This is my analysis of the video 'Love Me' by the 1975 as part of my advanced media portfolio

1. The 1975 – Love Me (Music Video)
October2015
For most indie artists, music videos are encodedwith deeper and more complex ideas to be decoded
by their niche audience, as in accordance with Stuart Hall's reception theory. The music video
accompanying the song 'Love Me' by The 1975 is directed at the audience the group is familiar with,
and throughout the video the main artist, Matty Healy, makes it clear that his viewers should be in
on the 'joke' throughout. This performance and metaphorical based piece is designed to not
necessarily parody but make a statement about Healy's indie/rock culture and the superficial
generation that we are so familiar with. Nothing in this video can be taken entirely seriously, and
almost all seems to be presented with what can only be described as a sprinkle of glitter; from the
plethoric colour pink, to the girls in short and overtly feminine tutus, to Healy's interaction with
cardboard cut outsof well-knowncelebritiesandmusical artists.
The most recognisable iconography in the video for 'Love Me' is the multitude of cardboard cut-outs
of familiar faces, including Miley Cyrus, Rita Ora, and Mr. Bean. Healy's interaction with these is
comedic, from making out with a cardboard cut-out of One Direction's Harry Styles to offering a
glassof champagne to an inanimate ElvisPresley (consequentlydroppingit).

2. Behind the comedy at play, the artist parodies fandom culture, and the way people treat celebrities,
whether that be sexualising them or honouring them beyond what is justifiable. As artists, the bands
are used to being idolised and recognise that they have no control over this, as the lyrics say "love
me, if that's what you wanna do." Nevertheless, Healy also makes a comment on the lack of
character from those who experience music second-
hand by using the cardboard cut-outs as a metaphor
to represent their two-dimensional audience.
Another example of this in the video is the
iconography of the pink guitar apparently playing
itself. To the narrative theorist Roland Barthes, this
presents two of his five codes. Firstly, the semantic
code of the pink guitar directly denotes the music
being played. More significantly, it is a symbolic code. Stereotypically, girls over-sexualise and
overrate any male who can play a guitar and is in a band. Girls want to get with guys in bands and
flock to them; you don't need a person behind the guitar because their actual personality is
irrelevant, it's the fact that they're on stage and playing the guitar, culturally relevant, and the more
famous the better. In this screenshot, it comes with the lifestyle of being a rockstar that girls are part
and parcel.
The girl dancing with the guitar is dressed in pink to match everything else in the video semantically,
but we can decode this to suggest that she is objectified as part of the lifestyle being observed. She
blends into the mise en scene as a part of it. Her dress code is comparable to that of a ballerina,
ready to dance. Although she is presented in this manner as a parody of the culture and modern
representations of women, some could argue that this is equally as sexist as old representations
from the previous generations, and this may lead some viewers to take an oppositional reading to
the video. However, viewers that take this reading are unlikely to understand the purpose behind
The 1975's production nor their artistic standing as a group and are, by extension, not the intended
audience for the video anyway. In an interview with NME on the video, Healy states: "the people
who don't know my band don't know my band, but especially our fans, the way that I address them
is by giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they're in on the joke." The video's
setting is in a dance hall, and the track is groove based; overall, her as a piece of iconography with
the guitar and the balloons create an atmosphere which, although artificial, is glittery, glamorous
and fun.
This representation of girls and everyone else enslaved by modern rock culture can be heard in the
lyricsto 'Love Me', where Healysings:
"You lookfamous,let'sbe friends
Andportray we possesssomethingimportant
Anddo the thingswe like,meaning
We've justcome to represent
A decline inthe standardsof whatwe accept
Yeah...Yeah?Yeah?!no."
Another piece of iconography in the video is the balloons; a stimulating aesthetic visually, but also
come with the idea that they can deflate just as easily as The 1975 can become irrelevant.
Paradoxically, balloons can also float away and get increasingly higher (in recognising the history of

3. the group, this could arguably be a subtle drug reference) and reach another stratosphere in the pop
world, becoming a massive thing. Moreover, the balloons write the band's name but miss out the
'The' in 'The 1975', playing on the knowledge that so many people call them '1975' and forget the
word'The' from the band name.
In other shots, the artist is tattooed all over with
pictures of himself and overtly dramatic make
up symbolising the narcissism and self-
obsession of artists in his area of the music
industry, suggesting that this is as much a part
of the lifestyle and the glamour of being a
rockstar as the music itself. Alongside these,
there are shots where the band members are in
a hot tub with girls, and the scene is highly
sexualised. Again, the representation presented
here is that polyamory simply for pleasure is
just part of the glitz and the pizazz of being a
rockstar. Here, Healy is a rock artist known for
involvement in drugs and self-obsessed
behaviour consciously and ironically playing the
hyperbolised character of a self-obsessed and
off-the-rails rockstar. The theorist David
Gauntlett argues that we create and construct our own identities by collecting influence from the
world around us. Healy recognises this, but is making the observation that most artists become
addicted to everyone loving them and become, in themselves, a media construct. As Gauntlett says,
we create a ‘narrative of the self based upon our social interactions and interactions with others’
and for celebrities like The 1975, this can be toxic. Nevertheless, Healy’s representation is hyperbolic
and self-aware, and at no point does he imply any negative opinion towards this observation. They
enjoyandthrive inthe superficial lifestyle, ashe says:
“You've beenreadingaboutyourself onaplane,fame fora change
Caughtup in fashion,Karcrashianpanache andabag of bashfor passion
You've got a beautiful face butgotnothingtosay (Oh!)…
Oh so sackoff yourcalendar,give itto the people!
Be the man that getsthemupon theirfeet…
Andlove me,if that’swhatyou wannado”
All of these different scenes of the video are intercut with one another to create a fast-paced video
which is the embodiment of music industry glamour. The abundance of pink is suggestive of
eroticism, femininity, and self-love. This observation is both serious and not serious in essence, but
cannot be taken seriously as part of this album where everything is ludicrous, from the album title “I
like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it” to their jabbing comments on
theirownband and previoussongs inthe musicvideoforanotherof theirsongs,“The Sound”.