RA: Essay "Is music video art, porn or advertisment?"

Is music video art, porn or advertisement?

According to Matt Hanson in ‘The End of Celluloid’ (RotoVision, 2004) “Music video stands in a uniquely important position. It acts as a confluence point for the more freeform moving image arts. It provides a place where visual and narrative experiments can be distilled into a populist short form… It inhabits the crucial space between the commercial and the experimental, and acts as a crossover point.”

Media theorists Erving Goffman, Sut Jally and Jean Kilbourne studied the way women are represented in popular culture, including music videos. They identified a pattern; women were typically depicted in subordinate, subservient and male-pleasing roles. They concluded that this reinforces sexism.

Art

• The highly artistic video ‘Celestine’ by Spector was directed by Jed Cullen and High 5 Collective in 2012.


• Text has been added in post-production near the beginning and end of the video. This creates disjuncture, as the text does not seem to have relevance to the song or video. This is conventional for the indie-rock genre, as often indie bands want to present themselves as ‘arty’ and unconventional.


• The video employs an artistic/creative approach to conventions in that it uses pastiche to work in references to music video stereotypes, often in a satirical way. For example, the band members are seen messing around during some of the performance shots, including at one point where the guitarist is lying on the floor while the rest of the band are playing their instruments. Much of the video uses disjuncture as the content is irrelevant to the meaning of the lyrics. This ‘concept’ approach (for example, the fizzing drink) allowed them to create humour, as well as narrative fuzz which gives the video repeatability.


• Andrew Goodwin (Dancing in the Distraction Factory, 1992) discussed the relationship between lyrics and visuals. In relation to Celestine it is clear that the majority of the video uses disjuncture. However there is some evidence of an amplified audio-visual relationship, for example in the fast montage sequence there are a number of shots of space and stars, which relates to the title of the video as a Celestine/celestial reference, as well as relating to the recurring idea of time and the past within the song. It also contains shots of a woman in a bath, which may relate to the lyric “I’d meet all the girls who are beautiful now but were miserable then.” The video also uses the EU flag to suggests a deeper political meaning.


• In Celestine we can see that the cutting rate is synchronous with the music, a technique noted by Steve Archer (MediaMagazine 7, 2004). The pace of the video matches the emotional colouring of the song. For example, there is a fast montage sequence before the last chorus as the song reaches its climax. Another example of the visual matching the music is at one point where the instruments stop for one line so that only the voice is heard. To present this visually, a freeze frame technique is used to show the band members frozen mid-air while the singer continues to perform.


• In Celestine mirrors are used to fulfil Goodwin’s ‘notion of looking’. Some shots feature a large mirror in which the singer and guitar player are reflected, so that we see two of the same person at once. The notion of looking is also shown through the use of a POV shot in which the singer removes his circular glasses, which are used throughout the video as a star image motif.


• Music videos are a postmodern form which implies that they often borrow and rework ideas from other texts and forms. Celestine uses intertextuality in many forms within the video; text typed into an internet searchbar is shown at the beginning, a quote is shown at the beginning, and during the freeze frame shot of the band in mid-air, the buffering symbol that is used when YouTube videos are loading is shown in the centre as if the band members have been frozen by YouTube.


• According to Matt Hanson in ‘The End of Celluloid’ (RotoVision, 2004) “Music video is a place where the moving image avant garde comes alive, where it is translated into a universal language.”

Porn

• In the video for ‘California Gurls’ by Katy Perry, directed by Mathew Cullen, Laura Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze can be strongly seen.


• Although Katy is the protagonist of the video, Snoop Dogg is shown sitting in front of a game board and rolling dice, controlling the game in which Katy is a part. This denies Katy of agency as a woman, relegating her to the status of an object, controlled by a man as a ‘higher power;’ meaning the audience are forced to regard the action and characters of the text through the perspective of a heterosexual man, as Mulvey noted in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”


• This is supported by the theories of Goffman et al, where they note the significance of relative size. Though usually this would mean the literal height of a man and woman standing together, this is taken to the extreme in California Girls where we see him towering over the candy land in which Katy’s action is taking place.


