Beyonce - If I Were A Boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIkRiqxWcYU&ob=av2n
The video that I am analysing is Beyonce- If I were A boy which was directed by Jake Nava and the song was written by Toby Gad and BC Jean and was also produced by Gad and Knowles for her third studio album I am Sasha Fierce. The characteristics of the music video are clearly showing the genre just from the star motifs as we all know that Beyonce produces music of the R'n'B Genre.In the beginning of the music video we can see how the camera keeps on cutting between the two people, we instantly see how they are the star motifs within the music video, at this very point of the music video the track has not yet started. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals make a lot of sense, there is a beginning,middle and end and evidently has some sort of story line to the song. Being familiar to the main line of 'If I were a boy,' we can see how she illustrates how things will be if she a was a boy, dressing up like a police officer and doing the typical stereotype of a man. We can see how her boyfriend\husband makes her breakfast but she doesn't seem to have time to eat his breakfast then he seems disappointed, so now things are opposite, and he seems to be feeling what she was feeling at one point.
There isn't really any intertextual reference to this music apart from maybe the lyrics being inspired by the Artist Ciara- Like A Boy, this could be beyonces reference for the music video. As Ciara talks about what she would do if she was a boy rather then illustrating it in her music video, whereby in beyonces music video the illustration and the direction is well done, she shows if she was a boy the type of job she will do and the type of things she will do and also the way that she would behave.
We can see from her costumes they're very homely and also basic costumes, of people in our society. One where she is wearing a vest top with her hair back showing how a typical woman would be dressed when they're at home so in the music video they have really tried to make the viewers notice this and see how a normal person is being portrayed. Probably because Beyonce normally does music videos with wild,exciting,glamorous costumes and for a change she has normal casual clothing on (costume).In the music video she is not portrayed as a provocative woman, and she is not wearing reviling costumes in any way for her to come across to viewers as a woman who is being portrayed in a sexual sort of way .
The video that I’m analysing is ‘Simple Plan- I’m just a kid.’ This music video was directed by Carol Dorsey and the genre of the band simple plan is Pop Punk. The characteristics of the genre of the band comes across in the music video where they have the drummer and also the band playing at the end with their guitars jumping up and down on the stage and their rebel hairstyles spiked up with gel making them come across as rebel. This type of image could be mistaken for rock music. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals match clearly with the chorus’ first line “I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare.” A series of events happen within the music video showing a Girls car breaking down, A boy being hit by a bus, boy getting drink poured down his trumpet and a boy falling off his skateboard this all refers to the lyrics of the teenagers unfortunate events.
The relationship between one music and the visuals do cut by the beat. E.g. when the boy gets out of the red car and the music starts off slow ; but just as the boy comes into an unfortunate event by being hit by the bus, the music becomes louder and faster, and now you can hear that more than one instrument is being played, with the music basically changing pace with the visual. Within the music video there are loads of close-ups of the artists and star image motifs to make it obvious they are the star motifs and artists as there are so many people within the music video as extras. There are close ups of the artist and star image motifs. The way the record company is trying to sell this track is by featuring familiar faces within the music video so that it can attract viewers of the teenage age. The type of image the band is being offered is like a teenage rock rebels.
This video relates to previous videos by the band as most of their videos just complain about life, as before the release of “I’m just a kid.” They released a single called “Welcome to my life.” This music video once again puts them across as rebels as they stand in the middle of the road complaining about their life as the before the music starts the music video introduces there is something or someone blocking the roads causing traffic. Once again in the music video they have introduced the drums and electric guitars which they have in the video, “I’m just a kid.” And the whole band in the music video throughout as if it was a performance. There are motifs in ‘I’m just a kid’ which has appeared in the bands previous music videos such as their image and their hair and the whole band thing going on.
In this music video no one comes across as sexually displayed well within the band, apart from one female who comes across as one of the star image motifs and also comes across as the female that most of the boys have their eye on, who probably comes across as sexy to the boys. We see this as one of the boys tries to impress her by fixing her car and evidently fails with the electric popping out. We can see how the cheerleaders are displayed as sexual by their costumes, although they may seem as normal cheerleader costumes, but these cheerleading costumes have a lot of cleavage showing and most of the extras that are females have cleavage tops on.
This music video does have a really good intertextual reference in the beginning of it when the boy gets hit by a bus it reminded me of final destination when the beginning of everything was going smooth and then unexpectedly the boy was hit by a transit bus. I can refer this to the music video as this is exactly what happens in the beginning of the music video when the boy gets hit by the bus unexpectedly. Another intertextual reference for this music video could be the tv program ‘Saved by the bell.’ Where it has the teenagers, the cheerleaders etc. Apart from the actors in saved by the bell not looking like Rebels.
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