MV Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

This music video was directed by Terry Richardson. He is an American fashion and portrait photographer who has shot advertising campaign for Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Yves Sait Laurent, etc. He was involved with a lot of controversy surrounding his exploration of women.
This song received positive reviews from critics and debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Feminist vs Post-Feminist

Feminists and post-feminists would differ with perspectives. Feminist would see this music video and be discussed by the way females are being represented. Where as, post-feminist would see it as a women who is open about everything and not scared to be herself. 

Miley Cyrus considers herself to be a post-feminist. She and many other artists such as Lady Gaga, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, etc. would believe that feminism assumes male control. She breaks free from this, especially in this video. 

Here we can see her wearing barely any clothing, boots and holding a mallet, she also has a short hair, all of this goes unconventional for female pop genre artist. Miley Cyrus considers herself a "gender fluid" which shows that she doesn't count herself as either bisexual or gay. 

Normative and Hegemony

Cultural hegemony is a concept developed by Italian scholar and activist Antonio Gramsci. 

This term refers to the ability of a group of people to hold power over social institutions. Normative is when a person is exposed to a certain image over and over again until it becomes normal. Hegemony is an idea which can become hegemonic. Hegemonic would be considered when a girl is wearing a skirt, but if a boy is wearing it he would be considered as counter-hegemonic. 

In this example Miley Cyrus is presented as counter-hegemonic. 

Stereotypes 

Looking at Miley Cyrus we can see her hair braking the gender stereotypes, short hairstyles are stereotypes of men and long are for females. We can see how this became a normative through media and show the society brings it to us, making it societal construct. In this video Cyrus is wearing a white tank top, we can see her strong arms which is mostly seen as a male stereotype. We can see her exposed arms and see her muscularity which is shown among males, this may make her look lesbian however as she said before she is a "gender fluid". 

Intertextuality 

Miley Cyrus's' hairstyle intertextualises  the singer Sinead O'Connor who had short hair.

After Miley Cyrus publishing her music video we were abled to see many parodies on her music video. This music video became a parody icon like Oppa Gingham Style by PSY, Tik Tok by Ke$ha and many others. Bellow we can see parodies from YouTube with 1,220,000 results. One of the most viewed parody is made by Bart Baker who specialises on parodies.

Reflecting on past A2 Final Video

A2 Ida - Oliver Heldon 'Gecko (Overdrive)

This is a music video created by one of the previous A2 students. I will be sharing my analytical and critical point of view of this video.

This video starts of with its title flashing in bright colours. From this presentation we could guess that the genre of this music video is electro dance.

Relationship between visuals and lyrics

There are some words which have been shown literally such as "put my hands" and Ida the singer is raising her hands up, " lights dos low" she bends down. These sort of small words have been the cause of her movements in the dance.

Genre Characteristics 

The song is in a genre Future House which is electro dance music. The conventions of such a genre are featuring climbing, women with minimal clothing, jump and dance around. A lot of bright colours such as UV lights are used a lot.

In this music video I got to see most of the characteristics of this genre. There is a lot of dancing, bright colours and transitions which allowed to create different SFX. The singer is wearing bright green/blue dress which opens her chest which makes it follow one of the conventions of this genre.

Performance, Narrative and/or Concept?

It is a concept based video with a lot of close ups of lip-syncing and dancing.

Male Gaze?

There was some male gaze of the singer while she was dancing on a clear background. She was wearing open clothing and the audience were able to see her chest. This was made to follow the convention of the Future House genre. 

Short Variety

There have been featured a variety of shots and locations starting from the dance studio, centre, outside (in the garden), inside a room with a white background. For each of those locations different shots and angles have been used. When the shot was taken outside in town or in the studio, long shots  on an eye level or low angle or hight angle establishing shots. Where as if it was in a smaller area such as a bedroom a closer shot was done, For example the medium close up of the dinger dancing or a close up in the garden. 

 

 

Music Video Analysis 1

Twenty one pilots: Heathens

Who are they?

Twenty one pilots are alternative hip hop, electropop, Indie pop and rock genre. It is an American musical duo. They are originated from Columbus, Ohio. The band was formed in 2009. There are four members in this band; Tyler Joseph, Josh Dun, Chris Salih, Nick Thomas. 

Twentyonepilots.com

This music video "Heathens" was made especially for the new coming up film "Suicide Squad" which is meant to be the "hit" of August 2016. Bellow is the home page of IMDb and as you may see almost all the posts are about "Suicide Squad". 

Performance, Narrative or Concept?

This music video is a concept, where the video is very obscure. The band is in a prison where the main characters of the movie "Suicide Squad" are featured. 

Relationship between visuals and lyrics

This is a concept based video therefore it does not hold into a story.  However, when the singer says

You're lovin' on the psychopath sitting next to you

You're lovin' on the murderer sitting next to you
You'll think, how'd I get here, sitting next to you?

The camera is showing the prisoners from the movie "Suicide Squad"

Genre Characteristics

This band has a lot of genres and one of them is electropop, the way they presented this genre in this music video is through the lighting. They have light, dark blue flashing lights, which are the conventions of electropop genre. 

Intertextuality 

For intertextuality the actors from the new movie "Suicide Squad" were featured. 

Looking/Mode of address

The character from the movie is looking into the mirror while blowing off matches. 

 There is another character looking into security camera. This scene was taken from the trailer.

As the camera pans from left to right. We see the vocalist of the band looking into the camera, this creates a sense if direct connecting with the audience. 

Performance Style

The style of this band is quite unusual. The band is in the prison while they have their instruments with them. 

Star Treatment

The star of this music video is Tyler Joseph. This was shown my camera angles and shots. He is alway in the centre of the frame, usually close ups of his face as well as many eye contacts. 

In terms of editing, the shots of Tyler Joseph keep returning. 

Audience in videos 

Instead of having fans listening to their band they had prisoners. Since the band is in the prison as well as the actors of the movie, the video featured big muscular men with tattoos and prisoners clothing. 

Locations/Mise-en-scene

The video took place in Belle Reve which is a prison where the characters of suicide squad were held. 

Tyler was covered in scars and wearing prisoners cloths. In that way he could relate to the movie.

Representations

There is an inequality between the genders. Throughout the video there are male guards, male prisoners and even the characters who were in the film are males expect the only female "Harley Quinn". 

Pace

The video is edited to fit the variation within the track. Where there is faster paced section of the track the edit is faster paced as well to match it. When he finishes his chorus the pace is faster.