The Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey

By Elsie Williamson

The Male Gaze theory (1975) - features

Laura Malvey in her book 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' outlined the different ways in which the male gaze works in media texts.

  • Woman are represented as a sexual fantasy and are shown from a heterosexual male point of view. The camera shots may be in slow motion, use certain camera movement or cut away to make the audience focus on the physicality of a woman.
  • Scopophilia - a pleasure in looking at peoples bodies.
  • The objectification of women.
  • A patriarchal society presented.
  • The males hold an 'active' role while females are 'passive'.
  •  Men - controlling objects.
  • Woman as an image
  • Men do the looking and woman are there to be looked at.
  • Needs of a male ego.

She's so lovely by Scouting For Girls

 When the main female in the video is introduced a dolly shot is used, focusing on her accessories and shoes even before her face is shown. This suggests that she wants to impress the males and stand out with the use of the red shoes symbolising love, desire but also danger. The way which she walks in the tracking shot is almost like how you would on a cat walk which implies that she wants to grab the males attention by flaunting her feminine style.

A focus pull is used to make  it clear to the watcher that the woman is the main interest in the video. Through this technique it draws the audiences attention and reveals to us what she looks like. The usage of the camera going form blurred to clear with the use of slow motion suggests the use of a male point of view with it implying that she a 'dreamy girl'.

Close ups and mid shots show the objectification of the woman with the close ups on the woman's legs and her bum showing scopophilia, with the it using a males point of view to show the pleasure of looking at a woman's physicality  . Furthermore, multiple times during the video she smiles at the camera/men suggestively.

 Panning is used throughout the video the notion of looking is used when men are watching the woman in mid shots and long shots. They show their interest through there facial expressions and the use of panning showing the large amount of the men attracted to her. Therefore, showing the men doing the looking and the woman being the looked at.

 

Camera angles, movements and shots

Editing 

A range of quick cuts are used between the main male singer and the female interest. The reason that this was done is it represents the adrenaline and excitement around the male singer with his attraction to the woman, with the lyrics reflecting the visuals shown. For instance, the performance narrative of the male singer singing about what he likes about the woman would then cut to the qualities woman doing the thing that he just sang about.

Slow motion is used throughout the video such as at the beginning when the lead female interest is introduced as the 'dreamy girl' . Also another notable part  is at the end when she looks towards the camera and starts walking off camera as it extenuates her seductive actions with the glance directly into the camera. This shows that it is in the point of view of the male singer. Furthermore, the contrasting upbeat music in the background with the slowed down footage grabs the watchers attention with it creating a climax of the watcher wondering if anything is going to happen between them.  The happy ending of the main male singer and female interest leaving together makes the watcher feel content.

Mise en scene

The costumes which the woman are wearing seems to have a 1960's style with the bright coloured clothing and clear femininity (such as the patterned dresses shown with polka dots on and a leopard print design). This may have been done to show how the woman wanted to dress up to impress their partners and stand out compared to other people. Therefore, linking this to the male gaze by Laura Mulvey, as the women in the video are styled accordingly to be more desirable to men. This shows them conforming to woman being an image to be more attractive to men.

 However, the main female does go against this as other then her red heals she is just dressed in simple jeans and a top. This makes the woman dressed up formally to grab the attention of the men ironic with them all focusing on the simply dressed female lead.  

Sound

The lyrics in this song holds lots of objectification of woman and looking at woman in a way that focuses more on their physicality than any real aspects about them. This can be seen in the lyrics  'I love the way she fills her clothes', 'I love the way she bites her lip, I love the way she shakes them hips. I love the way she makes me drool'. These lyrics are shown visually following the Male Gaze theory with the men just looking at the woman like their objects to win and Goodwin's theory with the visuals matching the lyrics.

Conclusion

Overall, many features of the male gaze can be seen in the 'She's so lovely' by Scouting for Girls music video with the clear male ego being shown through the lead females boyfriend. This can be seen in a mid shot when he is kissing her but looking towards the camera which is in the point of view of the lead male singer, suggesting that he's showing off that he has the thing that everyone else wants. But also how he is not loyal to her but carries on going to other woman and flirting with them in front of her. Therefore, showing his sense of dominance and confidence to the other males in the video.

Another feature of the male gaze theory that can be seen in this music video is that males do the looking and woman are there to be looked at with a large amount of males staring at her for the duration of the video. Therefore, showing a merging with the video featuring the male point of view seeing her as a sexual fantasy being presented through the lead band member and a range of men taking pleasure in her physicality. This links to objectification because no aspect of the womans personality is shown it purely is all about her feminine attractiveness.