Feminist VS Post Feminist views on WOMEN!

Are women REALLY objectified?

There are two angles in which you could challenge this question, the obvious being a feminist angle where women are sexually objectified. Laura Mulvey a radical feminist believes in a film narration women are often voyeuristically objectified for the male gaze. How the female behaves on screen is determined by the fantasy of males and what they would like a passive woman to be like. While on the other hand Post feminist look at the portrayal of women’s sexuality on screen in an empowering angle. Women choose to embrace and show off their sexual dominance to the inferior males whose desires control them

Case Study Shakira She Wolf

From analysing this video from a post-feminist view these are a few points I have found:  

·         Shakira uses her sexuality to exploit the male onlooker as oppose to being a victim of the male desire. This subverts the typical passive female victim role as the male becomes the victim and Shakira is empowered

·         Shakira is confident with her body and knows she is sexy, this is shown by the way she dances sexually in the video and the fact she is dressed in a tight skin toned body suit also emphasizes her femininity

·         The narration of the play is Shakira being liberated as she leaves her boyfriend in bed and leads a double life at a night club. This is where her inner wolf comes out and her erotic pleasures are displayed to the audience

·         The cage is placed in the video as a prop rather than to restrict Shakira, her sexuality comes out through her thrusting dance moves  

·         Shakira knows she is being watched and is toying with the male spectator. We know this because she is performing to the camera (the audience) rather than a male character in the video

·         Shakira empowers women because she is secure within herself to allow men to sexually admire her body. Consequently a female audience with low self-esteem can aspire to be as confident as Shakira is with oneself

Although AbbieSinger’s character in her music video will not necessarily be sexually focused, I believe it is important to study how women and men are presented in current and past music videos.  It’s clear women in different genres have different roles, for example in a Nelly’s Tip-drill video women are openly objectified, while in Shakira’s She Wolf video she has more control over her actions. In fact she dominates both the narration and performance of the video, I hope to embrace AbbieSinger’s sexuality and empower women but not in the same ways Shakira manages to do so in this video. In order to keep this video appropriate to a young audience I will make sure the content of my music video is suitable to a continental audience of all age.