventions are broken as woman are not expected to act the way she does. Men are supposed to be active while the woman in the video remain passive, however in this video Missy Elliot is able to flip opposite roles, we see her being much more the dominate person in the relation ship as she is ordering the men and also is dressed ibn a police officers suit reinforcing that she has control, where as in typical music videos such as Dizzee Rascal 'Holiday' the woman are seen to be the slaves and have to obey the men.
Below are some screen shots of the video itself:
Above are collected images from the music video
This is a clear example of how woman are more in control we see the first image is of a woman police officer which in society is mostly a roll men undercover this shows how dominant woman can also be.
Below i have done a quick presentation on Viola of more music videos who portray her theory.
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