Sexism in music videos

Women are often objectified or portrayed as sexual objects in music videos. A feminist media theorist called Laura Mulvey's talks about classical Hollywood cinema, however her theory of male gaze can still be transfered to apply to the ideas of women in music videos. Laura believed that audiences must look at images from the point of view of hetrosexual males.  In music videos this is done by having women viewed as the object of male erotic desire and show men to be active dominant characters and women to be passive submissive characters.  Which reflects the views of a patriarchal society.

Lily Allen's music video "Hard out here" at a first glance may be labled as objectifying and sexist. However after a closer inspection it can be seen that her song lyrics and the underlying  message behind the song is one about the injustices that women face with lines like  "You'll find me in the studio and not in the kitchen",  "If I told you 'bout my sex life, you'd call me a slut, When boys be talking about their bitches, no one's making a fuss,"  and "Don't you want to have somebody who objectifies you?"  it becomes clear that this music video is supposed to criticise and represent the way that women are represented in the media.Taking the stance that equality is needed and that there shouldn't be different standards dependant on gender. This video is a clear criticism of the patriarchal society and is supposed to show just how rediculous the inequality towards women is.

Robin Thicke's music video "Blurred Lines" is a good example of the male gaze as it clearly objectifies the women in the music video using lines like "you're a good girl" is patronising towards women and lines like "tried to domesticate you, but you're an animal" suggest that women are subhuman and meant to be trained, The women are viewed as sexual objects with women parading around with very little clothing on (a banned version where the girls are actually topless) showing that all women are good for is being attractive and sex. This song has some very misogynistic themes with some even inturpretting the song to have rape undertones with lines like "I know you want it" suggesting that the women cannot say no. 

Miley Cyrus' music video "Wrecking ball" became very contriversal as Miley had previously been know as a role model to young children and this video was seen as setting a bad example. She no longer appears as the innocent youthful Hannah Montana she was known as before. She came back as an adult acting in seductive manners wearing very little clothing. She was trying to appeal to a new audience an older audience and started attracting a lot more of a male audience falling under male gaze.