• Goffman et al’s theory of the artificial look is also clear within the video, as we see Katy with pink, blue and purple wigs, pink lipstick and heavy eye make-up, colourful and revealing costumes, as well as studio lighting and possibly airbrushing. This artificial look is used to present Katy as flawless and highly feminine, which is a recurring visual motif across her work.


• The aspect of ‘woman as child’ is an example of ritualization of subordination used within the video; Katy and her dancers are dressed like girl-scouts at one point, and Katy is shown licking an ice-cream. These uses of infantilisation within the video belittle Katy’s position as an adult, presenting her as childish and subordinate.


• Licking the ice-cream is also a moment in the video that can be analysed using semiotics, as in Roland Barthes ‘Mythologies’ (1957). The act of licking the ice-cream is a signifier, which connotes a sexual meaning. Other sexual implications encoded within the video include the use of cherry bakewells as a bra, and the sequence in which Katy shoots squirty cream from a bottle.


• Dismemberment, as noted by Goffman et al, is used to display Katy’s backside and cleavage separately from the rest of her body. This aspect is also prominent in Goodwin’s theory of ‘the notion of looking,’ as the video includes voyeuristic and fetishistic treatment of the female body. Laura Mulvey described this kind of representation as scopophilia; creating something alluring for the heterosexual male audience to enjoy watching.

Advertisement

• “[Music video] inhabits the crucial space between the commercial and the experimental, and acts as a crossover point.” - Matt Hanson in ‘The End of Celluloid’ (RotoVision, 2004)


• Music channels such as MTV and 4Music stream music videos like adverts. As well as this, they will show actual commercial breaks too, associating music videos with advertisement and consumerism.


• The video for Time Bomb by Kylie Minogue (Larson, 2012) can be used to demonstrate many ways in which music videos are a form of commercial. For example, she has prevalence within the video, having the screen time throughout almost the whole video. Close-ups of her face create the ‘meat’ of the video, a theory described by Steve Archer.


• The video promotes commodification and consumerism through the use of designer clothes and expensive cars and motorbikes. This also promotes values of celebrity lifestyle, connoting an association of Kylie with money and success.
• The video has repeatability due to its narrative fuzz, which encourages the audience to watch the video multiple times. This is also a genre convention. Directors may aim to include many genre conventions in their videos, so as to make the video appealing to consumers.


• Music videos may aim to exploit the visual motifs/brand image and meta-narrative of the star to encourage a sense of familiarity with the artist, therefore advertising them as a media product. In Time Bomb, a visual motif used is Kylie’s blonde hair is a visual motif, as this has been her signature look throughout her career.


• Music videos can be used to directly advertise the artists other work. A common example of this is using their other songs in the music video. For example, the opening sequence of the music video for ‘Wide Awake’ by Katy Perry is presented as the set of the California Gurls music video, while the song playing in the background.


• Product placement is an example of how music videos can be extended to advertise other products as well as the song/artist itself.

Conclusion

I think that music videos have potential to be all three. All music videos are a form of advertisement for the song, musician or band, but this doesn’t mean they can’t be considered an art form. I think music videos are a great way of further expressing creativity using a song. In some cases, music videos will not contain any footage of the artists themselves, instead taking a fully conceptual or narrative approach. A strong example of this is the music video for The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, directed by Spike Jonze. This video is in fact made up of footage from a short film that Jonze directed inspired by Arcade Fire’s album, which I feel demonstrates the potential of music videos as an art form.

However, I think that the tendency in some genres to include fetishistic treatment of the female body, particularly common in music videos of the rap and R&B genre, can be socially damaging as it can encourage the objectification of women. As well as this, when music videos by female artists of the pop genre often contain the ‘artificial look,’ sexualisation of the female and hints of subordination, this can encourage women to internalise sexism and create insecurities about body-image.