This music video by Paramore uses symbols and stereotypes to represent different characters and convey meaning. The bully wears boots and red lipstick to symbolize her aggression and danger. When she cuts a girl's pink sweater, representing innocence, it shows her disrupting peace. Hayley Williams stands out with her brightly colored hair, symbolic of her artistic personality. The video also employs common stereotypes like the bully, geek, and couple to create recognizable hyper-realistic characters and reinforce differences through their styling and interactions. Overall the symbols and stereotypes link the visual themes to the song's lyrics to clearly portray meaning.

1. Conventions of music videos
• PARAMORE
• -Misery
business

2. Semiotics (Ferdinand de Saussure)
Saussure says that language does not reflect reality, meaning is constructed from
language. We make meaning through the creation and interpretation of signs. The
representations are constructed through these signs. The signs in question can be
words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts, objects etc. Another way of looking
at it is like SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN. The signifier is the object, the signified is
the message that the writer is trying to get across. All together, this makes the sign.
Visual Pleasure and The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)
Laura studied Hollywood cinema and argued that female characters were
represented as passive objects of male sexual desire. The male gaze is composed of
the males being the 'bears of the look' which is usually aimed at physically
desirable, sexually submissive female characters. She then argues that spectators
watch the film through the eyes of the male. Cinema offers voyeuristic pleasures,
men getting enjoyment from watching women. From this, women supposedly
connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness' or me look and women are looked at.

3. Stereotypes (Dyer)
Media representations often use stereotypes as a cultural shorthand. Dyer argues
stereotypes are a way of reinforcing differences between people, and representing
these differences as natural. For example, stereotypes about men and women
reinforce the idea that they are very different.
Simulacra (Jean Baudrillard)
Baudrillard argues that society has become so reliant on representations that they
can no longer distinguish between what is represented on TV and what people are
like in real life. He says that there is no distinction between reality and
representation, only the simulacrum. A Simulacrum is a copy of something that
now has more reality then the original object. In this case, the representations
have more reality than real life. He then says that media representations are
simulations of realities that do not exist. He then calls them 'Hyper reality' or
'Hyper realistic'. This is where the lines between what is real and what is fiction are
blended together so much that it is not clear where one ends and the other
begins. An example of this is The Only Way Is Essex.

4. • There are a lot of symbols used in this music video. These symbols may
contain meaning of the song which links back to the lyrics of the song,
creating a link between the graphical theme in the video and the lyrics to
the song. Doing this creates a clearer understanding to the lyrics through
visual aspects for the audience.
• For example, in the music video, the bully has a lot of symbolic features to
connote her as a character. She is see wearing big black boots which show
authority and she is more powerful than everyone else. This also makes her
look dangerous and everyone knows she is trouble. Another example
would be her red lipstick symbolising danger or evil within the person. This
leads the audience to believe the character to be aggressive and not to be
trusted. This ties in well with the blue dress she is wearing which could
represent cold; and how cruel she is on the inside. All of these symbols
make the character out to be a bad person and is one of the key characters
in the video as she stands out from the crowed.
• In one of the scenes, a girl is seen wearing a pink sweater of which has her
hair cut off by the bully. The pink sweater could connote innocence and
peace within the character of which the bully disrupts with cutting her hair
and upsetting her.
• Hayley Williams hair is a bright colour of which makes her stand out from
her backgrounds. This is a symbolic trait to the artist and helps her to
advertise herself because she is well known for hair wacky hair colours.
Semiotics (Ferdinand de Saussure)

5. Visual Pleasure and The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)
• There isn’t much of a male gaze used in this video apart
from the bully. The main male gaze would commonly
be centred around the artist; but Hayley Williams is
fully clothed and no camera angles are used to flaunt
her. The main camera angles used on the artist are
close ups of which would be a common convention of
music videos.
• Male gaze is used in the opening with the cheerleaders
that are pushed over. They wear a costume of which is
revealing the stomach to the audience. This costume is
not realistic and would not be seen in real life. This
validates that the use of the costume if for the male
gaze of the audience.
• The camera uses close ups and mid shots on the bullies
face and body to convey the facial expression of the
character in their situation and to show off the female
lips for the male gaze.
• In one of the scenes, the camera does a jump jut of a
pan up the females body starting from the bottom and
moving it’s way up to show all of the females body.

6. Stereotypes (Dyer)
• The media like to make representations and
stereotypes of people in their music videos, and
like to create stereotypes so the characters
personalities can be recognised elsewhere. In
this case, the video is set in a high school The
different characters used in the music video are
stereotypically found in hyper-reality scenarios.
High schools are commonly seen to have; a bully,
a “geek”, and a couple. These are all displayed
within the video.
• Women such as the bully are stereotypically
seen as promiscuous and is shown through the
mise-en-scene of the character. (The revealing
dress and red lipstick).

7. Simulacra (Jean Baudrillard)
• Linking with stereotypes, the different
characters within the video are represented
with their own uses of mise-en-scene to
display their characteristics. If we were to
imagine a “female geek” in terms of reality
terms; sweaters, looking smart, and very
happy.
• A couple in love are typically seen as always
together and in love. Often conveyed
always looking into one another's eyes
(heavily in love).
• The bully is usually seen as “slutty” and
think they’re better than everyone else.

8. Hayley has bright coloured hair to stand out from her background and to
be recognised. Hayley is seen as quite popular for her bright colo9ured
hair and is recognised by it. The bright colours can represent being wild
and wacky like her music. Doing this foreshadows her personality in a
way which helps her to sell her music.
The background to this video has the words “Riot!” all over the walls.
This is the name of one of her albums of which she was promoting at
that time. This is a way of advertising her new album within the music
video that is used.,