Wanna get ~Clean~

Christina Aguilera’s music video, Dirrty(2002), starts off with a close up frame of her rear end, cutting to a zoomed in scene of her zipping up a jacket over her almost-bare chest. Then to her glossed lips, multiple times. Within the first 20 seconds of the video, Mulvey’s theory of scopophilia and male gaze is demonstrated.

In Mulvey’s essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” she describes scopophilia as coming from “pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight (32)”. Which intertwines with the idea of the male gaze, the male projecting his fantasy and objectifying the female figure. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female(33).” These concepts are extremely evident throughout the music video.

So this video has A LOT going on. It’s about 30 seconds in and Christina is in a metal cage, similar to the ones they keep animals in, being lowered into a boxing ring. The ring is surrounded by yelling, rowdy men. All the while dancing provocatively in a bikini top and cutout pants(??) – not quite the outfit used in boxing. This already is a good example of the male gaze in action. “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact(33)”. Throughout the rest of the video, Aguilera continues to dance in a way that prompts the gaze – playing to and signifying male desire.

 

Reference:

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, 1990, pp. 33.

Jason Derulo’s not ‘Tip Toe’ing Around the Male Gaze

Jason Derulo’s music video for the song Tip Toe featuring French Montana was released almost a full year ago. The music video opens in a tropical jungle, shrouded in mist, where Jason Derulo and three male backup dancers have gotten lost. One by one, women—mainly women of color—appear dressed as various jungle cats and tropical birds in skin-tight leotards, bras, and feathered underwear. The next scene in the music video is shot indoors featuring fake snow and women wearing thigh-highs and red skimpy kimonos wielding parasols as some kind of sexy Asian dancer-ninjas. The third and final scene in the music video doubles as French Montana’s entrance. It features two naked women covered head to toe in gold glitter standing in front of a golden wall of skulls. This scene in the video is particularly important because, while in the two other parts of the video the women were dancing and had their own agency, the naked gold women remained still and held various poses while being caressed by the men.

 

 

 

 

Throughout the video, it was evident that the focus was on the females’ bodies, presenting the women solely as sexual objects. This is a very clear example of women as the image and man as the bearer of the look, as described by Laura Mulvey in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ She states, “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly…Women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact…She holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.”

 

 

 

In the beginning moments of the video, this idea of the male gaze is immediately shown through the presence of a woman-cheetah before the males are even on screen. The animal costumes and kimono outfits helped to further the idea that females are exotic and erotic creatures meant to be admired (aka sexualized) and viewed. The women covered in gold body glitter was just plain blatant in its desired erotic visual impact.

I’ve only touched on the costumes and a few of the behaviors exhibited in this video, but there are many, many more sexist elements that utilize the male gaze within this video.

New Girl, Same Old Sexism

In New Girl, Jess lives with four other male roommates: Winston, Coach, Schmidt, and her (then) ex-boyfriend Nick. In Season 4, Episode 7 “Goldmine”, to start the episode Jess announces that she will be bringing a guy home that night and the she is afraid of telling him that she lives with her ex. Though she is afraid of sharing this information with the new man, Nick explains how he uses it to his advantage with women. This shows a double standard between the way sexual histories are held against women and not men, as well as agency of men over women. Nick’s solution to the problem is to pretend that he is gay now, which is problematic in itself.

Meanwhile, two new neighbors moved in the loft next door. Winston tries to do nice things for them, in hopes that they will sleep with him. They are portrayed as two beautiful, ditzy and helpless girls. As soon as they open up the door, they are so grateful for Winston to be there because they could not have possibly of fixed the non-flushing toilet. Thank god there was a man there to save them. Not only are the women there to please the visual gaze of Winston and Coach, but they also represent the threat of a lack of a phallus. To satisfy castration anxiety Mulvey says, “The male unconscious has two avenues of escape this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the reenactment of the original trauma, counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment, or saving of the guilty object” (Mulvey, 35). To exert male dominance and protect himself from castration, Winston tries to save the women from the failures of themselves.

Lastly, and possibly the worst of all, Schmidt is terribly upset with his ex-girlfriend (at the time) Cece, who considers breast reduction surgery to help her back pain now that she has insurance. He completely objectifies her and has total disregard for her well-being in order to preserve his male gaze. Mulvey argues that women are defined in film by being a passive bearer of the male gaze and men are the active lookers.  Mulvey comments on such objectification of women, such as Schmidt reducing Cece to her breast size, “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact” (Mulvey, 33). During her consultation with the doctor, Schmidt even barges in and asks to speak to one of her boobs, ignoring the woman they are a part of. It is a gross display of objectification, and I expect better from the writers of New Girl.

