Laura Mulvey essay
In Christina Aguilera's video of "dirty" the use of the camera invites sexual glaze by the angles in which the camera is showing christina, The camera is focused on Christina Aguilera's lips as soon as the music video starts this shows that women are presented as objects of desire to the people watching the video. Furthermore the camera is focusing on her performing in a boxing ring against another girl while she is doing this she is being spectated by men some in and around the ring.
The audience views this video in a voyeuristic way because The music video actor (Christina Aguilera) is shown an object of desire for example dressing very exposed and showing a lot of flesh. The audience of the video watches with a desire, because the video girl is presented in a sexual way. The video girls most of the time is wearing either a bikini or underwear. Even when the video girl may be wearing full clothing she will still be surrounded by men.
The actors interact in a way that results in the female being looked at as an object of desire. This occurs when in the Christina Aguilera video she is surrounded by other men and when she is dancing for them like a piece of meat that has no personality but everyone wants.
In jessie J's video of "do it like a dude"the use of the camera invites sexual gaze by showing the women are in control and dominating the men and as the video starts the camera is zoomed in on Jessie J's lips. However this video tries to challenge the typical stereotype of a music video by showing the women are like men and are being very aggressive and in control.
The audience views this video in a voyeuristic way because in the first few seconds of the Jessie J video there are short clips of women kissing each other and a women is standing topless this may convince Men or even women to watch the video.
The actors interact in a way that result in the female being looked at as an object of desire. This occurs when in the Jessie J video she is pouting and also shows a lot of her lips and seductive movement. This is clearly trying to drag the audience in and see her as an object of desire.
The target audience for these two artists is young females. However, the way they represent themselves as sexual objects does not appeal to young girls, it appeals more to men. I believe Christina Aguilera and Jesse J choose to represent themselves like this because they would like to gain attention from the male audience and possibly wish young girls watching would see them as role models and someone to look up to when genuinely it should be the opposite of that. Representing themselves as objects of desire the audience can see however they may not see there input like that at all so possibly they don't wish to present themselves like this.
In summary, Laura Mulvey’s theory applies to these music videos because she argues women are presented as objects of desire and it is obvious that in Christina Aguilera's this is present for example wearing revealing clothing, seducing the other male cast and also posing sexually to the camera. Furthermore it is also present in Jessie J's video that women are presented as objects of desire for example when Jessie J is seductively bitting her lip in the first few seconds of the video and also posing sexually and kissing with other female actors in the video. All these thing present to the audience that these women are there to have sex with and thats almost it. There is no feelings or caring in the emotions of the desired audience.
