Representation – Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly.” – Laura Mulvey (1992). What this theory basically means is that the world is male dominated and women dress to the pleasure of men as that is what they believe men want to see.

     The type of representations shown of women in music videos is on that focus on their bodies. Mulvey argues that women are dismembered, and there is no focus of women as a whole but as in parts of their body. Whereas men re shown as a whole> Through this women are objectified and are seen as the properties of those men, which in turn represents men as powerful and dominate. This theory is most commonly represented in hip-hop videos – a predominately male dominated genre. An example of a hip-hop music video where this theory is displayed is with E40 – Candy Paint.

In this video Mulvey’s theory is shown here through the women that quietly ‘serve’ him, as they do the cleaning driving and fixing, while the men in the videos stand by waiting. Through this the women are seen as inferior and submissive, then inferring the men as the dominant figure. Also the women are dressed degradingly as they’re wearing close to nothing e.g. bikini tops and shorts, with the camera doing close up and slow motion of body parts, while the men are fully clothed. This is because the women were put in the video to look good and be something good to look at; reinforcing the Mulvey’s idea that women are treated as property. 

Another video that’s displays these same traits is 50 Cent – P.I.M.P

However as time goes by more and more artists and groups try to challenge this theory as women are becoming more and more powerful and dominated in society. One artist who challenge this and shows women as whole rather than dismembered, showing that there’s more to them than bodies is Alicia Keys – Superwoman.

In this video Alicia Keys, instead of focusing on a women’s body she distracts from this by dressing in a conservative way, and through her lyrics focuses on women’s intelligence, strength and power.