Rihanna’s Gaze Can (and will) Kill

Rihanna is often a symbol of black female empowerment, and this rings true in her music video for “Needed Me”. We follow her from her beautiful mansion, through the streets on motorcycle, to a strip club. Here we see her man getting involved with a stripper. Rihanna will not take this behavior from him, and we watch her kill him. The video is a sensual and dangerous visual representation of a breakup anthem.

Rihanna stands as the perfect embodiment of the powerful black female gaze that hooks describes— “One’s gaze can be dangerous… There is power in looking” (hooks 247). Rihanna stares down the camera throughout the video, exemplifying an oppositional gaze. Hooks writes of how white slave-owners punished enslaved black people for looking; but they still looked. The white attempt to repress black looking only “produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze. By courageously looking, we defiantly declared: ‘Not only will I stare. I want my look to change reality’” (hooks 248). Rihanna uses her gaze to reveal the power she holds; she is unflinching and unblinking. Even when she isn’t looking at the camera, we can see the intensity of her gaze—the power held behind and within it.

As a sexual video, filled with nudity and stripping, some may see it to be exploitative of women, feeding right into the male gaze. I instead would argue that it is not exploiting women and instead playing with the male gaze. Rihanna clearly has her own agency and is actively choosing to be sexual and draw in one’s gaze. She stares you down, daring you to see her power as she walks towards the camera in nothing but a sheer robe.

Unfortunately, Rihanna’s power relies upon the sensationalization of violence. She is wielding a gun throughout the video, as are most of the people around her. We are expected to support her use of violence to get back at her cheating man. The violence is meant to further empower her, but I would argue that it goes too far. We see her shoot her lover 3 times, killing him instantly. We see him fall to the floor, and blood begin to pool around his head, as Rihanna stands over him, powerful and unphased. She sheds no tears as she stands above his lifeless body.

Although Rihanna’s gaze is powerful, her use of weaponry is unnecessary. The video is beautifully shot and produced, making the killing look artistic, rather than gruesome and premeditated as it truly is. But gun violence is not necessary to empower a woman. She does not need to hold a gun, much less use it repeatedly, turning her anger into murder. She needs only her gaze to embody a powerful, dangerous woman.

Phantom Thread and the Pleasure of Looking

The idea of scopophilia has been explored deeply throughout the history of film but what I feel is an interesting recent example can be seen in the framing of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. The film involves the growing relationship between the successful dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock and a waitress named Alma Elson. While the film does show both sides of the relationship, it is framed most often, in the beginning, from Reynolds perspective, utilizing a scopophilic framing of the cinematography.

Mulvey states that “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”, meaning that there is often pleasure in film from having the, typically assumed male, audience look at women. This is made explicit in the camera framing the male character’s perspective of him viewing his female object of desire, with Alma typically in beautiful dresses to emphasize her pleasurable beauty. Often when the camera is viewing Alma, the camera is off center or aimed below her from Reynolds’ perspective to cause the audience to view the character of Alma from our male character Reynolds’ perspective and experience the same pleasure he does.

This has the intention of having us understand Reynolds’ fascination with Alma. However, this relationship is complicated in the film by having Alma be more active in this relationship, often throughout the film when Reynolds is looking at Alma, she is looking right back at him.

This creates a more interesting dynamic than we usually see in romance films where the woman is, as Mulvey states, a passive woman to look upon and causes a refreshing change in a very stale concept.

Source:

Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Pg. 33

“The One with the Football” dropped the ball

In Season 3, Episode 9 of Friends, called “The One with the Football,” Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel are celebrating Thanksgiving.  Within seconds of the episode starting, the friends are divided by stereotypical gender roles; the men, occupying the majority of the shot, are seen watching the Thanksgiving football game, while the women are shown in the background preparing dinner:

When Joey introduces the idea of the six friends playing football, it is immediately assumed that Phoebe and Rachel won’t be any good.  This sexist assumption is perpetuated by Rachel’s “humorous” inability to catch the ball.

When the friendly football game becomes men versus women, Phoebe asks, “but they’re boys! How are we going to beat a bunch of boys?”.  Further preserving this idea that men are inherently better at sports, the women resort to tactics such as flashing and embarrassing Joey and Chandler in front of an attractive woman in order to win the game.

