This document discusses representational issues in music videos such as gender, age, class, and ethnicity. It notes how women are sometimes objectified or men portrayed with a "female gaze." It also addresses how African American rappers are sometimes depicted as criminals and how collaborations between black and white artists can reach more markets. Region and place are represented, such as Los Angeles symbolizing wealth and opportunity or London portrayed as gritty. The task is to choose a representational focus, analyze a music video related to it discussing portrayal and potential offense, and post the analysis online.

1. Music Video and…
…representations

2. Music video and representations
• Brainstorm key representational issues in Music Video
– Gender
• objectification of women/’soft porn’ (uncensored version of Robin Thicke,
Timberlake?
• men as objects – the ‘female gaze’
• Challenging Stereotypes
– Age and class
• Youth – wealth, fun loving, sweet and beauty - the cornerstones of advertising
• working class chic – the street cred of coming from the streets
– Ethnicity
• African American rappers as pimps and drug dealers
• the rise of ‘urban’ and ‘r&b’ – rejection of the institutionalised racism of the past
and more emphasis on success
• Black meets white (two markets=more cash)
– Region/place
• LA as the sunny nirvana where the American dream is realised
• London as the grimy-limey capital – or wishing it was more like the US?
• NZ as US
• New York as a city of excitement, diversity and opportunity
• Ibiza as a centre of decadence and den of iniquity - clubbers paradise

3. Task
• Choose a representational focus
• Create a digital presentation (ppt or Prezi for
example) of a chosen music video/artist linked to
the concept of representation. Post it on your
blog. Key prompts:
– Who/what is represented?
– How are they represented?
– Analyse mise-en-scene and camerawork especially
– Could anyone be offended by this representation &
why?
– Does it conform to a stereotype?
– Does it challenge or subvert stereotype?