Voyeurism in Music Videos

Voyeurism is an theory proposed by Freud that has been applied to media productions: it is the idea that the audience like 'looking'. This is usually for sexual pleasure, with the camera being the (usually male) gaze looking at an object (the woman) in the way they're being presented.

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One good example of voyeurism in music videos is in this music video, Satisfaction by Benny Benassi. 

Goodwin proposed that voyeurism often happens with fragmented body shots. For example, in the video there are many shots focusing on the bottoms or breasts of the girls. This emphasises the sexual treatment of them, focusing on attractive parts of their body rather than their personalities or story. 

Another way that we can tell that the video is blatantly aimed at males is by the tools used in it. Men are typically seen to be more 'handy' and therefore the tools used and the information about them would be more aimed at men. The tools and the women are the only two elements in the video, showing how it is the male's gaze being used. The tools could also be an example of phallic symbolism, which is often used to suggest male domination. It would also be pleasing for the men to see these symbols associated with sexually attractive girls, and help to sell the sex element of the video. 

However, it could also be argued that this video is extremely over the top, exaggerating and parodying the concept of voyeurism. The video contains nothing more than scantily clad women conducting manual labour, and the two elements discussed above suggest that the director was using very obvious techniques in order to create humour. 

The fragmented body shots of the women exemplify the techniques used to sell stars (particularly female) in other music videos, but as the women in this video are not related to the creation of the song this is obviously not the purpose. The other typical purpose of presenting a particular gender as sexually attractive is to make the main star look better: as shown in the picture to the right, from 50 Cent's video 'In Da Club'. In this video, the women avoid a direct gaze with the camera and instead look at the artist, presenting him as something to be admired. 

This is not what's happening with 'Satisfaction', as the girls are looking directly at the camera in order to connect with the viewer, again suggesting that the aim of the video is to parody.

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 However, the gender roles can be reversed by powerful independent singers. In Shania Twain's Man! I Feel Like A Woman she parodies an existing video that objectifies women and reverses the roles, therefore objectifying the men.

 
 Here the men are dressed in very tight clothing, showing off every contour of their body. They also do not look directly at the camera to avoid the audience connecting with them, suggesting they are there to be looked at and nothing more. Fragmented body shots are again used in the same way to show them off as objects.

However, often in videos where the woman seems empowered, the sexualisation goes both ways. There are two main theories for this:
1) Feminist: the woman only seems as if she's in power, when she's in reality still being sexualised to pleasure the man.
2) Post Feminist: the woman is perfectly aware she is being sexualised, and using it to create the effect she wants.

For example, in Shania Twain's video she undresses sexually and then is left in a shirt and corseted dress: this shows off both her legs and cleavage, presenting her in a sexualised way.