Theories relating to Music Videos

Andrew Goodwin

"Music video is not primarily a commodity form, but a promotional one."

What is it promoting?

- Artist/Band - creating interest

- that particular song 

- other products by artists - Album/merchandise/website/anything associated with artist

- Location 

- Promoting a film where song appears

OPPOSING THEORY

Music appears as an art form
- Exists as an untouched art form


Laura Mulvey

"Visual Pleasure and narrative cinema"

What is the Gaze?

The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people is presented.

Feminists view this in 3 different ways :

- How men look at women 

- How women look at themselves 

- How women look at other women

Laura Mulver invented the term 'The Male Gaze' in 1975 and she believes that media is produced in the view from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

Features of the Male Gaze

Camera lingers on the curves if the females body and events that follow a presented based on the males reaction to these events.

Use of the theory in everyday life

Some theorists have noticed the sexualizing of the female body even in situations where the sexualizing of females has nothing to do with the product being advertised.

Criticism of Theory 

- Beauty Pageants 

- Can be directed towards members of the same gender, such as comparison of body image and/or clothing. 

Categorizing Facial Expressions 

Women 

- Chocolate Box (Giving expression)

- Invitational (Welcoming)

- Super Smiler 

- Romantic/Sexual

Majorie Fegurson (1980)

Men 

- Carefree

- Practical 

- Seductive 

- Comic 

- Catalogue (blank expression)

Trevor Millum (1975)

Key Theorists beliefs 

Johnathon Schroeder (1998) "To gaze implies more than a look - it signifies psychological relationship of power in which the gaze is superior to the object of the gaze