6 - 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)

Mulvey writes about the importance of representation, as well as the fact that all representations have been well thought out and have an intention within music videos, especially in pop music. Mulvey also discusses the ways in which women are portrayed and the ways in which costume, body language, positioning and props are used to create this representation that we as an audience will the interpret. Mulvey often talks about women being dismembered and this is common, but also very easy to look past in music videos, especially within the R&B and Hip Hop genres where this seems to have become normal.






Various elements of Mulveys theory can be seen in the music video for DJ Khaled - Hold You Down

The women in this video fail to make eye contact with the camera, and therefore play a passive role in the video. However, when they do break the forth wall and do in fact stare directly into the lens, it is more to look attractive then to  assert her role as anything other than a 'vixen'.
Furthermore, I found this video interesting to relate to Mulveys theory as often the women aren't in fact dismembered but are instead made part of the mise en scene or back drop. The artists continue their performance while the women stand to look attractive and attract males to watch a video or a song which based on the artists alone, would normally only attract females.

This is a key moment of dismemberment in the video. The audience watch the artist follow the female with his eyes, and are also drawn to doing the same as the camera stays in one position and her legs walk across the frame. The audience is also further encouraged to 'admire' the woman as she moves across the frame in slow motion; there is almost no way the audience aren't drawn into watching her legs.