This document compares the representations of ethnicity and gender in Beyonce's "Formation" music video and Vance Joy's "Riptide" music video. It finds that "Formation" prominently features empowered black women and embraces Beyonce's cultural heritage, while "Riptide" features a predominantly white cast and presents women as sexual objects. The document discusses how "Formation" makes political statements about race in America, while "Riptide" objectifies women through isolated body parts and depicts a woman conforming to beauty standards that become vacant.

1. COMPARE THE CHOICES THAT HAVE
BEEN MADE IN THE
REPRESENTATION OF ETHNICITY
AND GENDER IN EACH MUSIC VIDEO
RIPTIDE VS. FORMATION

2. REPRESENTAT ION
• Gender: Binary opposites exist with regard to representations of gender in her videos,
as she is represented as a strong, empowered woman while being sexually objectified
through codes of clothing, narrative situations and provocative dance moves. She
challenges stereotypical representations of women in the music industry while also
reinforcing a stereotypical representation of women who are defined by their body
image.
• Ethnicity: Beyonce has been at the center of controversy regarding instances of
whitewashing, where her racial identity has been erased to make her more marketable
to a white audience. She also embraces elements of her culture through the inclusion
of iconography and clothing related to her cultural heritage. For example, in
‘Formation’ she includes the iconography of the antebellum dress worn by white
women in the South of America during the slave trade. Also, Black women are also
seen to be wearing the dresses reinforcing the political point regarding the historical
treatment of women in America.
• Issues: she refers overtly to the floods in New Orleans in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina and suggests the racial tensions following the disasters. She
also makes political statements about the treatment of all black Americans in
Formation

3. REPRESENTATION
• Gender: women in the video are repeatedly presented as an object to be watched
for example, in one shot woman with her back to camera undresses out of her
swimming costume and there are a number of instances where we see
disembodied, isolated sections of women’s bodies such as bare feet running away
or feminine hands being dragged away. The lip-sync sections, at first she has
immaculate makeup and is framed and lit in flattering way arguably conforming to
social norms an beauty and glamour- fitting in with mainstream media. As we
repeatedly revisit this character she becomes messy and her expression becomes
more vacant as she sings the words wrong.
• Ethnicity: majority of the cast is white- not reflecting modern ideologies.

4. Similarities vs. differences
• Within Riptide, cultural diversity is expressed less in comparison to
Beyonce’s Formation- where black power is highlighted
• Women