When we talk about representation we are talking about many parts which are: Gender, age, ethnicity, place etc.
Gender is a very obvious area of representation in music video's and it is what Mulvey has looked at.
Laura Mulvey said "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 figure which is styled accordingly".
By mentioning 'male gaze' we presume a male audience, a man is doing the looking. Women are 'styled accordingly' e.g. portraying to suit a male fantasy. She also mentions that women are 'passive; and men are 'active'.
In a music video the artists image will have been carefully planned, this would include the choices of clothes and the style of hair to the situation or 'narrative' that the artist is placed within.
The first video that i will be looking at is Wiley's song 'Heatwave'.
Immediately we can see that Laura Mulveys theory of representation on gender is shown. The women here are all half naked which tell us that they are being used as sex symbols. By having the women dancing in bikinis around the men show us that women are being degraded and that they are really nothing but body parts, which is how they are perceived by men. When a man watches this video he could enjoy it because many of the shots are close ups of female body parts such as their breasts and bums however is a women watches it they may feel disgusted that all their seeing are half naked women. However, some girls may look at some of the women used and then try look like them.
The second video i have used is Missy Elliot's song 'My Girls'
This video is very different from my first example. It doesn't use women dancing in bikini's but rather Missy Elliot fully dressed, which gives the audience a certain feeling that she has power. The video shows flipped roles therefore the women (missy Elliot) are active rather than passive. We see this when she is in the car however it is the man who is driving. But we have Missy Elliot who shows that she is in control and giving orders around.
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