SEXISM IN MUSIC VIDEOS
LAURA MULVEY'S THEORY - MALE GAZE:
This theory shows that the male gaze denies woman human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance. The theory also suggests that women can more often not only watch from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a mans perspective and only 16% of the media creators are female. However the presence of a woman in mainstream film texts is something that is vital, often, a female character has no real importance to herself, it is how she makes the male feel or act which is the importance. In other words, the female only exists in relation to the male.
This theory shows that the male gaze denies woman human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance. The theory also suggests that women can more often not only watch from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a mans perspective and only 16% of the media creators are female. However the presence of a woman in mainstream film texts is something that is vital, often, a female character has no real importance to herself, it is how she makes the male feel or act which is the importance. In other words, the female only exists in relation to the male.
The male gaze leads to hegemonic ideologies within our societies. It is ruling or dominant in a political or social context.
Gender roles in film: The characters that are seen as the active role are males, the characters that are to be looked at are the females, they are under control of the male gaze and it only exists for visual pleasure and females often slow the narrative down.
Female objectification is related to the gaze, the person that is gazed at are being objectified, treated as an object whose sole value is to be enjoyed or possessed by the voyeur. Objectified characters are devalued and their humanity removed.
An example of sexism being used in a music video is Lily Allen's Hard Out Here song. Throughout the video it shows she is attacking sexism and she also attacks Robin Thicke's song and video "Blurred Lines" by quoting some of his lyrics and is definitely showing a parody of her challenging stereotypes of women.
In Robin Thicke's video, it shows a lot of sexism as the lyrics caused the song to be banned from 20 University Student Unions in the USA as lyrics say that men shouldn't take no for an answer and that woman don't mean it when they say it, which shows the songs partly encourages rape.
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