Male Gaze

The Male Gaze theory was first developed by Laura Mulvey, in 1975, who proposed that the asymmetric gender power that exists in society controls the way media depicts females and femininity for the pleasure of a heterosexual male.

The Male Gaze theory refers to the way in which media (art, literature, popular culture) depicts women and the female form. There are three perspectives that should be referenced when talking about the male gaze; the perspective of the person behind the camera, the characters within the media and the consumer of the media.

Typical features of a music video involving the Male Gaze theory would be lingering camera shots (moving slowly when showing a female and focusing on her curves),use of slow motion when following a woman's movements and longshots may also be used to show a woman's full body and display her clothing or lack of.

An example of this is Fifth Harmony's 'All In My Head (Flex)' music video. We see all three of these different shots come into play, for example slow motion is often used when focusing on females provocative movements and we also see many longshots showing off their swimsuit clad bodies.

Another example is Ariana Grande's 'Dangerous Woman' music video. The artist is depicted wearing lacy lingerie and though a lot of close angles shots are used instead of longshots the video focuses on her figure and the camera moves slowly to create the idea of a lingering gaze. The use of handheld camera shots creates a voyeuristic feel to the video which is characteristic of the male gaze.