Van Zoonen Theory

Van Zoonen states that the idea of gender is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context. Additionally, she believes that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at as a core element of western patriarchal culture. Lastly, she claims that the mainstream culture shows visual and narrative codes and are used to construct the male body as a spectacle, which differs from those used to objectify the male body. This can be seen presented throughout media and a number of examples can be found below.

An example of this can be seen in the video "No Brainer" by Justin Bieber. In this video, women are presented as objects that can almost be "owned". This can be seen through the combination of the shots showing expensive sports cars, which as filmed in the same way when showing the women, who are dressed quite sexually. This suggests that this video sees typically attractive girls as part of a lifestyle. In addition to this, the video also connotes that women are props in the pop music industry as the male characters in the video seem to lead the plot forwards whilst the women only appear.

Similarly, this example can also be seen in many of the music videos by Little Mix, in particular "Touch". In this video, the women seem to move the plot forward, whilst the men only appear. The men in this video are simply used as props for people to look at. This is suggested by the fact that they have a very small role in the video, which is to appear topless whilst dancing.

This theory is also demonstrated in other industries, such as gaming. An example of this is Lara Croft from the game Tomb Raider. In this game, the character is extremely sexualised, particularly through her outfit and the way her body figure has been drawn out. In the first set the the game, the character had an extremely thin waist.