Research for Music Video: What do you understand about Laura Mulvey's ideas on representation? Explain with reference to a music video of your choice.

Laura Mulvey

- Mulvey's theory and analysis of music video, focuses on representation, in particular it dissects the view of gender in the pop video world - Mulvey believe's that there is an imbalance of sexuality in media. With men portrayed as having an active sexuality and females having a passive one. This all boils down to her theory of the "male gaze" being acted out on camera - her "male gaze" theory suggests that this view is because of male control over what we see, that is usually a man operating the camera, and similarly usually a man directing - so what we as viewers see in music videos, is ultimately the fantasy of the males who filmed it, hence the females passive position.

Examples of The Mulvey theory in Video:

MVP - Rock Ya Body
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO8ET0t5G9w

From the offset of the video we are displayed with Mulvey's theory in action - the male artist fills the frame showing his face and body, bravado and all - then the beat kicks in and the females appear, the cameraman makes no effort to focus on the females faces, but rather their bodies, putting them in an extremely passive role - when the other males are introduced - the video is slowed down and the whole of their bodies are in frame showing a dominance, an active state.