Textual Analysis of the Male Gaze Theory

The male gaze theory is a theory that suggests that the representation of women in music video is as a sexual fantasy from a heterosexual male's point of view. Women are seen as an image and men are the controlling subjects, aka men do the looking and women are there to be looked at. But in a feminists point of view this would be seen as unfair, because that's not women serve as their purpose. But in most music videos women are sexualised and made to look vulnerable and sexy.

A few examples of music videos that sexualise women are listed below.

 

Robin thicke's 'Blurred lines' this is the clean version, although the unrated version is far worse.

 

Miley cyrus 's 'We can't stop' & 'Wrecking ball'

 

Eric Prydz' 'call on me'

 

All of these music videos contain women dancing or in minimal clothing which supports the idea of the male gaze theory.

Most famous music videos and CD covers of all time.

According to the website NME.com the best music video of all time is 'Hurt' by Johnny Cash released in 2002. It says 'the montage shots of Cash served a poignant purpose at the time; after Johnny 's death seven months later it became even more powerful. A fitting audiovisual epitaph.'

 

A music video that got into the top 20 at #17 was Lady Gaga and Beyonce 's infamous music video for 'telephone' which was a weird and wonderful music video with Lady Gaga 's strange tape outfit and cigarette sunglasses. Released in 2010, and directed by Jonas Åkerlund.

A music video that got the #31 spot was a strange music video, the verve 's 'Bittersweet symphony' released in 1997, even though it just one long shot of Richard Ashcroft walking down a busy street, ignoring everything he sees, still in the top 40 for best music videos.

According to ranker.com 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd is the greatest CD cover,

 #2 is 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles

 #3 is another by the Beatles, 'Sgt. Peppers lonely hearts club band'.

 

Hannah Lux-Davis and her style of music videos.

Maintaining such fresh ideas within pop music videos is no small task, but Hannah Lux-Davis, one of the pop music industries biggest music video director manages to accomplish time and time again. She has worked with many famous pop artists such as Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne and many more. She has created videos that act as vibrant, conceptual mission statements for some of the most famous artists in the industry today.

She likes to create the music videos around the artist and their personalities, I found watching 'Bang Bang' by Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj.

Summary of Q magazines 'VIDEO GAMES' article.

In September of 2015, Q magazine created an article on the controversy of Rihanna 's 'Bitch better have my money' music video and how it wasn't much of a music video but more of a mini - movie.
The article states that Rihanna created the video to get attention, she hadn't been getting much press time recently and her controversial video got her just the amount of attention she needed to make a good comeback. The article states that in the video 'Rihanna want to be seen as a no - fuck - giving badass but comes off as somewhat desperate' which I completely agree with. The idea of having a mini movie as a video can also be a good idea as we saw in Kendrick Lamar's video for 'alright' which contained brilliant camera shots and a relatable video. Rihanna 's video, contained a lot of nudity and drug use, also related to the song but she could've come off with a different idea than kidnapping and humiliating an innocent woman.

Applying genre theories to a music video. (textual analysis)

I have chosen to analyse 5 Seconds of Summer's 'She's kinda hot' music video.


The genre I would associate this music video with is a hybrid genre of 'punk pop'. The band started out with more of a pop/boy band image when they released their first single 'She looks so perfect' in 2014, whereas now their sound has matured along with them, now a year later they have released more of a rockier, punk sound, along with a great video.


The video shows the four boys with their instruments on a float roaming the streets of a quiet neighbourhood singing lyrics such as 'We are the Kings and the Queens of the New Broken Scene' which suggests their new rebellion as a band, showing their transition from pop to punk pop.


The Mis-en-scene shows their style and their genre which they are representing, wearing darker colours and punk brands such as 'Drop Dead Clothing' and other punk band t-shirts showing their alternative look which is influenced by other bands, showing their desire to be different from their old image of being a 'boy band' to their new, mature image.
The scenes on the float show the rebellion and revolution of the New Broken Scene with the contrast of the darkness of the night time and the bright lights on the float which suggests that they're the light for the revolution.


Hodge and Kress (1988) tell us that genres 'control the behaviour of producers of such texts, and the expectations of potential consumers' I don't believe that this applies to this video as this their revolution for their new sound, they have changed their image to get rid of their reputation in the 'pop/boy band' genre which goes against what Hodge and Kress suggest.

http://www.hypnoticmedialr.weebly.com/


This is our finished 1 minute practice music video, the link to the website we made for it is also above along with the finished video!

Hypnotic // Story board