Laura Mulvey

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in  looking ha been split between active/ male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. (1992)


In my own words what i think Mulvey is trying to say is that in the world we live in today women dress and act in a provocative way to please the male eyes, and men dress in casual clothes becasue women do not project thier fantasy onto the male figure hence why Mulvey uses the word passive female.


An example of Mulvey's theory is Dizzee Rascal's Holiday

Dizzee and the other men in the video are dressed fully but the women in the music video are dressed in bikinis. The camera follows the women but only films thier legs or chest and will ocassionally show thier faces.

A video that goes against Mulveys theory is Total's No one else featuring Da Brat

The women are fully dressed with maybe the exception of one who has her stomach showing but we don't see much of it. We see more of the womens faces with an exception of a few shots of legs and chests.




This video is mainly supporting Mulveys theory because most of the women are dressed in bikinis but some of the main females (the singers) are fully dressed but it also goes against it beacuse thier are some men that are not fully dressed and they look like they are serving the women instead of the women serving them.
Angie Martinez, Lil Kim, Left Eye, Da Brat and Missy Elliott's Ladies Night 

Mulvey's point i think is more relevant to todays music becasue we have more female artists that dress in short tight stuff for example Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyonce etc whereas in the 90s they were more covered up. Also i think it applys to some genres of music i think it applys to RnB, Hip Hop grime etc.