On Pitbull's and Kesha's music video to 'Timber'.

1. APPLYING THE MALE GAZE
THEORY TO A 'TIMBER' BY
PITBULL FT. KESHA
A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS BY EMILY GRASBY

2. EXAMPLE 1
• The first shot of the music video is a long shot of the singer Kesha, in which she
appears to be showing the majority of her body off, through a bikini. Straight away
this would attract the heterosexual male, that gains sexual pleasure from the
seductive and minimal clothing she's wearing – luring the men to carry on watching
the video till the end. This links to Mulvey's male gaze theory, that follows the
ideology of scopophilia - sexual pleasure derived chiefly from watching others when
they are naked or engaged in sexual activity.Also, the location in which Kesha
stands is quite significant, as the barn objectifies/dehumanises her, portraying her
with more animalistic features to the audience. The male gaze theory suggests
'women are denied human identity,relegating them to the status of objects to be
admired for physical appearance', something Kesha is demonstrating throughout
the mise-en-scene of the animal barn. This is said to reinforce hegemonic ideologies
within our society, with the majority of media representations being from the
heterosexual males perspective.Not only this, but the male gaze has said to also
leave women carrying the same perspective as males and therefore this leaves
women objectifying Kesha too.

4. EXAMPLE 2
• Throughout this music video, I've noticed how heavily weighted
it is with long shots – this will be due to wanting the camera to
have the entire body of the women in the shot. The women is
shown to be wearing a crop top and shorts, which reveal the
majority of her skin; whilst the males around her are dressed in
full trousers and shirts. The contrast in outfits straight away show
the representation of women to be appealing - to the more
respectably dressed men. The amount of skin the women is
showing off is classed as voyeurism as the men surrounding her
as gaining sexual pleasure by her entertainment. In terms of the
proxemics in the shot, the women walks central around the 3
men that are stood still, almost as if she's purposely trying to
gain their attention. Not only do her movements lure in the
males on the screen, but the males in the audience that are
watching the screen too. The 3 men outnumbering the women
highlight the misogyny within media representations and
indicate that the targeted audience is dominated by
heterosexual males. This links to Mulvey's ideology of 'visual
pleasure', in which there are 2 roles of a female character in a
narrative: as an erotic object for the characters within the
narrative to view, or as an erotic object for spectators to view.
The deliberate editing use of the slow motion whilst the women
walks in allows the heterosexual male to focus on the women
and her sexual features that the camera is trying to highlight –
hence why the male gaze is clearly evident in this video.

6. EXAMPLE 3
• When Pitbull finally makes an appearance in the music video, he's shown to have a very
attractive girl dancing around him whilst he sings. Despite having more skin covered than
the cowgirls and Kesha, she still paradoxes to Pitbull's choice of clothing – fully dressed in
a formal, posh suit that reveals no skin. This links to the male gaze theory as it's clear that
the intention of the comparison in outfits is to attract the attention of the heterosexual
male onto the women. This also shows patriarchy as the women is clearly dancing round
Pitbull for his entertainment, almost as if she's been hired to do so – which advocates the
notion that the men have control over how the women act towards them. The quick
zoom ins of the women whilst she confidently shows off her body would be suggested to
be for the males pleasure as well. Mulvey states that women are looked at to be passive,
whom remain under control of the male gaze and only exist for visual pleasure, like I
stated previously. Therefore this implies that the women is dancing for both the pleasure
of Pitbull and the male gaze of the audience. To add to this, Pitbull is looking right at the
camera, suggesting that he's speaking to his male dominated audience that clearly
empathise with him amongst the women in the video – making the heterosexual males
watching, feel as if they're in the video as well.

8. EXAMPLE 4
• At the end of the video, a downwards pan onto the group of girls that performed in
the video is shown, which emphasises just how many girls the director of the video
intended on having to attract the male gaze. The tops they're wearing read 'I'm
going down", which could be referred to as a sexual reference to the heterosexual
men, in attempt to lure them in to the video. This shot looks as if it's been taken from
a males perspective,which links to the male gaze theory in which women are
represented through the men's point of view . This shot reinforces the dominant
ideologies of women within the media, whom are said to be the 'smiley' and 'sexual'
ones – just by looking into their facial expressions (credited to Ferguson of 1980) as
well as their positioning. However, it could be argued that the women in the video
are in fact being represented to be consensus amongst each other, which their
proxemics of each other appear as it's their promoting the empowerment of women
and feminism, rather than denigrating themselves to the dominance of the male.