Wednesday 16 October 2013

How is masculinity represented in the music video Little White Lies by Deaf Havana?


The music video to this song gives off a comical representation of masculinity by showing four football hooligan men watching a match then going out to a night club to celebrate in the 1980's.
They use exaggerated movement in the way they click their fingers and strut while they walk in the scene when they are travelling along a street, showing that they think they are the alpha males and better than everyone else.

When they get to the night club, they completely skip the line at the entrance and greet the bouncer at the door with a friendly point and wink. This shows the other people waiting in the line and the audience they are superior males to the rest. This scene uses more exaggerated movement in their greeting method and the way that they pull their shirt collars up for the comical effect f their arrogance.

As they enter the night club, they play with their collars once again, showing that they are preparing to go "on the pull", this usually only happens with very masculine men who regularly sleep with many women, which usually takes the female gaze (similar to the Male Gaze theory, but opposite) to do.

Their appearance also adds to the comical masculine parody effect; their apparel is a typical representation of a 1980's football fan in the first few scenes, to some laddish typical 80's party-goers in the night club scenes, their hair is also stereotypical of the 1980's men - Mullets. Their apparently superior fashion sense in this video is also a contributing factor to their comically alpha male masculinity.

There is further evidence that the masculinity in this video is represented in a comical way by the actual physical build of these characters, they are not at all the typical alpha male that is usually shown, these men range from short and stocky to tall, skinny, lanky people with fairly chubby faces with uneven teeth, whereas the typical masculine white male would be muscular and tall built with an edged, angular face with a broad chin and straight, white teeth.

There are also elements of the Male Gaze theory in this video; the tilting close-up shots viewing Portia Conn's (the woman who sings in the last scene) body force the audience to view her from a heterosexual male's perspective. The slow motion effect also slows down the process, forcing the audience to "check her out" for a longer period of time.

The lighting and focus in this scene also give a sense of intimacy, blocking everyone else out of the view and showing her looking directly into the camera as if she is looking straight into your eyes.

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