Van Zoonen’s theory talks about how women are objectified and eroticised throughout the entire history of media itself. The theory specifies that we have been complicit to these ideas and have been letting them wander into the media without a second glance, so I thought I should try and balance this claim out by making an example of perhaps the greatest MV of all time, Michael Jacksons ‘Thriller’.
For the entirety of the first 2/3 minutes of the MV we are presented a classic horror movie in which Michael and his co-star (Ola Ray) star in the movie as a young romantic high school couple. This starts of relatively normal but it is when Michael turns into a monster when we witness the conventions of women in the Media. For a starter Ola’s reaction to Michaels transformation is similar to that of the “Damsel in distress” because of her scream and her decision to run away from Michael instead of potential fighting or helping him out. However one thing that is interesting is when Michael catches up to Ola and she stumbles over we get P.O.V. shot’s of both Michael and Ola. These are presented here to both put us in Ola’s position as she is possibly witnessing her final moments and to show the Male Gaze in action upon Michael’s P.O.V. When the P.O.V. shots of Michael are presented it does not feel like we are watching her, it feels like an entire audience is watching her. This can be further backed up with the P.O.V. shots are Michaels last a bit longer than Ola’s simply because we treat Michaels as the Male Gaze and Ola’s wanting to look away from being too disturbed.
The evidence doesn’t stop there, remember what I said about an audience watching Ola Ray, well the very next scene takes place in a DAMN MOVIE THEATRE!!! Another thing, Ola’s actions of wanting to look away and Michael expressing the Male Gaze could not of fit more perfect in their actions in the movie theatre as Ola is disturbed by the Horror movie and Michael is intrigued and interested. (I cannot express enough how much this point came to me naturally). Van Zoonen and Mulvey’s theory at this point IS the elephant in the room as it gives the audience in and out of the MV a quite big insight to how a women is presented in the media. Ola’s actions in the cinema don’t stop there as she asks Michael if they can “get out of here” but he’s enjoying what he is witnessing on the big screen too much as he continues to smile and stuff mountains of popcorn into his mouth. Then she walks out by herself and with no choice Michael follows, since Ola has been represented as the Damsel in distress, Michael must be the knight in shining armour. All of these points about the roles and objectification of women in a 14 minute MV, in only the first 4 mins.
Later on in the MV, when Michael and Ola get ambushed by zombies, it is Michael who is turned into a Zombie and not Ola, the reason for this is because Michael is fulfilling his gendered role of protecting his partner no matter what. This leads to her running away from Michael yet again, but this time in real life, which could reflect how we act how are gendered counterparts act in the media. The P.O.V. shots from before also return near the end when Michael and the zombies have cornered Ola, but this time both P.O.V. shots get an equal amount of screen time. This is possibly the one and only time when Mulvey and Van Zoonens theory is countered in the MV as Ola isn’t being objectified from the angle she is presented and her reactions fit more with the situation she is in. However, this could be because of the fact that this takes place in real life and not in the movies.
Overall, Van Zoonen and Mulvey’s theories can be applied to the majority of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. However there are points about the MV that could be countered like the projection of men and women being given their gendered roles completely from the Media.
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