Applying Media Theory to Music Videos

In his book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992) Andrew Goodwin identified a number of key features which distinguish the music video as a media form:
- There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating,amplifying or contradicting the lyrics
- There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating,amplifying or contradicting the music
- Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography
- Record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist
- Voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially in the treatment of females, butalso in terms of systems of looking. Some examples are screens within screens,cameras, mirrors, etc.
- There are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films andTV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans

Applying Goodwin’s Theory to Music Video Analysis
1. What genre characteristics does the video display?2. Is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals?3. Is there a relationship between music and visuals?4. How do the demands of the record label influence the video (the need to sell the star)?5. Is there any reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body?6. Is there any intertextual reference?
Laura Mulvey ‘Gaze theory’
In the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of The Male Gaze as a feature of power inequality In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may linger on the curves of a woman's body, for instance. Feminists would argue that such instances are presented in the context closest relating to that of a male, hence its referral to being the Male Gaze. The theory suggests that male gaze relegates women to the status of objects; hence the woman viewer must experience the text's narrative secondarily, by identifying with a man's perspective.
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” expands on the theory, saying that sexism exist not only in the content of a text, but may also exist in how the text is presented; through its implications about its expected audience. Theorists note the degree to which people gaze at women in advertisements that "sexualizes" a woman's body even when the woman's body is unrelated to the advertised product "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual anderotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness,".

Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives that occur in film which serve to sexually objectify women.

1. The first is the perspective of the male character on screen and how he perceives the female character.
2. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen.
3. The third "look" joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience member's perspective of the male character in the film. This third perspective allows the male audience to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate himself, through looking, to the male character in the film.