Notions of looking/Voyerism Essay

The video starts off with a close up and the shot zoom out from two womens faces and their costumes show them with heavy make-up and glamourous attire. The editing is fast paced and all of this suggests a party scenario. We then see a woman behind a cage pulling a sexually provocative pose giving us the impression of looking in on a caged animal at a zoo, which leads us to belive that we are superior over her. However the angle is at a juxterposition to this as it places the audience underneath the women showing us that she might be sexually dominant. One thing that jumps out at me is the lack of men in the video and the first shot we see of Robbie (the only male in the video) is a birds eye view and him looking up at the audience giving us a complete sense of power over him, however Robbie seems untrobled by this, giving us a cheeky wink to show that desptie being given a position of power over him that, as a man, he still feels powerful. We slowly see Robbie rise up through center stage with a room of girls skating around him. As he ascends all eyes turn on him and we get a strong sense of voyerism as before he was isolated and now suddenly their are lots of female watching his every move. His gaze moves around the room until he looks up at the DJ, a female who is placed at the very top of the room as she has complete control over the the disco and Robbie as his dancing, which is being judged by the room in general, depends on what the tracks the DJ plays. The camera angles are also low for the women but for different reasons as the shot focusses on their bottoms. I think this conceptual video plays on the role reversal of men and women but still places Robbie at the top of the pecking order as even though the audience are looking at him critically the camera angles are constantly low on him. There is a great shot which compostion shows the hierarchy of the scene as we have the girls in dark lighting at the bottom of the picture, Robbie in the middle of the limelight with his back to the audience and The DJ at the very top centre, in her own booth which is fully lit from the bottom upwards. However I find it interesting that even though the women are meant to be dominant thaey all find it necassary to wear full make-up and dress up as these are characteristics of a women trying to impress a man and this suggests that even in a female dominated society that they feel threatened by men to be sexual. This is in opposition to what appears as it is the women scrutinsing the singled out male who seems to yearn for their approval. This becomes clearer as Robbie starts to strip purely because the women are not impressed by what they see. This is where the video starts to take a surreal turn once Robbie is stripped fully the girls are still not impressed so he carries on by ripping off his skin down to the bone. I think that this is a metaphor for western society and the male gaze as the women are not completely satisfied until the model is stick thin. As soon as this happens the DJ is brought down from her pedastal and this is a metaphor as it shows that as soon as men are seduced they become the slave rather than the master.