Research: Mulvey's male gaze

The male gaze theory

The concept of male gaze is how the heterosexual males interpret the voyeuristic female genders that are presented to them in music videos. Most feminists believe that women are viewed distinctive which enable them to attract the male audience and please him, in exchange this then leads to a success for their career. Moreover, some women enjoy being  ‘looked’ at e.g. Beauty pageants.

The ‘Male Gaze’ 

How an audience view the women presented, 

For feminists, it can be thought of in 3 ways:

1- How men look at women 

2- How women look at themselves 

3-How women look at other women 

Laura Mulvey 

Laura Mulvey was a theorist and a feminist, came up with the concept on the male gaze in 1975. She had written an influential essay stating that women are used for visual pleasure as they are made to seem like sexual objects through the use of voyeurism. 

Beyonce is a great subject for analysis on the topic, especially within the music video for ‘Partition’

Throughout this video there are clear signs of 'the male gaze theory' in action, there are many scenes associated with intimacy, sex and orgasm. All of this leads to prove the theory of male gaze true. The music video consists of close up shots and the camera lingering around her body. This emphasises her trying to capture her partner’s attention within the narrative of the music video however; this certainly works for the audience members too.

Finally, I conclude that I may use some aspects of the male gaze theory within my music video as it captures more attention and a larger audience presence from males. I believe this is an extremely clever way of gaining popularity for a music video