Feminists would see most media output as being the product of a patriarchal or male dominated order aimed at disempowering women. Feminism was the response to society's assumptions that women should be subservient to men. The Sex Equality Act was not passed until 1975, so before then, women were treated almost as objects in a male world.
The Academic Feminist Theory emerged as a response to this liberation and activism. Laura Mulvey's theory of The Male Gaze suggests that women are constructed in films, on magazines, etc. to fit the expectations made by men. Mulvey argues that cinema audiences view films in two ways: voyeuristically and fetishistically. Therefore it is as if we are voyeurs, watching people on screen, which can lead to two effects:
- Objectification of female characters in relation to this controlling (male) gaze
- Narcissistic Identification with an ideal image seen on the screen
Conventional Hollywood films have a male protagonist, who is not always conventionally attractive, and assume a male audience, while the women only receive supporting roles and must be attractive. This means that the women serve as "eye candy" to appease the male gaze of the audience. This tends to happen on music magazines because they are m
arketed as male magazines. The majority of front covers have males on them, but the ones containing females objectify women to catch the eye of the male reader.
Lily Allen posing on the cover of Q is an example of a woman being objectified in order to appease the male gaze of the readers. Feminists argue that these women use their sexuality to promote their music, as well as the magazine.
Beth Ditto posed on the cover of NME to show that you don't have to be considered "beautiful" in order to pose nude on the cover of a magazine. This statement shows that she was rebelling against narcissistic identification and wanted to get the point across that music should not be about objectification.
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