Despite being competent football players and strategic people, Phoebe and Rachel are portrayed as being sexualized, incompetant bimbos, while Monica is constantly mocked and singled out for her competitiveness.  Meanwhile, Ross acts just as competitive and immature as Monica, and Joey and Chandler fight over an attractive woman throughout the entire episode, yet the men never experience any consequences or taunts for their competitiveness or immature behavior.  This misrepresentation and these double standards inflicted on the characters is a prime example of the male gaze, a term often used by both Laura Mulvey and bell hooks, defining “women as an image and man as a bearer of the look”  (Mulvey 33). Shows and movies are often written with male pleasure in mind; men are given the power to look and be entertained, while women are forced to be the enjoyable object being viewed.  The male gaze is obvious in this episode; the men are constantly looking at women as objects as they compete over the woman in the park, and the women constantly use their bodies as their only tactic to get ahead in football.  By degrading these women and their skills to solely what they look like and how they use their bodies, it completely takes away their agency, giving the men the power and pleasure of looking.

 

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp. 29–40.

 

I (Don’t) Love It, (And Neither Should You)

Kanye West and Lil Pump released a controversial song at the beginning of September 2018 called I Love It. The song features actress and comedian Adele Givens and her popular line declaring women’s advancement today to be able to demand fulfilling sexual experiences. “‘Cause you know in the old days they couldn’t say the shit they wanted to say, they had to fake orgasms and shit. We can tell niggas today, “Hey, I wanna cum, mothafucka””. This sounds empowering, right? Women finally being acknowledged as more than a way for men to reach orgasm? Wrong. When the the next three lines in the song are “You’re such a fuckin’ ho, I love it” Adele’s words lose almost all of their power.

In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey describes castration anxiety, and how it affects what we are shown in film. Castration anxiety is the unconscious fear men hold against women simply for their lack of a penis. This fear causes men to demean, sexualize, and devalue women in order to satiate their anxiety.

This music video initially comes off as a rather simple, somewhat strange set of clips where Kanye and Lil Pump dance around in massive boxy suits down a long lit hallway. It isn’t until further analysis of this still simple and strange video that you notice the women tied up and posed as figures or statues in alcoves cut into the walls.

Mulvey states, “Thus the woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified. The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the re-enactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment, or saving of the guilty object” (Mulvey, 35).

Mulvey pretty much sums it all up here as she perfectly captures the objectification and devaluation of women. This is heard through the raunchy lyrics throughout the song as well as the demystifying or investigating of the women seen in the video. These nearly naked women have their arms bound behind their backs, and are only covered in a sheer nylon material rendering them faceless bodies actively controlled by the male gaze. This demystifying and obscuring of these women creates a hyper-sexualized, somewhat obscured figure as these women wiggle and writhe around in these tight suits while literally placed on display throughout the hallway.

The decisions surrounding the filming of this music video truly captures the intended degradation and devaluation of women. This coupled with lyrics such as these:

I’m a sick fuck, I like a quick fuck

I like my dick sucked, I’ll buy you a sick truck

I’ll buy you some new tits, I’ll get you that nip-tuck

How you start a family? The condom slipped up

I’m a sick fuck, I’m inappropriate

Truly capture the fear of women’s lack of phallus, and the castration anxiety that Kanye and Lil Pump must be feeling.

 

Reading:

Mulvey, Laura; Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975). Screen Volume, Issue 16, page 35.

Taki Taki. Wait…What??

 

 

“Taki Taki” is a new song by Ozuna and DJ Snake featuring Cardi B and Selena Gomez. Although most of the song is in Spanish, it has become known in the United States. I guess Ozuna and DJ Snake can thank Cardi B and Selena Gomez for that. In the Hispanic culture Ozuna is a very well known Reggeaton singer. Reggeaton is a music genre that mostly (if not always) revolves around sex, and the sexualization of women. The music video for Taki Taki shows just that.

Music video 

It’s not a secret that in our society sex sales. In the music video all of the women portrayed (including the female singers, Cardi B and Selena) are wearing revealing clothing. At one point of the video Ozuna seems to be in what looks like a pit surrounded by women wearing little to no clothing. One can only assume that that’s every mans “dream”, to be surrounded by women practically naked and at their dispose.

In my opinion, Taki Taki music video is a great example of male gaze according to Mulvey. In her article ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Mulvey says “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.” (pg.33) Every woman that is feature in the music video is shown/represented as a sex symbol. They use close ups to show specific parts of the women’s body that would be attractive to the male audience.

