Lily Allen's music video for "The Fear" uses symbolism and imagery to critique celebrity culture. It depicts Allen starting in a rundown caravan but then entering an extravagant mansion, representing her transformation from poor to rich and famous. Throughout the video, Allen is surrounded by luxury items like cupcakes and presents, reinforcing themes of greed and materialism. The video has a dreamlike fairy tale quality and uses changes in music tempo and scenery to emphasize its critique of self-absorption among the rich and famous.

1. Lily AllenThe fear

2. The fear can be found on Lily’s second studio album , Its Not Me ,Its You. It was released as the lead Single of the album and peaked inside the top twenty of the charts of most European countries and Australia, while staying at number one in the UK chart for four consecutive weeks. The music video was shot in Bedfordshire, England and was directed by Nez. The video starts with Lily singing in a caravan giving the impression that the girl singing the song is not very well off, but as she exists we see that she is wearing a dress with a big bow and high heels on. This in turn contradicts that she is poor and instead reveals her to be quite well off. Straight away from this the audience can get an idea that the video may not be all that it seems. Upon returning to the caravan door, it opens to reveal the interior changed to that of a luxury mansion. As this happens the music tempo increases and speeds up. Music videos often uses the music tempo to emphasises something and here I think it is showing the change from ‘bad’ to ‘good’. As she steps into the ‘good’ the music tempo becomes more upbeat and cheerful. Lily continues to walk through the house where the mise-en-scene of the decor and the butlers help to tell the audience in more detail that

3. they have entered , what looks like, to be a stately home. This reinforces the idea that they have left the ‘bad’ behind and entered the ‘good’. Lily then starts to descend up the stairs where there is a quick cut to the next scene, where she is sitting in front of a mirror in an extravagant room. This quick cut helps to keep the music video flowing and shows another part of the stately home to reinforce the wealth. We then start to see the camera flow over some of the things in the room like cup cakes. This gives the audience an impression that whatever this girl wants this girl could get, that the girl is spoilt. By having lily sitting at the mirror it is representing idea that she admiring herself and is very self centred around her appearance and her image. After, lily enters another room which is filled with presents. This shows the audience the greed that this girl has and reinforces the idea that she gets/given everything she ever wants. Which is a total reverse from the girl we saw at the beginning in the caravan. The music video continues with this image as she starts to walk back to where she came. It ends with her walking outside to a big, extravagant ending to reinforce everything

4. that is being portrayed throughout the video. On the listening of the song the audience may think its all about how Lily Allen herself would like tobe and what she wants to have. But I think the song is all about the idea of celebrity culture, WAG’s and people who are rich and famous for no reason at all. It is conveying the message of their greed and selfabsorption, it is taking the ‘mick’ out of them. The whole way through the music video we get the feeling that we are watching a fairy tale. This intertextuality gives the audience a feeling of watching a Disney fairy tale and so straight away gives the audience something that the recognise and understand. It is a very cleaver way to get the audience engaged and connected to the video and in turn gets them interested an excited to see what happens. The lyrics of songs tends to establish a sense of subject matter . Throughout the song Lily expresses her views on celebrity culture and by using the music video shows the sarcasm of the words. The first lines open with her sacristy imitating celebrities and the whole idea of them , ‘I want to be rich I want lots of money’ . This is showing how superficial and materialistic they are. The second verse talks about how some of today's celebrates are not famous because they are talented or cleaver but instead just simply for taking their clothes off and so anyone can simple become famous from doing it. In the lyric'sthere is a verse where it goes serious about today problems and how celebrities don't notice or care, they simply only care about themselves;‘Forget about guns and forget ammunitionCause I'm killing them all on my own little missionNow I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinnerNow everything is cool as long as I'm getting thinnerWhile this verse if playing in the music video it begins to darkenand all the dancing stops. This is express the importance of this point and draw attention to the meaning of it.

5. The music video ends with the camera zooming out showing the house with a big bow around it. This just reinforces and rounds up her image of celebrities. With the house looking like a big present it connotes their greed and materialist ways.