Laura Mulvey - Feminism and Rihanna Music Video Analysing

Laura Mulvey - Feminism 

Laura Mulvey was a feminist who write many reports and theories on modern cinema and her view on it compared to her views as a feminist. For example Laura Mulvey believes that cinema reflects society, and more specifically a patriarchal society of which men rule over everyone and everything that women do and anything in general, men are in charge and women are inferior. There are many examples of how a patriarchal society reflects itself in film and media, for example in the James bond films the woman is seen only as an object of erotic desire and has no real purpose whatsoever whilst the man(James bond) rules over the film commanding her around and ultimately being the main and most important person in the film. 

Erotic Desire:

Erotic desire explains how a woman is of no use in a film other than a specific two roles in film: 

1. As an object of erotic desire for the characters
2. As an object of erotic desire for the audience

This heavily emphasises patriarchal society and how the man needs to rule over the films role while the woman is used as only eye candy for either the audience or the characters within the film. 


The Gaze

One of the most important and most recognised theories that Laura Mulvey had put across in here feministic views is the idea of "The Gaze". This theory suggests that the Gaze of the camera of which the audience is watching the film through is seen as the eyes of a male character in the film, in other words the male gaze. Laura Mulvey states that the male gaze is an active gaze that viewers interact with and the film plays out under this gaze whereas the female gaze is passive and does not have as much of an important role in film. Male characters are always directing their gaze towards female characters in the film, this emphasises erotic desire of the female characters. Lastly Miss Mulvey states that there are three levels of a cinematic gaze:

1. Camera
2. Character 
3. Spectator(audience)

Agency

The last notable theory that Laura Mulvey presented was that of Agency in films. Agency in classic hollywood cinema describes when a character in a film is powerful and focused on in the film and is carrying out a very important role, Most male characters in the film have Agency, for example James Bond. In contrast to this like in the James bond films the female character is always passive and never does anything especially notable within the film to direct attention to herself without being the object of erotic desire.

Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive Analysis

This music video for Rihanna song "shut up and drive" is highly focused on as a bad representation of how women should present themselves in music videos in many different ways, we can use Laura Mulveys theories to pinpoint its many bad features. 

The Gaze

This video is obviously filmed through a male point of view as it is highly directed and very erotic movements aimed at the camera in an attempt to make herself look good in the video. Also the music videos meaning is not about cars but instead something much more crud, this emphasises the male gaze even more as she is trying to symbolise the videos real meaning and thus making her a horrible female role model and a horrible example for the point of feminism herself as she is doing all the things that feminists are trying to get off the face of media as it objectifies the gender. 

Erotic Desire

The only point of this video is to be the object of erotic desire, that is all the singer is concerned about is looking good in front of the camera and appealing to her majority male audience in this very frowned upon way. She is also constantly bending over cars and pretending to fix them in another attempt to even appeal to male audiences through the use of inanimate object being a car. 

Mise - en - scene

This video is a horrible example of representation of genre through mise-en-scene as she is barely wearing any clothes. The clothes she is wearing are her attempt to purposely try to make herself loo good and reveal a good amount of skin which seems to be what she is aiming to do. This is why women are objectified within media and also why this video is heavily against feminism and their views.