The music video isn’t the only thing about this song that sexualizes women. The lyrics aren’t any better. For one of Cardi B’s parts she sings, “No traje pantisito pa’que el nene no trabaje”- meaning she isn’t wearing any underwear, so he won’t have to “work” for it. As if our whole purpose is to make everything easier for men. Selena Gomez also sings an interesting lyric, “What my taki wants, my taki taki gets”- implying that by using her body she can get what she wants.

The word Taki Taki doesn’t have an actual meaning in Spanish. This song allows its audience to interpret the lyrics however they want. But with Selena’s part, one can only wonder if Ozuna was referring to the women’s privates. Although the lyrics are a bit controversial, they are very catchy, and the beat is amazing (thanks to DJ Snake).

 

 

 

Source: Laura Mulvey; Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3, 1 October 1975.

Animals by Maroon 5… (who thought this was a good idea?)

The music video of “Animals” by Maroon 5 presents many problematic elements. However, one of the most prominent issues throughout the video is the male gaze, demonstrated through Adam Levine’s character’s creepy and stalker like obsession with the woman in the video.

The video beings with Levine’s character working in a butcher shop, where he sees a woman come in. From that moment every shot of the women employs the male gaze, where she is seen as a sexual object. The video then cuts to a shot of the woman walking down the street, with Levine’s character staring at her from behind and following her. The rest of the video consists of him watching her as she is in vulnerable and unsuspecting positions, such as when she’s sleeping or through her bedroom window. Mulvey, through her writing captures the bulk of this gaze perfectly, saying, “the man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator…” (34). Levine’s character holds the power in his gaze, with the woman being the passive recipient of it. Mulvey additionally argues that, “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is style accordingly,” (32). The woman’s appearance, often in tighter/more revealing clothing, or later in the video completely naked, further invites the male gaze, both from Levine’s character and from the audience of the video.

The emphasis on the man being the active gaze throughout the video, and the women being the recipient of it drives home Mulvey’s argument in her writing. This is one of the issues that “Animals” presents, compiling onto the host of other issues that the video and lyrics have.

Sources:

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 1999.

 

King Princess: Balancing The Heterosexual and Lesbian Gaze

After watching Bound play with the voyeurism of its mise-en-scène (the ‘diction’ of each shot), one quote from Kelly Kessler’s Bound Together stuck in my mind: “Though the heterosexual male spectator may be enjoying the view, the female or lesbian spectator may embody the more powerful subject position” (Kessler, 14). Those same techniques that allowed Bound to balance heterosexual lesbian fantasy with clear lesbian coding are evident in King Princess’s latest musical release, “Talia.”

The official music video of “Talia,” as directed by Claire Gillen and produced by IAMSOUND

While it does incorporate some of the ‘soft and fuzzy’ aesthetics that  Kessler notes tend to turn off both lesbian and heterosexual audiences, close-ups of King Princess’s half-naked body and their touch-filled, erotic interactions with the sex doll (meant to portray the ghost of the love they “Buried… a month or two ago“) give heterosexual male audiences a voyeuristic viewpoint of the singer, even if the sex doll is laughably fake.  However, spliced in between the sensual, rose-tinged shots of the artist on the fluffy bed are blue-filled close-ups of King Princess against a static-filled screen, clearly mourning the death of their relationship and removing the red eroticism as soon as it came. The placement of the props, as well as the talent involved, is dictated to match this mood change.

As with the sensual as well as bonding scenes in Bound, “the male is totally absent from the mise-en-scène” (Kessler, 14): King Princess laments the dying relationship between the two lesbians as they grow further apart on screen physically: 

When you left, you took my bestest friends away
And in this mess, I think I dug a thousand graves
Talia, I hope you’re happy anyway                                                                     

There is zero phallocentrism within the shots, leaving the genderqueer lesbian subject as the one holding the power.

To conclude, the mise-en-scène of King Princess’s “Talia” mirrors the balance of “lesbian visual coding as well as male fantasy” (Kessler, 17) within Bound, showing an opening in media for the lesbian or female spectator to hold more subject power.

Works Cited:

Kessler, Kelly. “Bound Together.” Film Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Summer 2003) Pp. 13-22, University of California Press, 1 Aug. 2003, fq.ucpress.edu/content/56/4/13.

King Princess.  Lyrics to “Talia.” Genius, 2018, https://genius.com/King-princess-talia-lyrics