The male gaze is a feminist theory that was developed by Laura Mulvey in 1975. She put forward the following arguments of the male gaze. They include;
- She stated that the audience are always put in the position of the heterosexual male position when viewing a a media text such as a music video. This is the idea that the mainstream media text is to reflect and satisfy a heterosexual male unconsciously.
- She emphasis that the camera is always put on the curvy position of a woman's body and there are presented largely in context of the man's reaction to the event.
- Male characters in the video objectifies women and make them the objects of their gaze. Women watching this text are then forced to take the position of a man.
In class, we watched the video "She's so lovely" by Scouting for girl and analysed how the male gaze is used in this video.
- The song is filmed from a man's prospective and we see the men's reaction to her presence, all staring at her, and the audience see her through close-up shots.
- There is also close-up of her legs as she walks into the room. They is also close up of her lips which is a stereotypical sexual element of a woman.
- She gets the most prevalence during editing, but we don't see her reaction when she is treated like an object by the men.
- We see the man slapping her bum as a joke, and the man responding very superior to it but we don't see her reaction to it, which the audience might consider sexual harassment.
Nuttin' to Do - Bad meets Evil (1999)
The Strokes - Is This It (2001)
These albums cover were very controversial because they objectify women in all of them. These are good examples for the theory of "The Male Gaze" and in used in media, particularly in the music industry. They show that the theory can be used to challenge women and objectify them.
The "The Male Gaze" is used other ways in terms of context which still manages to attract it's niche audience and extends it's target audience to a slightly wider population such as teenagers.
They include;
Beyonce - Dangerously in Love
Christina Aguilera - Stripped
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
As seen on the three album covers, the context of the album covers are different but women are still shown in a voyeuristic way which supports Mulvey's theory of The Male Gaze. Unlike the controversial album covers which were of male artist, these are all of female artist who also aim to target female teenage audience. This might explain the reason why The Male Gaze used is more tone down but we would question why they will use sexual/naked pictures of themselves when it is aim at teenagers. The theory of 'the Male Gaze' is not only to attract men, as seen on the three cover but also to attract a more diverse audience. It aims to attract women by objectifying women in a way that other women feel they have to look like that or look attractive that way.
The reality is that this images are incorporated in our minds in such a way that most teenage girls don't look at it when buying the album because in a way we already expect it to be there and so it is not as significant to us anymore.
However, the Male Gaze can be subverted such as the man a is being objectified rather than a woman. When the Male Gaze is challenged, they usually become controversial. Examples of converting male gaze include;
Prince - Lovesexy
The Rolling Stone - Sticky Fingers
Apex Twin - Windowlicker
These three album covers are examples of challenging 'The Male Gaze'. It is important to know that we understand the Apex Twin cover as an idea of a man in a woman's body which in a way is still trying to objectify women as the breast are very visible and could almost be seen as the central and focus of the album. The Lovesexy album subverts the theory of male gaze as we see Prince on the cover nude. This image again would be thought of as something a woman should be doing and not a man which goes on to emphasis the theory of the male gaze how easy and normal it is to objectify women. The Rolling Stone cover really tries to challenge the male gaze as the audience is able to see the man's erection through his trouser. The cover is very uncomfortable as we are not used to seeing men being presented in the music industry in this way.
We decided that we will use only some concept of the male gaze in the music videorather than on the album cover. This is because it is unlikely to see the theory of the male gaze being used in the metal-core genre. Artist from this genre are more likely to use pictures of the nature or other elements of the metal-core genre conventions. In addition, this genre is unlikely to use the male gaze as their music is always focused on their inner emotions. Some aspect/artist uses the male gaze, for example 'Bullet for My Valentine' used it in 'waking the Demone' music video and the girl is shown as the reason for the conflict and bullying among the boys at the end of the video. However, metal-core does not use the male gaze to the extend in which other music genres uses it such as R&B and hip hop.
The influence of the male gaze would be seen in our music video through editing. The female character (Robynne) would get prevalence to the camera work in scenes such as fighting with a male character and sitting in the park with another boy. Furthermore, the male gaze would be seen through close- up shots of her face and other parts of her body.
We decided to include the male gaze in our work because we are aware that some parts of the metal genre uses similar aspects. However, we plan to keep the male gaze to a minimum so that it would not be exposed through out the video.
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