Research- Male gaze theory

I individually researched into Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, as well as applying it to Kesha's videos and our own:

Laura Mulvey is British feminist as well as film theorist, who introduces the concept of the 'male gaze'. The male gaze refers to the way in which cameras, predominately focus on women as being shown sexual object of desire. By doing this the audience view the female, through the eyes of a heterosexual male. Women can be seen as a sexualised objects in many differing platforms of media, from magazine covers, films, music videos, and so on. This can be done through things such as provocative actions, clothing or even the way men respond or react to women.

Catering for the male gaze is a typical convention of the pop genre. Many female artists such as Katy Perry and Beyoncé, are known for their 'sexiness' and raunchy videos. After viewing various videos of Kesha's (our artist), we could see that many of her music videos also caterers for the male gaze. Below are screen shots from youtube of  Kesha's music videos, which can apply to the male gaze:

The first screen shot is taken from the music video 'We R Who We R'. Kesha is denoted as wearing a provocative American print top, which has a large rip at the chest. This caters for the male gaze, as it enables the audience to catch a glimpse of Kesha's breasts.

 

 



The second screen shot is taken from the music video 'Die young'. Here Kesha is denoted as laying on a mattress in a provocative manner, wearing little clothing. This shot caters for the male gaze, as it emphasises Kesha's legs, breasts and stomach.

 This research has been helpful in creating our music video. This is as we have learned to incorporated scenes and shots which cater for the male gaze; as this is typical of the pop genre as well as Kesha's 'sexy' image. Below is a screen shot which shows a shot we filmed of the lead (Kala Hill) for our music video. Our lead is denotes as laying on a bed, which is similar to the screen shot above. The shot pays particular focus to Kala's legs, which can be conventional of a pop video. However my group and I were full aware of the possibility, that Kala's shirt may have been too revealing when she was laying down. In order to prevent this, we requested Kala to wear black shorts underneath the shirt.