Monday 18 November 2013

Laura Mulvey Essay


Laura Mulvey's theory applies to the music videos "Dirty" and "Do it Like a Dude" because both videos invite the audience to view the artists as objects of desire. This is done through camera shots and angles used, the fact the video is presented in a voyeuristic way to the audience, and the way the artist interacts with others in the video.

In Christina Aguilera's video of "Dirty" the camera invites sexual gaze by inviting the audience to look at Christina Aguilera's body. Christina Aguliera's video is extremely sexual, this is because through most of the video all the girls are wearing bikini's dancing around in a ring or a shower. An example of how the camera invites the sexual gaze is when Christina is in the ring, the camera zooms in when she is doing really sexual movement even when she's grinding on another person.

The audience views this video in a voyeuristic way because right at the beginning it shows Christina's bum as the first thing on the screen, then you see her mouth with a stud on it. Later through out the video they make the voyeuristic by become a little more sexual, she comes out of a cage at the beginning showing that she's a bit of a "wild" animal and she comes out of the cage enters a ring with thousands of topless men staring at her with just a bra and a panties. Throughout the whole video she is shown as an object of desire for the men.

The actors interact in a way that results in the female being looked at as an object of desire. This occurs when all the topless men are around Christina Aguilera just staring at her, and touching her. Later on in the video the male characters are grinding on her and when Redman's part features in the video you see girls doing mud wrestling which is shown to be extremely sexual.

In Jesse J's video of "Do it Like a Dude" the use of the camera invites sexual gaze by zooming in at times and getting the really sexual parts in it like when the woman licks the bottle slowly. But there are times where the video try's to challenge the stereotype of women being sexual in music videos like when the camera zoom in on Jesse J she shoves the camera away aggressively.

The audience views this video in a voyeuristic way because in the video there are lesbians kissing, people licking bottles and some really sexual dancing but again quite aggressive and "animalistic".
She try's to challenge the stereo type be being aggressive and at one point there is a women hacking at some meat which is shown to be very violent and unappealing.

The actors interact in a way that results in the female being looked at as an object of desire. This occurs when the women basically dancing sexually. The actors aren't really shown in most of the video to be an object of desire as at points it is very aggressive.

The target audience for these two artists is young females. However, the way they represent themselves as sexual objects does not appeal to young girls, it appeals more to men. I believe Christina Aguilera and Jesse J choose to represent themselves like this because they want more people to like them (especially the men) in the video Dirty by Christina Augilera is far more sexual than Jesse J's Do it Like A Dude because it shows far more skin then the girls in Jesse J. Christina's "Dirty" video you see over the top things like her coming out of the cage at the beginning. I think Christina Augilera wants her audiences to make sure she's not as boring as people in other music video's in a way she wants to be unique.

In summary, Laura Mulvey's theory applies to these music videos because it is true. The women are trying to be as sexual as possible in some videos, but even in other videos where they try to challenge the stereotype as much as they can they still can't because they still have the sexual dancing and other sexual scenes.


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