Representation essay

1. 1b) b) Apply the concept of representation to one of your coursework
productions. (Awarded 25 out of 25 marks)
I will be analysing my music video that we filmed and edited for our main task
which formed part of my Advanced Portfolio in Media – a promotionalpackage for
release of an album, to include a music promo video. In class, we studied
representation in existing Music Videos such as Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball, Pharrell
Williams’ Happy, Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girland Lady Gaga and
Beyonce’s Telephone – I extended this study to look at videos across a range of
genres including Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Blur’s Parklife and Johnny
Cash’sHurt to get an idea of representation across a range of genres. This
enabled us to fully understand how representation can be applied to our own
productions.
My music video was a high energy hybrid of both Electro Pop and Dance using the
music of a local, unsigned band called Money Honey, making clear intertextual
references to the music of Gaga and Beyonce’s Telephone but also Toni
Basil’s Mickey from 1982. The song was called Take Me There and our intentions
from the start were to represent femininity asempowered, referencing Angela
McRobbie’s concept of the post feminist icon. Looking at existing media was
important in helping us understand the representation we were looking to
achieve, linking with a sense of narrative – in Gaga and
Beyonce’s Telephone for example the narrative shows a sexualised, but in control
Lady Gaga leaving prison, picked up by a sultry but again in complete control
Beyonce. The video then takes on the genre conventions of a road movie while
also referencing the Tarantino film, Kill Bill and also the Ridley Scott
production Thelma and Louise. Take me There has limited production values but
we did manage to film the three characters (one male and two female) in three
separate locations and believe we achieved the representation we were looking
for.
The narrative of the song was important in terms of how to decide to achieve this
representation – as a song about wealthy banker who loves, and cheats on two
women, the song and music video has a revenge narrative. As well as
challenging hegemonic cultural stereotypes of gender, a more
liberal pluralistic view of race and ethnicity is apparent with all three actors being
of mixed race origin. The main setting is on the north bank of the River Thames
at St Katherine’s Dock, with Tower Bridge in the background establishing regional
identity, intercut with two domestic interiors and an exclusive west end club
suggesting wealth and status – connotations are made here with the song
title, Take Me There which encodes an aspirational representation.
The establishing shot shows the two women at home, isolated and alone while
the video intercuts with a male character in a plush west end bar, flirting with
women – he is framed using a canted ‘dutch’ angle suggesting his drunken
state and insert close up shots of his body indicate his overweight body shape.
At this point the music is fast tempo and upbeat which creates the ideal reading
in terms of how contrapuntal sound reflects the isolation of the two women – high
energy dance music is playing while one character works on a laptop in a sparsely
furnished room while the other is seen sitting in a bath with a glass of wine. The

2. shots then cut to the two girls performing the number on St. Katherine’s dock to
an elaborate dance routine that uses red filters and extreme high key lighting
to frame the action. The girls are wearing elaborate outfits that are similar to
Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion garments with dramatic primary colours, high shoulders
and plunging necklines – close up shots show knee length black plastic boots,
again of elaborate design as the speed of the editing increases and intercuts
with the happy, smiling faces of the singers.
The St. Katherine’s Dock setting is then cut with a key narrative moment in the
video which sees the two women meet up in the same bar that the male character
was initially photographed in, as they engage in clearly romantically provocative
action that is filmed by a friend’s phone. The quality of the image and
resolution changes to represent this narrative moment as the next shot cuts
to an image of the girls uploading the images to Facebook for the male character
to see – close up shots of shock on the man’s face mirror a joyous moment in the
song as the dance rhythm become euphoric reflecting their triumph. Using Laura
Mulvey’s male gaze theory, both female characters are framed for the male
gaze but also are represented as aspirational and progressive to a female
audience. The music video moves from a marginalised representation to an
empowered narrative thatcelebrates female sexuality. Dominant,
mainstream culture is challenged and usingRichard Dyer’s theory - the initial
gendered representation suggests that thesestereotypes legitimise the
ideology of patriarchy.
As the music video progresses, the representations become
more fragmented and suggest that, using David Gauntlett’s theory that
“identity is complicated, everyone’s got one’. A number of diverse
representations are addressed in my music video that both reinforce and
challenge dominant, mainstream culture that ultimately allow audiences to
understandpluralistic representations through narrative and creative visual
language.
(25/25)