Representation and the Male Gaze

WALT  Learning about Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” and how it applies to how women are represented in music videos

WILF  As you analyse your music videos (lesson/exemplar on this forthcoming) and plan your preliminary task (and main tasks), consider explicitly the theories we have studied in your research, planning, and evaluation.

PHASE 1 – Which girl would you expect a guy to choose? Is there a correct choice

Phase 2 - Meet Laura  Laura Mulvey  British Feminist Film Theorist  Teaches at London  Used to work at the British Film Institute

More Mulvey…  “The Male Gaze”  Women are typically the objects of gaze because the control of the camera (and thus the gaze) comes from factors such as the as the assumption of heterosexual men as the default target audience  This doesn’t necessarily change with a female target audience as we’ve been taught to think & process this way  The camera acts like the man’s eyes, often lingering on the body of the woman

More Mulvey…  Feminists think of the representation of people in three ways: ◦ how men look at women ◦ how women look at themselves; ◦ how women look at each other.  The assumption is that representations are always constructed from a male heterosexual point of view.

More Mulvey…  In 1975, Laura Mulvey coined the term ‘male gaze’. This theory identifies several key features to explain how gender is represented in the Media: the camera lingers on the curves of the female body; events which occur to women are depicted in relation to how men react to them; women are relegated to the status of object of sexual desire; the female is often sexualized even when sexuality has nothing to do with objects or events being depicted, this is especially true of advertising.

More Mulvey…  Traditional films present men as controlling subjects and treat women as objects of desire for men in both the story and in the audience, and do not allow women to be desiring sexual subjects in their own right. Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at.  Mulvey (1992) argues that various features of cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen

More Mulvey…  Mulvey distinguishes between two modes of looking for the film spectator: voyeuristic and fetishistic, which she presents in Freudian terms as responses to male ‘castration anxiety’.  Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has associations with sadism: ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt - asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness’ (Mulvey 1992).

More Mulvey…  Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves ‘the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. This builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself. Fetishistic looking, she suggests, leads to overvaluation of the female image and to the cult of the female movie star.  Voyeuristic tears down or degrades, fetishistic overvalues  Mulvey argues that the film spectator oscillates between these two forms of looking.

Mulvey vs. Miley?  In her feud with Sinead O’Connor, Miley Cyrus said that she’s in control of her image.  Does this mean that the Male Gaze doesn’t apply to her?

The Open Letter  “Nothing but harm will come in the long run, from allowing yourself to be exploited,” O’Connor warns, “and it is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.”

The Open Letter  “The music business doesn’t give a sh– about you, or any of us,” she continues. “They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think it’s what YOU wanted… None of the men oggling you give a sh– about you either, do not be fooled.”

PHASE 3 – Which character would Mulvey approve of?

Uses and gratifications theory How the audience USE the media to get specific gratifications or pleasure.  Audience are not helpless victims, they use media to meet their various needs.  Media 'run' by audience – producers compete to satisfy audience demands.  Media has no control over the way the audience may read / use the media.

Uses and gratifications theory 4 elements of uses/pleasures  Surveillance: Information which could be useful for living, understanding the world around them. Example: weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains  Personal identity: finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts (Could be fiction or non-fiction)  Personal relationships: using the media for emotional and social interaction. Example: substituting soap operas for family life, building relationships with characters.  Diversion: escape from everyday problems and routine.

For Today 1. If you haven’t already, please give me your URL of your new wix page (dma-media-assessment blogspot.com 2. Look at exemplar introduction of research on Dyer. Make note of its strengths and weaknesses 3. Use time in lesson to complete any outstanding work on Dyer case study (due Monday June 27) 4. Mulvey/U&G analysis of music video (rough notes for discussion in lesson next week) 5. Filming/Editing of prelim

For Next Week:  Monday – Prelim Lesson (Shooting/Editing/Feedback)  Wednesday – How to Analyse a Music Video  Friday – Dealer’s Choice (Dyer Case Study or Prelim)

For Today 1. If you haven’t already, please give me your URL of your new wix page (dma-media-assessment blogspot.com 2. Look at exemplar introduction of research on Dyer. Make note of its strengths and weaknesses 3. Use time in lesson to complete any outstanding work on Dyer case study (due Monday June 27) 4. Mulvey/U&G analysis of music video (rough notes for discussion in lesson next week) 5. Filming/Editing of prelim

WILF  As you analyse your music videos (lesson/exemplar on this forthcoming) and plan your preliminary task (and main tasks), consider explicitly the theories we have studied in your research, planning, and evaluation.