Theories on Representation

Other media texts as well as music videos offer excellent material for analysing the processes of representation of gender, sexuality, race, nationality, culture and place and of messages and values relating to aspects of personal and political life, for example attitudes to war.



Voyeurism:



This idea comes from the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud which originally refers to the notion that erotic pleasure may be gained by looking at a sexual object. While watching a film, we are all voyeurs, it is argued, but film presents us with variety of pleasures and not necessarily all of them sexual.

Laura Mulvey (1975) suggested that because the filmmakers are predominantly male, the presence of women in film is often solely for the purposes of display. The purpose of this display is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators which is mostly known as the ‘male gaze’, some may consider this to be quite a controlling gaze at the female on display who is passive and objectified.

This has been used in Duran Duran’s work. Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified in this fashion, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star. In male performance videos too, the voyeuristic treatment of the female body is often apparent, with the use of dancers as adornments to the male star ego.

The idea becomes more complex when we see the male body on display – the post-feminist ‘female gaze’ where women are no longer just objects of the look, but exercise some power by looking at men as sex objects too.

The idea of voyeurism is also frequently evident in music video through a system of screens within screens – characters shown watching performances of others on television via webcam, images on a video camera screen, on CCTV. The proliferation of such motif has reached a point where it has become almost an obsession in music promos.



Exhibitionism:



The more powerful independent artists of recent years, from Madonna on, have added to the complexity of the politic and gender/cultural debates, by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of, and inviting a sexualised gaze – opposite to voyeurism (exhibitionism).

All these areas, together with the notion of a ‘queer gaze’ pose interesting questions on the diversity of audience experiences of music video and the contradictory messages and values its representations it may evoke.





Star Construction



Useful inter-related notions are ‘star image’, ‘star vehicle’ and ‘star power’.

“A star is an image constructed from a range of materials” – Richard Dyer (1979)



For pop music, these materials include:

- The songs (their lyrical themes and musical structures/genres)
- The record covers (singles and albums and the image of the star they present)
- Media coverage (from interviews about career and private life through to tabloid gossip)
- Live performance (the image through the stage show)
- And arguably most significantly the music videos, which may draw upon the image presented in the other materials.



Star Image



How a star is perceived by the audience and the characteristics ascribed to him/her may be a combination of conscious construction by the media for which s/he works and of extra textual publicity in other media. The star is always constructed through a mixture of textual and extra textual factors and can only be controlled by the star and his/her employers up to a certain point, particularly in the age of celebrity when magazines and newspapers or ‘tabloid TV’ can take advantage of any weaknesses. The music promo also has a significant part to play in creating an image by creating an iconography.


Star Vehicle



A product constructed around the image of the star in order to promote that star, a music video is an obvious example. Each video may also draw upon its predecessor both in reinforcing the star’s existing image and in taking their image further, or even seek to subvert the image to create a new one. This is particularly necessary in the case of a lengthy career as a star age.



Star Power



This takes several forms:

- Economic power through earnings generated by the sale of associated product (cinema tickets, CD’s, etc)
- Artistic power (creative control of their own image and how it is used by/appears in the media)Ideological power in terms of their influence upon the audience, which may take the form of style or attitude.



By looking at an artist’s retrospective collection of music videos is a useful way to analyse the development of a star’s image. For example, 're-invention' to help maintain careers can be found in the work of Michael Jackson and George Michael.