The Male Gaze Theory

The Male Gaze Theory

The male gaze theory was originally created by Laura Mulvey in 1975 as a feminist idea that centres around how the media has specifically placed aspects and assets that appear appealing and desirable for men as sexual as pleasurable images or other such inclinations as well as the idea that using these can actually affect an audiences anticipation (mainly a male audience) to see it used in trailers or music videos as a way of attracting a male based audience. A famous example of the male gaze theory in work on a film would defiantly be the James Bond films which has always been ironically known for it's beautiful women with 'desirable' figures who always appear to throw them selves towards the manly hero in the films. The men with  the most power in James Bond are always accompanied by a very attractive provocative female. The Tomb Raider series as also famous for this but in a slightly reversed way. Rather than seeing a dominant male picking and choosing his women there is a powerful main woman in the films who is made to look very sexually desirable through her attitude and the clothes that she wears. Despite all of that this theory is a very subjective idea due to it being established and devised on the principal that it is all men who are pulled in by such luxuries when it does work both ways for males and females and would not always be the case.
 The male gaze theory did have a big influence during the 70's and Mulvey describes it as voyeuristic  in that its for likable appeal or rather just sexual.

A fine example of the male gaze theory in the music video industry would be Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke which has such obvious use of sexual appeal aimed directly at men as it features multiple top half naked women dancing and posing with the singers in a very sexual way which is obviously a direct attempt at male gaze to attract popularity and extremely controversial manner especially as music videos are never usually this explicit.
Quite the opposite to Blurred Lines is 'Bitch beta have my money' by Rihanna. This has very many similarities to Blurred Lines because of the high levels of controversy but presents the woman as the one in power including explicit scenes of violence the woman in power is dressed and behaving very provocative.