Laura Mulvey's theory of male domination and patriarchy within the media can be applied to this Music Video, Rihanna - Shut up and Drive. It is an example of an illustrative music video where the lyrics of the song relate to that of the visuals within the music video.
Sex appeal and subliminal message
It goes without saying that this video has an extremely high sex appeal to the audience witnessing the content of the media. This is based on the women within the music video who are wearing clothes that reveal much of the skin on the body and generally what society would perceive as sexual and attractive. Furthermore, the sexualised women are pretending to be engineers working on cars in a garage when realistically they are not working on the cars at all like a mechanic would. Instead they are merely wiping the cars with a cloth which requires no high intellect level or skill which supports Mulvey's theory where attractive and sexual women do not have agency or know-how within the media. This is appealing to men where they feel that working on cars is a manly thing and by attractive women working on the car, the whole garage image is sexualised for male pleasure and enjoyment.
Throughout the video the women are positioned in various different positions that have many sexual implications, often bent over the automobiles looking into the bonnet of the car, the waist and behind of the women are revealed. This may evoke sexual images for males watching the video as a woman in a bent over position is considered sexual and therefore the video conforms to Mulvey's theory where the video is effectively placating men and their sexual desires. Also, there are no women in the video who are considered to be overweight which emphasises societies perception of what is sexually appealing and what is not, and women over a certain size are portrayed by the media as sexually unappealing which promotes fixed attitudes of what women should look like and what men expect of them. This can have serious consequences where women, especially adolescents and young adults can feel like they need to look a certain way to be accepted by society or "fit in." This can cause problems such as mental health deficiency and social anxiety.
Overall, it is clear that the Rihanna - Shut up and drive video conforms strongly to Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze where there are sexualised women who can be classed as what is known as "eye candy" for male viewers who can keenly relate to the erotic imagery within the video.
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