The male gaze has become a buzzword, yielding over 40 million results from one cursory Google. The phrase, coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey, was initially wielded at hypersexualized depictions of women that cluttered cinema, implying that the direction and focus of the movie camera—guided predominantly by male directors, writers, and producers—was an essentially male one, subsequently superimposed onto its audience. Contemporary feminist thought recognizes the prevalence of the male gaze in all forms of media and the cultural eye at large, siphoning down to individual interactions.
The music industry—pop music in particular, which by its nature caters to mainstream currents of thought—is not immune to the male gaze. Today’s feminists cringe to remember radio hits of a decade ago, years inundated by Robin Thicke and Pharell’s “Blurred Lines” (“I hate these blurred lines / I know you want it”), Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty” (“Our conversation ain’t long / but you know what is”), and Chris Brown’s “Loyal” (“Oh these hoes ain’t loyal”). Lyrics pushing the boundaries of sexual consent, elevating physical attractiveness over fundamental intellectual engagement, and making blanket statements to denigrate women are ripe with the objectification and hypersexualization characteristic of the male gaze.
Their associated music videos are no better, Robin Thicke’s 2013 “Blurred Lines” video being the most infamous. In the 2013 unrated video (since taken down by Youtube, reuploaded, and banned again, illustrating its virality and controversy), the singer lip-syncs against a backdrop of semi-nude women. The video received due criticism in its day for treating its models as nothing more than sexy set dressing, showcasing an undeniably male gaze.
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A decade onward, #MeToo and the progression of the feminist movement into mainstream conversation have tandemly squashed the frequency of unabashedly misogynistic music and accelerated the iconography of the empowered female pop star. The onslaught of objectification in pop music and videos seems to have slowed, prompting the question: Is the male gaze in pop music still alive and well?
A more recent slate of pop songs that give voice to female sexuality makes a case for feminism’s triumph over the male gaze in popular music. Billboard’s Hot 100 of 2022 reveals just how far the erosion of the male gaze in pop music has come, with anthems by and for women like Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” (“It’s bad bitch o’clock yeah, it’s thick thirty / I’ve been through a lot but I’m still flirty”), Doja Cat’s “Woman” (“Mother Earth, Mother Mary rise to the top / Divine feminine, I’m feminine”), and Beyoncé’s “BREAK MY SOUL” (“I’m takin’ my new salvation / And I’ma build my own foundation…”) topping the charts.
Today’s pop represents female sexuality with agency and activity rather than as a passive commodity, upending the objectification component of male gaze theory.
These empowered artists and their contemporaries (of which there are plenty: Megan Thee Stallion, Latto, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, the list goes on) position themselves as sexual subjects rather than objects, uplifting a range of female sexual experiences from desire to promiscuity to same-sex attraction; a far departure from when candid female sexuality was silenced, the sexualized female body used as a prop to further elevate male artists. Today’s pop represents female sexuality with agency and activity rather than as a passive commodity, upending the objectification component of male gaze theory.
But can the male gaze be subverted when male eyes are still behind the camera—or, in this case, in front of the recording booth? According to NPR in 2022, women still comprise only 2.8% of music producers. Such disparity implies that these female pop stars’ on-set, in-studio, and real-life experiences may not reflect the empowering messages of their songs. While female artists’ decisions to revel in their sensuality both lyrically and visually can aid in reclaiming or at least normalizing female sexual agency, this empowering current is rendered vacant if the choice is not wholly theirs. With men still holding a majority behind the scenes, some female artists are likely coerced, persuaded, or pressured into their promiscuous personas to project a specific image, reach a particular demographic, or in simple adherence to the mantra “sex sells.”
Take, for example, the aforementioned “Blurred Lines” music video. The experience was posthumously dissected by model-turned-author Emily Ratajkowski, one of the nude women in the video, in her 2021 book of essays entitled My Body. Ratajkowski details in glaring hindsight her initial suspicion of the job description flouting “‘DUMB SHIT IN A VERY SMART CONTEMPORARY WAY… FAR FROM MASOGYNIST” (the misspelling a tip-off in itself). It was director Diane Martel who convinced Ratajkowski to take part, stressing the total presence of women behind the scenes. Ratajkowski remembers being pleasantly surprised by the fun, feminine environment she faced on arrival, a supportive and empowering closed space squandered instantaneously by male stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. In Ratajkowski’s memory, the men’s entrance marked a pivotal switch in the power dynamic in which she realized: “[The men] were the talent, we were more like props.” This toxicity peaked when an intoxicated Thicke assaulted Ratajkowski, a move that went unpunished by the all-female crew who held only precarious positions of power in relation to the star. “With that one gesture,” Ratajkowski reflects, “Robin Thicke had reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge.”
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Though Ratajkowski is not a recording artist, her situation is microcosmic of industries where men control the dominant arms of power. “…It had never occurred to me that the women who gain their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place,” Ratajkowski writes. Though pop music appears more gender egalitarian today, with female pop stars flaunting their sexual agency nearly as much as their male counterparts, this newfound empowerment still rests on a stage that is ultimately tilted.
Another pop figure with recent reflections on decade-old antics is Miley Cyrus, the object of vitriol after the 2013 Video Music Awards at which she was scantily clad, dancing against (you guessed it) Robin Thicke during a performance of “Blurred Lines.” Her image in those days was shockingly sexy but self-curated, from her short, punk hair to her out-stuck tongue. Four years in retrospect, however, Cyrus admitted to Harper’s Bazaar that what was initially her choice morphed into something larger: “It became something that was expected of me. […] In the beginning, it was kind of like saying, ‘Fuck you. Girls should be able to have this freedom or whatever.’ But it got to a point where I did feel sexualized.”
Cyrus’ case reveals that the choice to self-sexualize can get lost in the cacophony of gazing male eyes, Ratajkowski’s that this choice becomes dissonant within larger patriarchal structures of power. Though a decade of progress is palpable in today’s pop landscape, the industry must be democratized both in front and behind the microphone to truly disempower a masculine male gaze.
When women claim desire without apology, pop music becomes a site of power — a pattern explored throughout our Sex, Desire, and Power in Pop Music coverage.
