Laura Mulvey’s Theory on Representation

Her Theory…

According to Laura Mulvey’s theory, she impliesthat the representation of women in an unequalsociety is seen as a way for pleasure towards men.she came up with the term ‘male gaze’, This is described as women being objectified as a sexual object. Active men have more power over passive women as they dominate a patriarchal society. This is imprinted onto the media on how women should be represented.

Examples to backup her theory..‘Britney spears – Toxic’

In the music video ‘Toxic ‘ there is evidence to display how Women are betrayed as sexual objects. The beginning of the Music video has two divided rows in the plane between men and women. Women are dressed up very seductively with bright flashy colours to attract men,Whereas men are fully dressed in suits. There are more skin exposed with what the female is Wearing as Laura Mulvey implies ‘the male gaze’ . The plane is mainly dominated with men while women are there for pleasure.

From the viewers perspective seeing jump cuts between the plane and Britney wearing a suit.The camera angle is viewed on the viewers level , we lookInto the shoes as the male gaze where we observe whatMen see.

‘Calvin Harris – Summer ‘

In contrast to Britney Spear ‘ s – ‘toxic ‘ , The music video summer is portrayed in aSimilar view towards representation of women. For example the first visual thing we notice is the female wearing tight lingerie as this exposes her figure. We can compare this to the main artist who is fully dressed.

Laura Mulvey suggests about the inequality of representation between men and women of how are they dressed differently in the music video. Majority of the women are mainly nude to give the impression to girls in society that they are all the same.

Later on in the video we notice that The main artist is in ‘paradise’ full of women to Have pleasure with. Women in this video were Represented as thin and good looking, while this mainly focuses on parts of their body but notAs women as a whole . Mulvey displaysEvidence to how most video ‘s in certain genre ‘s (pop, R&B, Gryme) portrays a certain way to how this is seen as Ideal to attract men.