The Male Gaze - Music Video

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  N.E.R.D's music video for the song Lapdance, fits in well with Laura Mulveys theory of the 'Male Gaze'. Mulvey theory suggests that:
  
  "visual pleasure and narrative cinema"
  
  Active males/passive female.
  
  Woman as image/men as "bearer of the look.
  
  Voyeuristic
  
  fetishistic
  
  N.E.R.D'S music video contains most of these points, it shows many images of women wearing minimal clothing, acting as the 'image'. Throughout the video there are also many clips of the men looking at and admiring the women, this shows them acting as the 'bearer of the look'. Women are treated as objects in this video, they wear little clothing and are there to catch the attention and 'gaze' of the audience. The video is very sexual and seductive towards males, it shows several scenes of women surrounding the male singers trying to seduce them. This also ties in with Majorie Ferguson catorgaries of female expression, the women use romantic and sexual looks and actions to gain attention and hold the 'gaze' of the audience.

The Male Gaze

Marjorie Ferguson (1980) identified four types of facial expression in the cover photos of British women’s magazines:


Chocolate Box: half or full-smile, lips together or slightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three-quarter face to camera. Projected mood: blandly pleasing, warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality.

Invitational: emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut or with only a hint of a smile, head to one side or looking back to camera. Projected mood: suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise, the cover equivalent of advertising’s soft sell.

Super-smiler: full face, wide open toothy smile, head thrust forward or chin thrown back, hair often wind-blown. Projected mood: aggressive, ‘look-at-me’ demanding, the hard sell, ‘big come-on’ approach.

Romantic or Sexual: a fourth and more general classification devised to include male and female ‘two-somes’; or the dreamy, heavy-lidded, unsmiling big-heads, or the overtly sensual or sexual. Projected moods: possible ‘available’ and definitely ‘available’.

Trevor Millum offers these categories of female expressions:

1. Seductive: similar to the cool/level look in many respects - the eyes are less wide, perhaps shaded, the expression is less reserved but still self-sufficient and confident; milder versions may include a slight smile.

2. Seductive: similar to the cool/level look in many respects - the eyes are less wide, perhaps shaded, the expression is less reserved but still self-sufficient and confident; milder versions may include a slight smile.

3. Practical: concentrating, engaged on the business in hand, mouth closed, eyes object-directed, sometimes a slight frown; hair often short or tied back.

4. Comic: deliberately ridiculous, exaggerated, acting the fool, pulling faces for the benefit of a real or imaginary audience, sometimes close to a sort of archness.

5. Catalogue: a neutral look as of a dummy, artificial, waxlike; features may be in any position, but most likely to be with eyes open wide and a smile, but the look remains vacant and empty; personality has been removed. (Millum 1975, 97-8)

How are regional identity and sexuality represented in the opening sequence of Shameless episode 1?

In class we had a group discussion about the different stereotypes that are associated with a sexual and regional identity, here is what we came up with.

Sexuality:

Straight: Love boobs, drink beer, metrosexual, unhealthy, insensitive, do manly things (sports etc)

Gay: limp wristed, mincing walk, flamboyant, gay couple (one is female, other is male) and mostly muscular.

Regional Identity:

Northerners: butch, strong accents, tracksuits, poor, uneducated, drink heavily, chips/pie gravy, crime rates are high and old fashioned.

Southerners: Rich, business men / suits, posh, expensive lifestyle and the glamour’s part of England.

The characters and scenes in episode 1.

Lip: Lip is a straight, normal teenage boy with sexual urges. In the opening scene, we find him going to a girl’s house to help her out in physics homework. Because he charges and she has no money, Lip has his first sexual encounter. This scene is very odd as the girl’s mother is in the kitchen next to them where she could see everything, but was too busy cooking and watching the TV. After this encounter, Lip gets back to his house and try’s to hide his underwear, when hiding the underwear he discovers his brothers (Ian) gay porn stash. Later on in the scene Lip brags to his brother about his sexual encounter, then asks his brother if he has had any (even though he knows he’s gay) and then confronts Ian about his gay porn.

Ian: Ian is gay and sensitive, when confronted about his gay porn he runs to his bed and starts to cry. He tries to cover the fact he’s gay by blending in with his family and friends, trying to look ‘normal’ or ‘not gay’, he pulls this off by acting hard and wearing tracksuits like anyone else (doesn’t look gay). He also has a picture of Kylie in his room.

Preliminary Magazine Cover and Contents

Representation - The Man

When first shown this image, i had to describe the man and what i thought of him based on the picture. My thoughts off him are that he is homeless, scruffy, not had a shave, clothes have been well worn (patched up) and could be a squatter. He doesn't look like a man to have family or kids either. Also the fact that he is standing in the middle of a busy street in a city gives me the impression that he has nowhere to go or anything to do.

However his clothes are clean, so he may not be homeless, but living in a local hostel? he is also smoking, if he was homeless he would be using that money for food.

After describing the man, i was shown another picture of him, and was told that he is Doug Bilmaier, head of the vintage department for Ralph Lauren. It shows me that i sterotyped him for being different in the style of clothes that he was wearing, when all he was doing was having a cigarette break on the street.

Media Interests

Films: Green Street, Toy Story 3, Bad Boys II and The Hurt Locker.

T.V: Big Brother, Shameless, Family Guy, The Inbetweeners, Skins and Road Wars.

Radio: BBC 1 Xtra and Rinse FM.

Newspapers/Magazine: FourFourTwo.

Games: Fifa 11, Gears of War 2 and Skate 3.