Male and Female Representation
Jason Derulo- Trumpets
In this music video Jason is represented as a ‘pimp’ or ‘ladies’ man’; due to the mis-en-scene
in his bedroom he seems to think a lot of himself as he is watching his other music videos
and there is a picture of him topless on the wall. This could represent him as quite a stuck
up person who seems to be full of himself. This could also represent the Female Gaze as his
audience may be more interested in his video
if they saw his body. He also is represented
like this when we see him smoking a cigar
with a female who is in underwear dancing on
and around him in a sexual way, this could
mean that the artist is paying for this woman
to perform for him as he doesn’t seem to be
at home but in a strip club or something.
The woman in the music video who clearly seems to be his girlfriend wears only her
underwear in most of the video, this would attract the male audience using Mulvey’s Male
Gaze as she is showing her body and performing sexual movements. This would benefit
Jason Derulo and his producers as he would be getting video views from both sexes making
him more popular and successful. The female subject seems to be represented as the girl
who tries to impress him and who the singer
sees as perfect. She wears her underwear to
show her body which Jason Derulo would feel
is attractive and this could connotate to
meanings such as maybe he paid her to do
these things making her a prostitute figure or
maybe he is madly in love with his beautiful
girlfriend.
This video could bring very strong views up. Stuart Hall’s
theory would say that the opposing audience such as
feminists could maybe feel that Jason Derulo and the
producers are exposing women too much and that he is
coming across as a ‘pimp’ when he is smoking a cigar in a
large chair which makes him looks rich.
This could mean that he may have money to spend on hiring women to do things for him.
Hall’s theory also shows that the preferred audience would like this video because they may
think that the singer and the subject are both very attractive and the video could bring
meaning to them. They would be able to connect with the lyrics meaning the Derulo gains
more fans when people can connect with his work.
As the video progresses we see the artist watching the subject dance on a pole. The subject
is represented now as a stripper; she is hardly wearing any
clothes and performing a very sexual act; although this
would bring in even more male gaze due to the face that
males seem to like Pole Dancing, she is still being
represented as someone who could’ve potentially been
exposed by the artist.
Even though Trumpets is a very positive song, some of his lyrics may come across as quite
inappropriate and exposing towards females. Derulo could easily be seen as a very sexual
artist who may appreciate woman due to his song lyrics but he could also be seen as
someone who thinks it may be funny to expose females. The video is very strong and could
cause a lot of contrasting views due to its lyrics and explicit music video.