RESEARCH: Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey discovered how women can be represented in Music Videos. As there is a difference in equality between genders, the pleasure in looking has also been divided. This is divided into: the active (male) and the passive (female). When the male gazed at the female, he is projecting his fantasies onto her.

 This is shown in music videos when women are being 'sectioned'. This means that the females are rarely shown in full, and are usually sectioned to reveal certain provocative parts of the body at a time. This is a convention in Rap, Hip Hop and RnB genre's aswell as pop and sometimes grime. The women who are 'letterboxed' are passive and are only present for the active male gaze (in the video and the men viewing the video).

An example of letterboxing is the video for 'Holiday' by Dizzee Rascal.

The video is full of women in their swimwear, bu there is a focus on one particular woman who is sectioned whilst walking through the house in her bikini.

It is very rare for a female to be in control in a music video, but even if they are, they can sometimes still be dressed for male attention. An example of this is Beyonce, a strong contender in the music industry that has never been used as a dummy in the background to make the video look good. However she still dresses provocatively in tight and short clothing to appeal to the male gaze.

The difference between Beyonce in this video and the girl in the Dizzee Rascal's video; is that Beyonce and her backing dancers are not sectioned on the screen for the male gaze, there are only shots of her and not just her body. She is also being active by dancing, and not next to any man, she is dancing on her own or with two other females.