Within music videos there are several different representations of women, most of which involve women displaying their sexuality and their bodies purely to sell the song. There are many theories about female representation that have developed over the years, these include:
Voyeurism: Sigmund Freud concluded that erotic pleasure can be gained by looking at a sexual object (preferably when the object is unaware it is being watched)
Male Gaze: Laura Mulvey proposed that because filmmakers are often male, the presence of women is often for the purposes of display rather than narrative. This is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which presumes a make gaze (regardless of the spectator's gender) one that is or may feel like a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display who is effectively objectified and passive. In male performance videos the voyeuristic treatment of the female body is often apparent, with the use of dancers as adornments to the male star ego.
Exhibitionism: Female performers being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of and inviting sexualised gaze in what could be termed as the opposite of voyeurism.
Raunch Culture: In her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Andrea Levy attacks the increasing sexualised culture that objectifies women. She argues that women are encouraged to see themselves as objects and to see sex as their only source of power.
This is a typical representation even though the people singing the song are themselves female.They are being portrayed through the male gaze as sex objects
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