Gender-Females:
In music videos females are represented in a different way to men, they are often sexualised, wearing skimpy clothing etc. This is often to appeal to male viewers reinforcing Laura Mulvey’s Theory of the ‘Male Gaze’. The ‘male gaze’ is a concept that deals with how audiences view the people presented. Although mainly the male gaze is thought to deal with how male audiences view women who are presented, it can also be how women view themselves and also how women view other women. The term ‘male gaze’ was first established in 1975, created by Laura Mulvey as she believed that audiences have to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. The male gaze often relegates women to the status of an object.
Example: Focus- Ariana Grande-Music Video
Here you can see the silhouette of Ariana in a small bright circle. The circle that Ariana is in resembles a telescope, which reinforces the idea that audiences gain pleasure through watching someone else without them knowing.
· The contrasting colours between black and white emphasise Ariana's silhouette in the circle, emphasising the shape of her body. The fact that she is looking downwards away from the camera forces the audience to focus on her body. This reinforces Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory as it emphasises the idea that she is an object to be gazed at, also her posture and the fact you can’t really see if she's wearing any clothes apart from shoes makes this part of the video highly sexualised. An extreme close up shot of Ariana Grande’s mouth is shown here, this could be seen as quite an intimate shot as it’s an extreme close up of her mouth it could be as if she’s telling you a secret, it seems like an intimate and kind of personal moment between the audience watching and the artist.
Also there is nowhere else to focus your attention but her mouth. In this shot again you can see Ariana’s silhouette, emphasised by the light purple background contrasts her silhouette again emphasising the shape of her body. Again because she’s not looking at the camera it forces the audience to focus on her body. The title of the song is called “Focus” and a repeated lyric in the song is “focus on me” followed with these type of shots where the main focus would be Ariana’s Body rather than her performing etc. This reinforces a common representation within the music/any performance industry that for women to be noticed, popular and “focused on” they need to be attractive and appeal to men and the “male gaze”. Which is what Ariana does in this video.
Gender- Males:
In Music videos men are often presented as powerful people, who have a lot of money, who attract a lot of females. They’re shown to be dominant and that they have sex with a lot of females. This is in order to seem admirable to other men, so that other males watching the music video look up to them and want to be like them. The money, the way they dress if they’re wearing nice clothes could also be said that this makes them seem desirable to females. This representation is stereotypically seen in hip hop, RnB and rap videos.
Example: Worst Behaviour- Drake- Music Video
In this mid shot you can see the man standing wearing a suit lots of gold jewellery standing in front of 5 cars only 3 you can see fully in the shot. He’s wearing a ‘pimp’ outfit and has ‘pimp’ cars not only reinforcing the representation that men get a lot of money and are money focused, but this also suggests that he has sex with a lot of women further reinforcing that representation of men. Making him admirable to younger men. Again this shot shows the artist himself Drake standing in front of 3 nice cars wearing nice clothes, he also has his friends in one of the cars.
This shows the representation again of him having a lot of money, and also that he's popular making him seem more powerful and admirable to his audience. Finally this shot also shows that Drake has money as he is wearing 3 of the same chain 2 in gold and one in silver, showing that he has a lot of money to spend on to buy 3 of the same chain. This causes young male audiences to look up to him as they want to get money and be rich so the they can then be like Drake and have nice cars, nice clothes and nice jewellery too.
Sexuality:
Although before commonly only heterosexual relationships were presented in music videos, arguably due to the fact that being LGBT+ wasn’t accepted by society. Recently, as societal opinions on sexuality has changed and being LGBT+ has become more accepted by society, there have been a wider range of sexualities represented in music videos. A lot of the time different sexualities such as gay, lesbian or trans are commonly represented within the indie genre and indie sub genres, as despite the fact being LGBT+ has become more accepted it is still not a mainstream view, as the indie genres hold and appreciate alternative values it could be argued that this is why different representations of sexuality are most commonly represented within that genre.
Example: Fools-Troye Sivan- Music Video
· This helps inform his audience on what kind of struggles and problems he faces in his relationships which are different from heterosexual relationships which are so commonly represented in music videos. This shot shows the two boys sitting together watching the sunset on the beach, a stereotypically romantic thing to do, this shows that Troye’s relationship is just like any other heterosexual relationship, and reinforces that gay relationships are normal too, despite being seen as weird and not normal by mainstream societal views.
This shot shows Troye sneaking around so that he can see his boyfriend/romantic interest, we know that Troye has to sneak around as in a previous shot we see the other boy’s dad shouting at him and even going to hit him because he knows that his son and Troye have feelings for each other, because he is homophobic he doesn’t approve and tells his son “if I see you speaking to him gain I’ll kill both of you.” Emphasising that although being gay is more accepted than it was, it’s still not very accepted and sometimes can put people in danger.
Ethnicity:
Different ethnicities and cultures are often represented in music videos, however they rarely challenge the stereotypes and representations which are shown about the different ethnicities in other forms of media such as TV and Film. Different ethnicities in music videos can also be used to show an insight to that culture so that audiences can gain a better understanding.
Example: Formation-Beyoncé-Music Video
This mid shot of Beyoncé shows her standing onto of a police car, this is to represent the devastating effects that Hurricane Katrina had of New Orleans, this is big part of African American history as the majority of the population in New Orleans was black people, and so they were the people most effect by the effects of this hurricane. This doesn’t really show a stereotype or representation but rather a part of black history.
The next show shows a black pastor, he’s wearing a cross around his neck and looks as if he’s giving a sermon reinforces the stereotype that black families people have strong religious beliefs, they attend church regularly and often tend to be pastors.
·
This next shot shows 3 black girls standing in a wig shop playing with a wig, this reinforces the stereotype that all black women wear wigs and weaves, and that’s what they care about.
This shot shows a black man holding a basketball and wearing a basketball uniform, this reinforces the stereotype that all black men are good at basketball and are more likely to become basketball players.
No comments:
Post a Comment