What do you understand about Laura Mulvey's ideas on representation? Explained with one reference to a music video of your own choice.

Luara Mulvey's idea on representation

Representation consists of many parts; gender, age, ethnicity, place etc.

She believes that men are seen as active in music videos whereas women on the other hand are seen as passive. Women are in music videos to please men, as they are sexualised. However women continue with being sexualised and continue to pleasure men in the videos as they are "passive." Women are seen as being sexualised die to the way they dress in videos; i.e. in tight clothing, very short with a lot of skin and flesh showing, as well as their make-up and hairstyle also contribute as well as the camera shots taken. The camera shots taken focus on the female assets, especially in hip-hop and RnB videos. This clearly indicates that women are there in music videos to fulfil men's desires.

 

However some artists challenge conventional representation of females in music videos such as pink, where she shows herself being more dominant than men, whereas Rihanna on the other hand is the opposite she dresses in really tight and short clothes, when the men are fully covered in her video as she clearly follows the conventional representation of music videos and use there body's to gain attention of the male audience to promote and sell there music in today's society. However there are other artists such as Adele who clearly uses her vocal talent in her video to attract her audience and sell her music and doesn't fall into Mulvey's theory.


Lil Wayne - Lollipop

 

In this video the lyrics clearly indicate sexual activities with women and the camera shots on the women's bodies clearly show this, as there are many close up on women's assets and promote sexual activities and use their bodies to promote the song. This falls into Mulveys theory of the male gaze as she said " The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure..."

 

 

 



 

In this video 50 Cent is dressed and fully covereed, whereas on the other hand the women are half naked and in lingure trying to appeal there body to him (male). This also relates to Mulveys theory on how women are represented and the difference between how men are shown in videos.