The Female Gaze - Laura Mulvey

Is there a ‘Female Gaze?’

There is no secret that women are constantly being the object of desire through the use of voyeurism in music videos, however, it appears that males are slso experiencing it, suggesting that perhaps there is a 'female gaze’. For an example of how the male gaze exists within music videos I analysed “Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, I have found a contrasting music video from another artist which instead promotes female gazes. A key difference I noticed between how Nicki was presented in “Anaconda” when she was the subject of voyeurism and how the D'Angelo was presented in “How Does It Feel” was that females are presented as exclusively sexually whereas when a male is the subject of the female gaze he is presented sexually but in a strong and masculine way. This could reflect how women see men as more then just sexual objects and the natural gentle female nature, therefore that is also expressed through the female gaze.

 “How Does It Feel” – D'Angelo  

                        



Instead of a variety of locations and shots to keep the audience entertained, D'Angelo is highly sexualised to become an engaging piece of entertainment for the audience members to focus on. We watch him as he stands in front of a black screen and through the positioning of the camera the audience are forced to be taken in by it and by the art of voyeurism the audience both male and female are completely satisfied with the video despite a lack of narrative and contrasting shots.

 1) This video starts of with a very slow reveal of the artist through the use of extreme close ups, we are first introduced to the artists eyes, which are closed these aspects within this shot show the realism of the female gaze as if this was a video that  incorporated the "male gaze" the first shot would most likely be off a females body parts (breasts, but etc.)

 2) This extreme close-up was one of the most sexual images of this artist throughout the music video. The fact that this relitively moderate shot was the peak of the male’s sexual representation suggests that the female gaze is a lot more subtle then the male gaze. Although it is just of his mouth he is now sexually captivating the audience in the way that usually is the role of the female. 

3) Just like within the notion of the male gaze when the camera lingers on the female shape, in this close-up shot the camera is drawing attention to the male shape. Broad shoulders and a muscular upper body are symbols of the male body just as wide hips and a narrow waist are associated with the female shape, by focusing on these two masculine traits the video forces the audience to view the video through the eyes of a hetrosexual woman, telling the viewer to play close attention to the male body.

4) This last shot definitely suggests that there is a "female gaze" as the artist is completely naked and the camera movement is almost teasing the audience as it stops tilting just when it gets to this position, putting the audience in a position of a heterosexual female.







Here is a collection of album covers that would appeal to a female audience as they have sexualised men. However, through these images the male artists are shown as very strong and powerful as well as sexual unlike their female counterparts who just look like sexual objects whose only purpose is to satisfy their male audience.