Andrew Goodwin and Music Videos 5. Reference to notion of looking.

5. There is a frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

The 'Voyeuristic treatment of the human body' link to Mulvey's theories of the male gaze. She wrote a seminal work in feminist film theory entitled, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) in which she posited the idea of a gaze that was specifically male.

1. The gaze of the camera: the camera that looks at the female body

2. The gaze of the male actor: shots of males looking at women and then the shot of the female body being looked at

3. The gaze of the audience: what the audience look at (even female audience members were positioned within a male gaze)

The male gaze essentially reduces women to passive sexual objects to be looked at and quite often their representations were fragmented so that it was just the sexual parts of the body that the male gaze at.

Example:

Lady Gaga - Alejandro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nigrrmev4mA

Key words:

• Power
• Objectifying
• Queer Gaze
• Political Act
• Pink Pound

1. The video firstly starts with the males being sexualised but this switches throughout the video
2. Switching of power
3. Role Reversal
4. Political Music Video - Trying to get males to see/look at females differently (attempt to change)
5. Males can be seen as quite feminine - Attempt to tap into the Pink Pound?
6. Males are sexualised a lot - unusual, so we don't notice the artist (Lady Gaga) being sexualised as much this could be through the use of Mise En Scene - costume encourages us to focus on the males as the males wear very little and Lady Gaga tends to stay 'covered up'
7. Queer Gaze - Men sexualised for other males (gay male audience)
8. Playfulness of male gaze - plays around with this (level of self awareness)

Primal Scream - Country Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWjm W-4MI8&feature=relmfu

1.Genre: Rock 'N' Roll

• Typical Low key lighting used
• Typical Mise En Scene - drinking, bars, having a good time
• Lots of Camera movements - 'homemade' feel/ sense of amatuerness/ sense of reality/ sense of authenticity

2. Illustrative and Amplifying 

3. Picks up pace - looking at the audience - strong relationship between music and visuals

4. Plenty of close ups of the artist - camera stationary during this - almost an act of rebellion