Miley Cyrus defended the concept of her "Wrecking Ball" music video, stating that while she appears naked, she aims to portray a vulnerable and broken emotional state that is deeper than just the lyrics of the song suggest. The video was a more emotional experience to film than recording the song. The video received criticism for objectifying Cyrus and catering to the male gaze through sexualizing her and focusing heavily on her body rather than her emotional expression or talent. However, Cyrus argues that through close-ups of her crying face, the video also aims to convey her fragile inner emotional state.

1. Representation
Artist: Miley Cyrus
Track: Wrecking Ball
Genre: Pop
Director: Terry Richardson
Release Date: 9th September 2013
Miley defended the concept of her music video: "I think the video is much more, if people get
past the point that I'm naked and you actually look at me you can tell that I actually look more
broken than even the song sounds. The song is a pop ballad. It's one of these songs that
everyone is going to relate to, everyone has felt that feeling at one point. If people can take
their minds out of the obvious and go into their imagination a little bit and see kind of what
the video really means and the way it's so vulnerable and actually if you look in my eyes I look
more sad than my voice sounds on the record it was a lot harder to do the video than it was to
record the songs. It was much more of an emotional experience."

2. • The first shot of this music video is a close up of Miley’s face whilst she is crying, however she is
wearing red lipstick which is likely to be the aspect of mise-en-scene that grabs the audiences
attention. The use of red lipstick connotes voyeurism, similar to the leading female singer in
‘Echosmith – Come Together’. The use of close ups and voyeurism can refer to Goodwin’s
theories.

3. • Feminist, Laura Mulvey argues that often, as in sex scenes, the
camera dwells on physical aspects of a woman for so long that
the image becomes almost iconic for male viewers. The
interests and fantasies seen on screen are tailor-made to
comply with those of the dominant males that more or less run
the industry. This is referred to as the ‘male gaze’, which
combines the theories of voyeurism, narcissism and fetishism.
• This theory can relate to Cyrus’ video ‘Wrecking Ball’ as illustrated
in these images from the video; the camera is more focused on her
body rather than her face or her actions, therefore a male viewer
would perceive Miley as an object to look at, instead of an actual
human being.

4. • Mulvey developed a theory based on the idea that because we live in a patriarchal society, and
that the pleasure of looking at images on screen is erotic and believed that Hollywood films used
women as erotic objects and that the narrative of certain films is slowed down to give
heterosexual male audiences the opportunity to stare at the woman on display.
• The white costume Miley wears is very revealing, the top is a crop top instantly revealing her
stomach and the bottoms appear to be underwear. Further to this, the video actually shows her
wearing nothing at all but her shoes. This appeals to males because she is being sexualised, thus
emphasising the negative stereotype of females being portrayed as voyeuristic in the music
industry.

5. • The use of a revealing costume/no costume is a distraction to a male audience, as they are more
likely to concentrate on this rather than her talent of singing. Additionally, the actions she uses
throughout the music video appear as quite seductive. For instance, the way she touches her
body and licks a hammer.
• Lyrics included in the track are: ‘I came in like a wrecking ball’, ‘you wrecked me’, ‘I never meant to
start a war’. The lyrics ‘you wrecked me’ can relate to Goodwin’s theory of the relationship
between lyrics and visuals. As the video, ‘wrecking ball’ shows Miley destroying a building,
perhaps trying to escape her feelings of feeling ‘wrecked’
• Although, the video concentrates on Miley’s physical features and represents Miley as a
voyeuristic object within the music industry, it also represents her as broken and fragile – in the
close ups of her face, she is crying indicating that she is in an emotional state. Close ups are used
to signify importance, therefore the audience should be concentrating on the way she feels,
rather than her body. It is evident that the way she behaves is due to the way she feels.