I am going to look at two different Media Studies practitioners, and look at both of their different economic theories. I will look at David Gauntlett and Laura Mulvey.
DAVID GAUNTLETT
Goodwin identified six key aspects the audience should look for when analysing a music video. They are:
1) A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals; illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
2) A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals; illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
3) Genre related style and iconography present.
4) Multiple close up shots of the main image or artist.
5) Voyeurism plays a big part, especially in the relation to females.
6) Intertextual references to other media texts present.
LAURA MULVEY
Mulvey looked at how audiences look at people within the text, particularly women. She described it as the 'male gaze', meaning that film audiences have to 'view' characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. It can be looked at in 3 different ways:
1) How men look at women
2) How women look at themselves
3) How women look at other women.
Features of the males gaze are the fact that the camera lingers on every curve of the female body and events which occur to women, are presented largely in the context of a mans reaction to these events.
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I am going to apply these to a music video to see if I can relate any of the points he makes to a music video itself. The video I am going to analyse is Kanye West ft Jamie Foxx - Gold Digger. It isn't necessarily a music video I am directly interested in but I like that it has a very simplistic look and can easily be related to Gauntlett's theory. Watch the video below.
David Gauntlett
I noticed quite a few times that the lyrics matched with the picture in the video, so I took a screen grab to illustrate this.
Lyrics: 'From what I heard she got a Baby By Busta'
Watching this video made me realise that it is a very illustrative music video, meaning that the lyrics are often shown through a picture, or even by the lyrics being shown on the screen. It is a simplistic but effective music video which illustrates the lyrics, I think by doing this it connects with the audience as they can join in with the song and learn the lyrics quicker which makes both the song and video successful as it is catchy and easy to remember.
In Gold digger the main focus of the video is the sleekness of Kanye West surrounded by these ‘Gold diggers,’ to portray this most of the shot used for Kanye and Jamie Foxx are close up shots of their faces. I would say by using such close up shots it is meant to create a connection between the audience and the artist but in this case it seems as though Kanye is ignoring the audience as he never gives eye contact, as he is either wearing glasses or has his back to the camera as though he doesn’t care. This emphasises Gauntlett's point of 'multiple close up shots of main artist'.
Laura Mulvey
Voyeurism pays a big part in this video, which also relates back to Gauntlett's theory. Take a look at the definition of 'voyeurism' below.
The woman in the video is used to portray a sexy woman, as she suggestively moves around in the shots that she is in, trying to seduce the audience. Gold digger contains sexual voyeurism throughout the video. Imagery of beautiful half naked women acting provocatively are present through the video which creates a sex appeal toward the them which is stereotypical of the R&B genre. The camera positioning is objectifying the females as sex objects, this is done by the camera giving the point of view shot from both Kanye and Jamie’s point of view.
I think my going through this music video and comparing the two theories I now understand them much more than I did before, and think that this has been a really useful exercise.
C x
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