Analyzing music videos with Laura Mulveys theory

Analyzing music videos with Laura Mulveys theory

in lesson we used Laura Muleys theory to analyse music videos to see whether or not we agreed or disagreed to an extent with the theory; we were given 2 videos chosen by our teacher that complies with the theory and then chose a last one that deviates with the theory ourselves.

first video:
Kylie Minogue - spinning around

The Kylie Minogue video complies with Mulveys theory because of the use of the different types of shots and mise en scene used through out the whole video.
The first shot is her walking past a man but is only a mid shot of their feet to show her walking past so shes walking past men and then zooms to her bum so creates a male audience instantly. the way Kylie is dressed is proactive as all of her legs are out shes wearing short gold hot pants with a crop top which shows her cleavage which agrees with the theory for woman to be there for the men to 'gaze' as the men would enjoy her dressing like this where as it doesn't make a difference if a woman was watching it if you could see that amount of flesh. Her body language, the way she has puckered lips as she sings upwards into a high angle camera shot creates sex appeal again there for the men. Even the lyrics 'baby baby baby you know i like it like this' is being sung to a male audience as she would be saying this to a man, meaning even the lyrics link to Mulveys theory. The only part of the video which contradicts Mulveys theory is at one point of the video she leads the man onto the dance floor so this part disagrees with the part of theory that Mulvey says about male dominance as she is dominating the men; but overall i would say that this music video complies with Mulveys theory.

second video:
Scouting for girls - she's so lovely

The video starts with them being in a bowling alley and the man has a concentrated face as he holds his ball up to his face as he is about to bowl showing how hes focusing on the game and then the girl walks which is a close up of red sling back heels again showing sex appeal through the use of red he then is put off his game and gets a gutter ball showing she put him off his game because he was thinking about or looking at her too much. The next shots are close ups of mouths open, her smiling, flicking her hair, her bum and men's expressions as they stare at the girl this part shows how the video highly complies with Mulveys theory. Although the video runs with Mulveys theory the lyrics do half and half as he is singing about how lovely she is but then begins singing about how women get 'dirty' at a certain age which then demoralises the woman. The video is similar to Kylie's with the way with the walking and the woman being the centre of attention in a group of men; shes also dressed similar to Kylie in the fact that she dressed in a way to draw attention to her chest, bum and stomach also having red heels on creating sex appeal, because of the same theme and costumes in the music videos i think it complies with Mulveys theory in similar ways.

third video:
p!nk - stupid girls

My third video is p!nk - stupid girls because it agrees with Mulveys theory and pinks come across that she has the same point of view as Mulveys, both exerting a feminist view point. Pink uses a little girl to show what choice she thinks more younger girls should be making instead of following stereotypical 'stupid girls' which are used more in influential media than high achieving women. through the video pink uses contrast of her being a female president, playing American football with a group of boys and the attention given when a girl has her large boobs on show, contrasted with a stereotypical stupid girl doing what you expect, picking out her small dog, running people over because of being on the phone, having a very orange shade tan; having the contrast of the types of women it really shows the difference in stereotypes and how many young girls can be sucked into it as its being viewed as the fact that they need to act stupid, dress a certain way and have a large chest. one of the lines pink uses is; ''what happened to the dream of a girl being president, she's dancing in a video next to 50cent'' i think this quote is really effective because its like girls have lost all dreams for big ambitious things and agree with mulveys theory is there for men to look at and for men to look higher because of having a young attractive girl beside them. Within the video pink also covers extensive issues things like; boob jobs, bulimia and creating sex tapes having the issues covered within the video shows the seriousness of the issues and how pink views females now and the situations they are put in which i think all link to mulveys theory because they mostly link back to men and what please them and what they enjoy looking at.