Madichi's Blog: Media

Beyoncé's "Formation" Beyoncé's 'Formation music video uses a number of representational themes. These include:  Gender: Beyoncé's body and the way that it relates to her star persona and her being an African-American woman is a key element of her music videos. She uses binary opposites as she is represented as a strong empowered woman while simultaneously being sexually objectified through codes of clothing, narrative situations and provocative dance moves. Therefore, at times, she challenges stereotypical representations of women in the music industry while also reinforcing a stereotypical representation of women who are defined by their body image. Also the sense of sisterhood in the dance numbers create a positive representation. Ethnicity: Beyoncé uses the iconography of the antebellum dresses worn by white women in the American South during the slave trade era. There are references to slavery and the relationships between plantation owne...

Vance Joy's Riptide Riptide was an Indie song released by Vance Joy. Riptide' music video subverts the typical conventions of the form. Whilst audiences expect the lyrics to be interpreted figuratively, the video is extremely literal obscuring and amplifying the lyrics. Riptide rejects normal narrative devices and instead constructs a montage of apparently disparate images that lack narrative cohesion, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions.  Disjuncture means lacking unity, thus creating a separation or disconnection, for example between the lyrics and the visuals in a music video. Riptide creates disjuncture by repeating image sequences for example the woman running to the sea which is repeated with the woman in different clothing, literally matching the lyrics but this succeeds in creating an enigma and not narrative clarification. Similarly, the shot of the two lollies being pulled apart is used as a visual for the lyrics 'Oh and they come unstuck...

'Dream' Dizzee Rascal. The music video for "Dream" begins as some building blocks (with animals printed on them) rotate to reveal the name of the artist "Dizzee Rascal". A children's music box tune plays as the camera zooms in on a woman at a piano a parody based on Annette Mills and Muffin the Mule. She then starts playing the piano and the song starts. Dizzee appears out of a music box, He then states that the track he's rapping on is "too sensible for him," a nod to this song's sample of a Captain Sensible song. Then he starts rapping the song. During the video, several notable incidents happen; two puppet men steal a TV, and the puppet police appear in a police car, and beat the puppet thieves; another puppet spray paints a shop wall; an ostrich dances on a bench; Dizzee walks into a disco; Dizzee raps for a microphone in a recording studio, with a pony puppet as a DJ; two puppets walk on screen pushing prams containing ugl...