For this entry I am analyzing One Direction’s “Steal My Girl” music video. This music video features the five One Direction boys along with Danny DeVito playing the character of director for the video and many different groups of people in the background.
Masculine Stereotypes: The director of this video, played by Danny DeVito, is a man with an assistant who is a woman of color. He shows that he is more dominant than the One Direction boys by not allowing them to ask any questions and cutting them off when they tried. Each boy was assigned a characteristic at the beginning of the video by the director. Louis was danger, Liam was power, and Zayn was mystery. All of those traits fall in line with masculine stereotype. Under one instance Liam was shown as being aggressive while smashing balls filled with what appeared to be chalk dust. The background characters that are strong or brave were men. Two examples of this were the warriors dancing with Niall and the sumo wrestlers dancing and fighting with Zayn. During a bit of the music video Liam is on top of a large bird cage looking structure in charge of the large marching band below him.
Feminine Stereotypes: The director’s assistant being a woman of color there to hold his umbrella and to give him food plays into several feminine stereotypes about their place in work. The trait Harry was given was love. This trait goes with the feminine stereotype of being a good motherly figure, love would be a part of that, along with being emotionally vulnerable. Niall’s trait was light. This is not necessarily a gendered trait however things being light are often associated with women especially in the marketing world. The characters in the background that would be considered in the creative/entertainment category were females. For example the ballet dancers and rhythmic gymnasts were all women. Louis is seen throughout the video with a chimpanzee. He is shown as being very caring towards the chimpanzee. He sings with the chimpanzee and holds its hand when the chimp grabs for his hand. This kind of activity would typically be associated with motherly behavior stereotypical of mothers and women.
Gaze Theory:This music video lacks all aspects of gaze theory. There is no objectification or sexualization throughout any part of the video.
Shared by: Margaret Shiverick
Image Credit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/one-directions-steal-my-girl-743671/