'The male gaze' - challenging this convention in our video

For our music video, we hope to challenge the conventions of other music videos, in terms of how the woman is viewed throughout the video. The theory by Laura Mulvey describing how women do not add to the narrative, instead, whenever they are on screen, the narrative stops and they just becoming something to look at by males, she calls this 'the male gaze'. In many music videos, for example Pitbull's 'Wild Wild Love' featuring G.R.L many of the shots of the girls, show them doing sexy dance moves, dressed in scantily clad clothes and only parts of their body shown, for example their legs.

Here, Pitbull is seen in a full suit, with not parts of his body showing, however the two girls are in extremely revealing and sexy outfits. Also as their are two of them, it gives the impression of promiscuity, therefore encouraging this in reality. The outfits which the girls are wearing are most obviously playboy bunny outfits, a magazine which is centered around men looking at women for their pleasure. By Pitbull being in a suit and having his hands on the women, this represents Pitbull as being very dominant and masculine, showing his control over the women.

In this shot from the music video, the woman's legs are shown here, however not her body. Not only is it just one part of the women's body being shown, it is a part that is found to be attractive to men. Throughout the video the audience rarely sees a full shot of the women as this is seen as too threatening to the male audience, therefor they prefer to see a female character in pieces as this gives them a sense of power. The overall lighting of the video as very soft and the shots of the girls are very flattering to make them look flawless and beautiful, again something for the men to look at.

To challenge these conventions, in our music video, we intend to have both a man and woman as the centre characters of the video, however although our narrative will focus on the male, we will highlight the vulnerability of him and how he is needs the woman, not the other way around. Also we will have many shots of the man's body parts in sections. Although we will have shots of his full body, many will be of his hands and chest etc. again, highlighting his vulnerability. The woman in the video however will be shot with many long shots, showing her whole body and therefore dominance, this will also allow us to highlight the clothes she is wearing, which won't be revealing and sexy, but instead they will be more masculine for example jeans, t-shirt and converse, which will make her seen as an equal instead of a sex object to look at. We will also have lots of close ups on her face, to show how she has an identity which is pivotal to the video's narrative.