2. Savages – Background information
The Savages is an all female rock band from London formed in 2011,
their debut album, silence yourself, reached 19 in the UK album
charts in May 2013.
Their influences include Joy Division, Souixsie, the Banshees and
others The Savages
3. Savages – The Answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvvhHT0B5ck – Savages: The Answer
The Savages is an all female rock band, despite this they challenge
stereotypical representations of women in the music industry by each
member showing signs of being androgynous towards their look, each of
them dresses and shows signs of being either gender, despite being female.
This is a complete contrast to the standards set by the music industry,
particularly from the Rap genre, where women are hyper-sexualized to be
nothing more than mere objects of sexual desire.
Again this is a complete contrast to the Savages that take a more
Androgynous stance to gender representation, firmly contrasting and challenging
the representations that specific genres, like rap usually put across.
4. Savages – The Answer
In the music video for “The Answer” the band, all female, is
at the centre of attention in a large mixed gender crowd in
a heightened position above them, this creates an idea that
they are in charge and they are the reason the crowd is
there, suggesting that they are the ones in the position of
power, again challenging specific stereotypes used mostly
by the Rap genre.
This music video uses the idea of the males gaze in a
different way to establish their dominance over the crowd
as opposed to hyper-sexualize the band/artist. This is done
by putting the band in the centre where the crowd
watching and the viewer of the text are below or with them
and not focusing on sexualizing them, meaning that the
idea is used in a different way than in certain genres like
Rap.
5. Savages – Masculinity and Femininity
The Androgynous style the band uses blurs the lines between femininity and masculinity by suggesting
it could be either one, which is reinforced by the cameras lack of focus on facial or specific body
features like their waists. This, again, is going against the ideas and stereotypes used by the music
industry, specifically in the Rap genre, which tends to use women in a voyeuristic manner and focusing
on the sexual parts of their bodies.
Even within the crowd within the music video for “the Answer” the females are Androgynous in look
and costume, some with short hair, some with long hair, either way femininity is barely shown or
represented within the music video as it puts an emphasis on Androgyny and how women can also be
particularly masculine.
6. Savages - Youth and Ethnicity Representation
Youth - In the Music video for “The Answer” the representation of youth is pretty standard for youth in
general within the media, this is because the youth are shown as rowdy by the jumping around with no
real direction or purpose, suggesting that the conventional view of youth, specifically by media
institutions like newspapers, are accurate in this case, however, “The Answer” shows the youth as
organised and with a purpose because the music video suggests that they are their for a gig/concert.
These ideas reinforce some the ideas and representations by showing using the Androgyny and the
rowdy nature of the crowd, which is entirely youth and young adults (approx. 16 – 21), as a form of
rebellion against the standard representations of youth, and specifically gender in this case, as the
boundaries are rather blurred by the strong use of Androgyny for the majority of the crowd.
Ethnicity – In the music video the representation of ethnicity is completely one sided, showing only
Caucasian members of the audience listening and jumping around to a fully Caucasian band. This
could be suggestive that the kind of music that the Savages produces isn’t enjoyed by other ethnic
backgrounds other than those of a Caucasian culture group that aren’t considered ethnic minorities.
This could suggest that because of the representation of women in the music video and by the band
people of an ethnic minority aren’t interested because of the messages the band produces.
7. Part 2 – My Own music video
My own Music video for “Kerosene” by Kill for Eden strongly reinforces the representations of
youth. This was slightly unintentional as the original idea was to show both sides of the
representation, the part that conforms and agrees with the “hoodie” representation of youth, but to
also apply a side to youth of them being willing and able to work and function as adults despite
what the world may think of them. This however, isn’t shown because of the representation of the
“hoodie” characters being rather strong, for example the scene where the suited character,
representing a working ethic and adult feeling within youth, being attacked by hooded characters
and mugged, this scene shows a fight between the two sides of the representations of youth and
showing the hooded thug side of the representation as coming out on top.
