Gazing Past the Average Woman

           Long legs, sleek, skinny bodies, barely clad in anything but over-revealing leotards, or a crop top and booty shorts. These outfits are of many that are seen in the media industry, especially the music video industry. Models and artists with big asses, large breasts with tiny waists, perfect skin; an almost unachievable figure for the average female. Some women are blessed with good looks and good bodies. That’s fine and I have nothing against it, but the way our society and culture promotes it is not healthy for women. One of the primary contributors to how women performers are sexualized in music videos and other forms of media is “the male gaze.” What the male gaze promotes is a threat to all women and many music videos are not helping with this issue. Only a handful of artists have videos where there is no sexualization involved.

            Laura Mulvey, an active feminist, first brought the male gaze to the publics’ attention. She states, 

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” 

(Mulvey 62) 

This quote is strongly portrayed in Jennifer Lopez’s music video below also featuring Iggy Azalea.

            

             This music video is catering to the very same ideas Mulvey spoke about. Iggy and Jennifer are dancing around flaunting their butts, looking to be looked at. Making a music video is for the soul purpose of being watched by others. Empowering yourself and women as a whole is great, but even in empowerment through accepting women as sexual beings can lead to women playing into “the male gaze”. There is a very fine line that this music video crosses completely. This video should be at least a little bit uncomfortable to watch as a female, and if not that just shows how desensitized our society is to these types of images. Why should it be uncomfortable? What is the point to all this booty shaking? It is uncomfortable, because this music video is completely subjecting women to the male gaze. One of the lyrics is, 

"Have you seen her on the dancefloor

She got the boom, shake the room

That's the lightning in the thunder

You wanna meet her, you wanna touch her" 

(Lopez 2)

It is absolutely horrifying to see this type of image promoted within such a high platform of visual media. All of the lyrics within this song are not something to be proud of. (If you want to take a look at the full lyrics I added a link at the end of this post.) This song is promoting the objectification and sexualization of the female and in particular her body. The video is hurting the fight for the woman’s image. This type of objectification has always been an underlying tone to the way many view female performers.

            A historical example would be the Cabaret performers during the Harlem Renaissance. The male gaze is not just about white women; it’s about women as a whole. To think that no other race experiences it would be foolish. Claude McKay was a poet during this time and depicts many scenes of Harlem. One poem in particular, “The Harlem Dancer”, is particularly looked at as objectifying a female African American performer. He writes,

“The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,

Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;” 

(McKay 11-12)

These lines show that the male gaze is not just a modern day issue. It has been a reigning influence in how women are portrayed in the visual arts since the 20s and possibly even sometime before then. One-way women performers are fighting back against years of the male gaze is by making videos that do not sexualize the body at all. Theses videos don’t encourage the male gaze in the slightest.

            One of such videos is Sia’s Big Girls Cry. It stars a famous young dancer and includes nothing but facial expressions and hand movements. See it below.

            

           This video has nothing to do with the idealized woman in toady’s society. Rather, Sia is one of the many female performing artists that are consistently making movements towards getting rid of the male gaze. This video also may not look as interesting and flashy compared to other music videos that are out there, but that is not the point. The point is to tell a story using the body as an art form without sexualizing it. Yet when artists such as Sia do this they become immediately criticized for having boring videos. People will even fish for any way that the video could be viewed in a sexual light, when it is blatantly obvious that the video isn’t in any way objectifying or sexualizing women.

            The movement against the male gaze is one that has its positives and drawbacks, but the focus is not just about stopping the male gaze. It’s about the encouragement for young girls that they don’t have to look like the women performers they see in music videos. The fact that “Images of ideal beauty inundate the media which has become a big part of everyday life.” (Henze 4) causes many girls to be unsatisfied with their bodies. Julie Zeilinger, a writer for billboard.com states, “Consider that 65 percent of women and girls report disordered eating behaviors, 78 percent of 17-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies, and 81 percent of 10-year-olds say they fear getting fat. Since women are routinely hyper sexualized and held to unattainable beauty standards, any representation -- whether it's a music video or soap commercial -- suggesting women can relax such ideals (and that those ideals in fact are unjust) are embraced.” (Zeilinger 1). Young girls should not have to struggle with comparing their growing body to those of famous great looking pop stars. Any famous woman performer who goes against the male gaze is, little by little, helping girls and women around the world feel better about their bodies.

           

~As an ending note, there are many other view points that can be discussed within this topic.

How is the male gaze influencing other types of media?

Do you think there such thing as the female gaze?

And how is that different than the male gaze?

Do they have any similarities?

LINKS

Jennifer Lopez's song, Booty, lyrics:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jenniferlopez/bootyremix.html

Works Cited

Henze, Elizabeth. "Sex Sells: Sexiness and Perceived Competence in Male vs. Female Rock Musicians." Uw-L Journal Of Undergraduate Research Xii (2009) (2009): 1-6. Uwlx.edu. University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, 2009. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

JenniferLopezVEVO. "Jennifer Lopez - Booty Ft. Iggy Azalea." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Johnson, James Weldon, ed. The Book of American Negro Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1n922; New York: Bartleby.com, 2002. www.bartleby.com/269/. 6. Mar 2016

Lopez, Jennifer, and Iggy Azalea. ""Booty (Remix)" Lyrics." JENNIFER LOPEZ LYRICS. A-Z Lyrics.com, 2014. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema." Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema (1975): 57-68. Asu.edu. Arizona State University. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

SiaVEVO. "Sia - Big Girls Cry (Official Video)." YouTube. YouTube, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Zeilinger, Julie. "Are 'Body Positive' Music Videos All That Positive? (Opinion)." Billboard. Billboard, 28 July 2014. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.