Representation in Music Video

Like all other media texts, the directors of music videos will always attempt to represent a certain category of people through the way which they construct the elements of the video. The divide between men and women is the most commonly represented theme within music videos, as in recent years, it has become an accepted norm that pop videos will contain a female star performing in a way which could be viewed as provocative. In addition to this, music videos often reflect the culture in which they are made, and then make representations of the general opinion which the public has at this time. Below are often represented social groups, and examples of videos which they are represented in.

Race: Race is represented in vastly different ways across different genres of music. For example, in hip-hop, the most common stereotype is that people of different races don't interact, as in the video for Still Dre by Dr Dre, there is not a single person of white race shown. This suggests that the community which the video has been filmed around believes that racial segregation is still in place, and this is a message which is widely echoed throughout hip-hop as a whole. However, there are some hip-hop artists who break this stereotype of segregation with their videos, as Eminem commonly features characters of both black and white race in his videos.

However, in some genres, race is represented as an area where there is no divide, and in fact try and promote racial unity through their videos. An example of this is multicultural band The Specials, who have a dominant focus on the colours of black and white throughout their videos, in order to try and break the racial divide which many believe is still a big issue within the music industry. For example, in the video below the whole band are dressed in both black and white, in order to connote that racial division is unnecessary. 

Gender: The most common representation of gender within music videos is that of women being objectified, usually through the use of promiscuous outfits in order to attract a larger male audience, as suggested in the male gaze theory. An example of a music video which represents women in such a way is Anaconda by Nicki Minaj, as the focus of the camera throughout almost the entire video is on the bums of the women within it, which has been done in order to create a larger male audience for it.

This is also a theme within hip-hop videos, with the lyrical content, usually delivered by a male, referring to women as "bitches" and the visual content showing them wearing very few clothes and often acting in the same way that the males are. In terms of males within hip-hop videos, they are often presented as being controlling and dominating, and being able to get anything that they want. This is usually shown by creating a luxurious setting with sports cars and a mansion, and then surrounding them in women, in order to show that they have "made" it. Stereotypes of both men and women are shown in the video for Candy Shop by 50 Cent, as the artist is the only male shown within the video, representing him as being omnipotent.

In our music video, we will show a representation of age. This will be established through our primary character, who will be shown as being in his late teens. This is a confusing tine of life for many people, which is reflected through the uncertainty established within the music video. In addition to this, we will be showing a representation of gender through the fact that there is only a single male character featured with no females.

By looking at how certain groups of people are represented within the music video industry, I have found that we will need to ensure that we create strong and easily evident representations when making our music video, in order to give across the correct message which we intend to give to anybody who watches our video.

There aren't any set representations in our video because of it's ambiguous narrative and singular character. Our character is a Caucasian, British male. As he is the only character he cannot be compared to another character of a different race or gender so it is hard to identify what we are representing with him. The focus of the video isn't on how our character is represented but what he is doing in the video and perhaps the deeper meaning for his actions. His showing of being 'lost' is potentially a metaphor for audience members and this could make our character a 'mouthpiece' for what we are trying to convey.

By George Martin and Jack Jolly