Analysis of Music Video

Robbie Williams-
Candy

Dyer – Utopian Pleasures

Dyers utopian pleasure theory is the idea that entertainment such as music videos provides escapism, providing the ‘ideal ‘ life and expresses the life could be lived and organised. Candy music video demonstrates an utopian world within the real, chaotic world. The female character is living the utopian world because the male character, the star, experiences the disturbances and inconvenience that occur in day-to-day life such as coming across two people conversing in the middle of a path way, walking into puddles or running into things such as lamp posts. A life where a person did not have to experience these would be the ideal world. By doing this, the audience gains gratification by not only watching the ‘perfect’ world, but by watching the perfect world directly against the real world. It also highlights other circumstances that a person would consider as minor and therefore does not realise that there is a utopian version of the situation.

 

Laura Mulvey – The Male Gaze

The male gaze is the concept of how the audience views the people presented. For females, it can be thought of in two ways including

•How men look at women

•How women look at themselves

Mulvey stated that in music videos, the audience is put into the perspective of a man therefore, females in music are sexualised and objectified. The Candy music video supports the concept of the male gaze as through out the video, the female character is repeatedly sexualised and objectified. The female is sexualised when the camera focuses on the curves of the female as she walks. This conforms to the stereotypical expectations of what males focus on when looking at a women. When the female eats the ice lolly, the pase of the close up shot, focusing on the motion and movement she makes as she puts the ice lolly in her mouth is slowed down dramatically which directly draws the audience attention to the motion of her mouth which, again, sexualises the female.