About The Artist
21 year old Ashley Frangipane best known by her stage name Halsey is an American singer/songwriter and recording artist. She started songwriting at the age of 17. In early 2014, she signed her first recording contract with Astralwerks. In late 2014, Halsey released her debut EP, titled Room 93. Halsey released her debut studio album, Badlands, in August 2015, which included two of her most popular tracks from Room 93: "Ghost" and "Hurricane". She is the one of the newest rising stars in her indie-pop genre, recently selling out all of the dates of her February 2016 U.K Tour in less than three minutes. She is praised for not conforming to stereotypes and becoming the 'voice of her generation' by speaking out about important social issues such as oppression against minorities in the media.
'The Male Gaze' in media visual text was a theory created by feminist Laura Mulvey famous for her essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' in 1973. The Male Gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male, it highlights the women's curves and other sexualised body parts such as legs and lips using cinematography and slow motion effects. She claims that in media text such as music videos, the women included don't bring anything to the narrative and are to be seen and not heard, used solely as objects/props/a trophy for the man to win. Despite this, there are many videos that contradict this theory such as Rihanna's 'Rude Boy' music video in which Rihanna is the main focus of the video and the men are in fact the sexualised props.
Halsey's video for Ghost - the lead single from her debut album Badlands both contradicts and conforms to Mulvey's theory. It conforms slightly due to the sexual scenes between the two female protagonists who are scarcely dressed and due to the scene where Halsey is briefly seen clothed in a bath. These conform because the heterosexual men watching would sexualise the two females but really the music video is more of a contradiction to the theory than not. The video includes no males whatsoever, and the lesbian couple are there for each other and not for any men in the video. The video revolves around their relationship, and how Halsey copes when her love interest leaves midway through the story and is more about the love between them rather than any sexual aspects included in the narrative. I have discussed this theory more on a previous blog post.Richard Dyer's Star Theory
Richard Dyer's star theory is the idea that icons/celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. He believes that stars are constructed to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions. Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose; to make money out of audience, who respond to various elements of a star’s personality by buying records and becoming fans. Halsey started out as a fan herself, writing songs about her idols to put on her popular fandom style blog and because of how relatable she is, young people typically girls tend to gravitate towards her as she's just like them. She had this down-to-earth personality before signing to a label so I don't feel she entirely applies to Dyer's theory like a bigger pop star would, but her personality is most likely encouraged to ensure more sales as how 'real' she is definitely contributes to album and ticket sales. Overall Halsey is well known for not doing what institutions and management tell her in order to break down the barrier between fan and artist so its likely that she is one of the only artists not to conform to this theory but this again could be part of the plan to gain more fans and create more sales for the institution. It is difficult to know for sure whether an artist is truly 'real' or manufactured for profit. Tessa Perkins' Stereotypes
Tessa Perkins (1979) identifies 5 assumptions;
• Stereotypes are not always negative (e.g. 'The French are good cooks').
• They are not always about minority groups or the less powerful ( e.g. 'upper class twits').
• They can be held about one's own group.
• They are not rigid or unchanging.
• They are not always false.
Halsey is well known for breaking stereotypes in the music industry. Her video for Ghost is a good example of this as it doesn't feature the typical heterosexual couple, it instead features two females in a romantic relationship and instead of them both being white, they are a mixed race couple. It also breaks stereotypes in the sense that a lot of media that contains representation often focuses on the sexual aspect for the male viewer.
This video instead is focused on the romantic relationship and portrays them as a regular couple instead of just highlighting the fact that they are both female. Halsey herself as an artist tries to do things that aren't the norm in the industry, but she also conforms to stereotypes in terms of her music such as her vocals which are similar to other female 'indie' artists.
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