Skip to main content

The Male Gaze-Music Video

Rihanna-Work ft. Drake




In the first few seconds of the music video, Drake is shown to be watching Rihanna dance in a sexual way. Rihanna is wearing very little clothing and her top is see through so a lot of her body is revealed. However, Drake is just sitting casually on the sofa behind Rihanna and he is wearing a big and baggy jumper with baggy sweatpants. Which shows there is a big contrast between the type of clothing Rihanna is wearing compared to Drake.

About 23 seconds into the video, Rihanna faces the camera and it is a close up shot of her face and she looks behind her to look at Drake and then she turns to look directly at the camera. Here she is 'breaking the fourth wall' to show she knows what she is doing, dancing in front of him sexually and impressing him. She has a serious face like she is concentrating but she also has a seductive look in her eyes which shows she is kind of teasing him. After this there is a little clip of around 2 seconds that is of Rihanna's waist and she is dancing sexually and then it goes back to showing her face. This makes the audience watching the video focus on what type of dancing she is doing.

1 minute into the video, Drake stands up from the sofa and he appears behind Rihanna. Here, it is shown to be going against stereotypes as men are usually seen to be more in power and dominant however, Rihanna is standing in front of Drake which could imply that she has more confidence that him as he looks like he is hiding behind her and also that she has more power than him which contrasts with the start of the video and its like they have switch roles as at the beginning he was presented as dominant and controlling and making her dance in front of him.
At around 1 minute 14 seconds in, the power then switches back to Drake as Rihanna is dancing sexually in front of him again and he is smiling at her which shows that he is getting pleasure out of her dancing. Also her skirt is very short so there could be times when he can see more than the video revealed. Her dance movements are repeated throughout the whole video which gives connotations of sex and pleasure for the whole length of the video.



Approximately 1 minute 45 seconds into the video, there is contact between Rihanna and Drake which before this there hasn't been a lot of. Rihanna is sat on Drakes knee and he has his arm around her and is looking at her body in a sexual way. Whereas she has her hands to her self and is sort of holding herself as if she doesn't want to be sitting on him. Her facial expression shows that she knows what she is doing and it portrays that she isn't doing it for herself she is doing it for him.
At 2 minutes 10 seconds, Drake starts singing and this is when the roles switch again as Rihanna is dancing in the background now which shows he has more power than her. Then he is shown to be  'breaking the fourth wall' as it is a close up of him and he is looking directly at the camera which could imply that they are equal as they both 'break the fourth wall' in the video just at different times.
Then towards the end of the video, around the 3 minute mark. Rihanna and Drake start sexually dancing together which connotates sex and pleasure again but doing it together this time. This also could imply that the whole video has been building up to this as they are now together. This leaves the impression that the whole video was to pleasure Drake as it gets more and more sexual as the video goes.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American Beauty-Scene Analysis

Representation: Lester is represented as a non-stereotypical 'Alfa male' character, as usually men are in charge of the house and they protect their family. Whereas he is very submissive, he is not in charge of the house, he gets told what to do and bossed around by is wife, Carolyn, he also gets treated like a child. Lester is an unhappy and depressed character and it really shows through by the way he acts and talks on a day to day basis. It comes across to the audience that he's not even allowed to talk in his own house about how he is feeling as he mutters under his breath quite a lot in the scene. As he gets treated like a kid he also acts like one as he is quite argumentative. The way Lester acts and is presented makes the audience kind of feel sorry for him as we, as an audience, know that he has depression therefore there is a reason for him to act in such way and his wife and his daughter, Jane, don't know what the audience know. This is called dramatic irony....
1 comment
Read more

Massive Attack- Unfinished Sympathy Research

Massive Attack- The Band Massive attack are an English group which formed in 1988, in Bristol. The group is made up of 3 members, who are  Robert Del Naja (3D), Grant Marshall (Daddy G) and Andy Vowles (Mushroom). The group used various vocalists on their compositions. The group have won numerous music awards through out their career, which includes a Brit Award, winning best British dance act, two MTV Europe music awards and two Q awards. They have also released five studio albums that have sold over 11 million worldwide copies. Daddy G, mushroom and 3D first met when they were members of 'The Wild Bunch'. Daddy G and mushroom were DJs and 3D was an artist/rapper. The group temporarily shortened their name to 'Massive' as at the time the first Gulf war going on and the word 'attack' wasn't acceptable therefore they could of been seen as  incentive and disrespectful and might not be played on the radio or anything. Blue Lines- The Album Massive att...
Post a Comment
Read more

Music Video Analysis Questions- Unfinished Sympathy & Titanium

  What are the songs about? - I think that Unfinished Sympathy is a love song about if you get hurt by someone you're in love with you should still be strong and not let anyone knock you down because you are better than that and you should pick yourself up and not let it effect you. This makes it appeal to the target audience more as it is aimed at a young audience (around 18-29) and they would be able to relate to it as most people that age would be going through something like this or have already been through it. Love is a mainstream song topic therefore it would make it appeal to a wider audience. - I think Titanium is about a similar kind of thing. I think it is about strength and still be strong even when the world is its worse at you. As the song is called 'Titanium' meaning to be strong hearted and strong willed. This makes it appeal to their target audience which is around 13-29 so they would listen to the meaning of the song so it c...
Post a Comment
Read more