THE MALE GAZE IS INEVITABLE EVEN IN A GLO AD

23BE033016

MCM221 ASSIGNMENT 3

From Laura Mulvey's leading essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'(1975) sprang the term male gaze, which has arguably become a fundamental ground of theorization signifying how women are allocated and perceived as representative objects of male pleasure in mainstream media. According to Mulvey, such constructions take the form of visual and narrative systems within which a masculine perspective adopts the camera, narrative, and spectator as bringing women's passive presentation as objects of erotic spectacle toward man active subjects of desire and action.

Evaluating Mulvey's application to 'Feliz Navidad Nigeria!', a lively music video celebrating Nigerian culture created through festive songs and dance, is to share that highly gendered visual dynamics are so entrenched that they might be readily identified within context-by-context confines. Just like the video celebrates Nigerian traditions in a joyful and colorful light, it is, however, constructed within a globalized visual economy in its representation of the bodies of women and audience positioning through the male gaze. The critique will analyze how the cinematography, editing, and narrative structure of the video fit into Mulvey's theory of the male gaze as confirming the objectification of woman accompanying a reinforcement of patriarchal spectatorship.

Mulvey mentions definitions concerning scopophilia at the core of her argument: pleasure obtained from a view, particularly the gaze that objectifies and turns people into spectacles of view. Emptying and engaging in an object that elicits scopophilic pleasure is continually done by "Feliz Navidad Nigeria!" when tracking the movement of the body of female performers in a way that cuts, fragments, and sexualizes their presence.

The focus of the camera may also be divided across the hips, legs, midriffs, and faces of the female dancers. This happens quite often in close-up and slow-motion shots highlighting curves and skins left bare, and it proceeds to sexualize the female body by removing parts of it from the whole and inviting viewers to consume them as if objects of desire. The choreography that further entices the female body with hip-swaying and suggestive movements predominantly intensifies its eroticization.

The display of the female form in this way fills in the character of the meaning of Mulvey's to-be- looked- at-ness in which women stand coded more for the visual pleasure than the agency in narrative representations. Instead of being whole subjects - with their own distinct narratives - whose presence within this narrative might qualify it as such, the video reduces women to enticing visuals meant to incite the gaze of the male spectator.

Mulvey theorizes therefore a binary division of roles between genders in visual narrative roles with men as active agents who propel an action in a storyline while women being passive as subjects of visual and narrative control. This nature can be extracted clearly through the narration concerning the portrayal of male and female performers in "Feliz Navidad Nigeria!".

Male singers and dancers are the subjects of the narrative. They sing directly to the camera and engage the audience through confident gestures and lead choreography, showing agency and narrative authority. Their presence is what dominates the story-telling component of the video that reinforces a masculine perspective. 

In contrast, the female performers only exist to offer visual ornamentation. They are allowed to dance skillfully and energetically, but such choreography usually emphasizes their physicality and sexuality. Female bodies become a spectacle to the most voyeuristic sort of scrutiny by the television camera. Their gaze doesn't usually cross the camera to assert subjectivity, but they exist pretty much to decorate the male performers and satisfy the pleasure of the viewer. 

These meanings reinforce Mulvey's idea of women being mere passive bearers of meaning who are looked at and do not actively look back, thus sustaining a patriarchal structure under which male desire rules. 

Mulvey claims that more than just representing gender relations, cinema constructs the position of a spectator, inviting a viewer to identify with the gaze and desire of the male protagonist. Under this, "Feliz Navidad Nigeria!" also makes the spectator see in that same fashion. 

Editing and the camera work in the video are what determine the spectator's gaze falling on women's bodies as objects of pleasures. Thus, the narrative perspective only chronicles the view from the male performers-it generates an experience of viewing where one admires in female sexuality and beauty through a heteronormative masculine filter. 

Therefore, such marginalization may be seen to the extent that female spectators or those wishing to engage in an equally feminist or oppositional mode of interpretation are reduced in their options when it comes to engaging such a product. There are no other ways to look at the moment with which the video complicates or may resist the male gaze, as none of them depict women as subjects with their desires or disrupt the power relation that defines a visual story. 

Although Mulvey's theory originated by studying Western cinema, that mixing complication occurs in "Feliz Navidad Nigeria!" where global pop visual aesthetics coexist with elements from the Nigerian culture. Nigeria's rich tradition of attires, dances, and artifacts is settled in the scope of identity within global Christmas, thus proudly displaying itself. 

Yet, while cultural specificity exists, visual codes that would most be recognized within international pop music videos are incorporated into the video: sexual representations of women's bodies and focality on male-centered narratives. This hybridity illustrates how the male gaze operates transnationally, shaping visual cultures across contexts through the means by which globalization takes place.

It is as if aesthetics imply that Nigerian cultural expression is refracted strongly through visual language dominant in global entertainment industries, often prioritizing marketability as well as a visual spectacle shaped through patriarchal lenses. 

Indeed, one could argue that this self-assured, exuberantly dancing, and participating in the celebration by female performers represents some form of resistance against objectification. Indeed, Mulvey admits to the complexity of pleasure in looking, which, at times, can be very contradictory.