The Male GazeDuring the course, we looked into how the male gaze is shown and I decided to look into how this works with a music video of

my choice.

Summary of the Theory The male gaze theory was created by Laura Mulvey with the idea of it

being known as “visual pleasure and narrative cinema” as this theory looks at how people are represented – mostly women though. This theory sparked feminists with how music videos would portray them as well as movies. This is because it can show how; Men look at women Women look at themselves Women look at other women

Mulvey ‘coined’ the male gaze theory during 1975 as she believes that in film audiences ‘view’ characters in a specific way, this being as if they were the stereotypical heterosexual male. This often showed how women take the status of objects in the eyes of many – sexualizing the female body, even in advertisements which leads to it having nothing to do with the product being advertised.

There was much criticism aimed at the theory though which included women as well as they stated, “What if the women actually like being looked at in such a way?” which cancels out this theory at some points.

The Main Features of the Theory; The representation of women as a sexual fantasy Scopophilia – the pleasure involved at looking at others Patriarchal society Objectification of female characters Active male and passive female Men – controlling subjects Women as an image Men do the looking and women are there to only be looked at Needs of the male ego

Nicki Minaj - Anaconda Nicki’s music video for her song “Anaconda” is purely built up for the

male gaze. This is noted by not just the lyrics of the song where she’s trying to emphasise her rear and the likes- but there are many shots that seem to be showing off the artist’s figure. These often show a lot of skin as well as shows women off as being sexualised.

This can be seen easily as how men look at women – how women strive to be seen in this way often as this whole music video itself seems very sexualised.

Though this doesn’t mean that the girls don’t want to be viewed in this way. This music video agrees with the criticism aimed at Mulvey’s theory as it would seem that these women do want to be looked at in such a way and enjoy it – as well as it would appeal to women who would want to watch this video.

Like in the shot below, the camera lingers over the curves of the female body but it doesn’t seem like Nicki minds this sort of shot as she uses it countless times in her music videos.