Applying Laura Mulvey's Theory

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

Mind-map

When this music video was released it sparked up a lot of controversy about Miley's previous career as Hannah Montana to the teen that was considered 'going off the rails'. People asked what happened to Miley, going from a sweet, innocent teenager on a Disney show into a controversial pop star who decided to invent 'twerking'. This is a perfect example of Laura Mulvey's theory as the way that people look at Miley. 

This has proved to have a mixed reaction as some men see Miley as 'sexy' and 'attractive' but some have actually compared her to a picture of raw chicken legs. Most men find sexualised women very attractive however some people have said that she's not very attractive. Here are some examples of comments on the YouTube video that support this idea:

On the other hand, a lot of men have been accusing Miley of acting and dressing like a 'slut' and doing the music video to become attention seeking however a lot of Miley fans have been denying that she's done it for publicity, arguing that it represented how she was 'stripped away' by her ex-fiancée which showed what she was really like. Females seem to be the ones that are defending her along with long time Miley Cyrus fans (Smilers) and here are some more comments on the music video on YouTube of that:

However females also tend to abuse Miley on the video and call her names and bully her about the music video being just and excuse to take her clothes off. Miley said this about the 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."

Laura Mulvey says the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. Miley is wearing next to nothing (and nothing at all in some cases) which allows the attention to be attracted to both males and females.