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Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey coined the 'male gaze' in 1975 as being; how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. In films, audiences commonly 'view' characters from the male heterosexual perspective. This is because the camera often lingers on the curves of the female's body, and focuses on events based off the male's reactions to each events. It is relegated to the status of objects , and the female viewer must experience the narrative secondly. Theorists have also noted that the female body is commonly sexualised, even when really it has nothing to do with the advertised object. This can make the viewers lose focus over the original aimed focus of the images, whether that is in advertisement or films/videos.


Taylor Swift:


The music video shows a group of young models and singers, who split into two groups to try and overrule each other. At the start, the men are wearing eye masks which could be a link towards them being 'blinded by beauty', and this causes them to lose against the women.
All of the females beat the men, and take over from them, however they then fight against each other in an attempt to try and over-power the other group of women.
Women, especially teenagers, are the main aim for the videos target audience, because it is sending a strong message to women that men don't always have control if you don't let them, so you need to stand up for yourselves, and also because the people who feature in it are models and singers who appeal as role models to teenagers. Because of the choice of outfits, the video appeals to males because there are several attractive young women, wearing small outfits which men may enjoy seeing.


Justin Timberlake:


Justin's video is degrading to women, because it shows them in a sexual way as they are naked, but could also 'body shame' many women who don't have the stereotypical skinny figure.
Whenever Justin is shown at the same time as a woman, instead of being in separate shots like the rest of the video, the woman is always the one who is in the main focus, with Justin fading in the background. This shows the woman to be more in control, because he isn't shown to be dominant, which is usually the effect used when a woman is shown in a sexual or revealing way.
The video is more aimed at men because the main talking point of it is the naked women who are dancing in a sexual way, however many of Justin's fans are girls so it does show his face a lot throughout the clip.


Rihanna:


'Pour it up' is a degrading music video, because it features Rihanna wearing little pieces of clothing, pole dancing and stripping. It is implied from the video, that the only way women can get a lot of money worth something is by stripping, which is sexist and demeaning as it links to the stereotype.
The video's subliminal message is that women aren't in control, and need men to give them money. It is known that strippers and dancers can get a lot of money. However it is greatly suggested that actually the males are in control, which is presented as Rihanna has lots of money on her in parts of the video after she has danced.
I would say this particular video is mainly aimed towards males, because Rihanna is twerking, dancing like a pole dancer, and wearing revealing clothing  which many men would like to see.

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