Task 6 - The Male Gaze

The Male Gaze is a theory penned by Laura Mulvey that addresses the power that woman can have over men with there sexuality. Take this image for example...

In this image we can see a cover of the music magazine Q with Lily Allen on the cover. In this image she is not being shot in a way which celebrates her music career or achievements in the industry, no, she is shot in a way that flaunts her sexuality and appeals to the Patriatical society that they want to buy the magazine. The seductive pose to the tagline 'SEXY BEAST LILY ALLEN & HER WICKED WICKED WAYS' are there specifically to appeal to the male demographic. This can be seen more clearly when I compare and contrast it with this image...

When it is a man on the cover it is the complete opposite. This is the same magazine but it now has Noel Gallagher of Oasis and now The High Flying Birds, he is not being exploited for his sexuality to appeal to the audience, because that isn't what the audience wants to see. He is actually being celebrated for his music and is pictured next to a speaker with a tagline that empowers rather than exploits him. The Male Gaze is a powerful thing. Now if we look at this next magazine...

 

This is Beth Ditto who took the theory of the Male Gaze and parodied it hard. She is not what most people would call sexy or attractive, so this was a powerful statement. But as Ditto, lead singer of punk band The Gossip, has already starred in her own porn movie with her lesbian transgender lover, and regularly takes all her clothes off on stage because she gets overheated, this nude stunt is not out of character for her, either. Therefore not really having the effect she wanted it to have.