Music videos can be classified in different ways, most significantly by three main classifications, decided by technical aspects of the video itself. The three consist of the commercial aspect of videos, in the way that they are primarily promotional products for a band/solo artist or their single. This can be understood by the ethos of music television, where adverts seamlessly roll into music videos, all being for commercial use. Secondly, soft porn features heavily in a magnitude of female artist’s videos – where females (be it the artist), are objectified and viewed voyeuristically. Laura Mulvey provides strong belief for this debate, whereas many consider the music video to be entirely for artistic purposes, defined by the absence of any narrative.
In many cases,
particularly for popular music, videos are released alongside a single to
ultimately promote the band. These videos are not predominantly centred around
translating complex meaning of the song through video, but are simply used as
commercial material, and to flesh the band to the audience. This can be done literally
by displaying multiple shots, including close-ups of the band mining, playing
and interacting alongside each other (this is often juxtaposed to a narrative
featuring members of the group). In the video for ‘We Found Love’ by Rihanna,
directed by Melina Matsoukas in 2011, the artist is portrayed in an escapist
way with a ‘bad boy’ stereotype, taking drugs and causing havoc with her love
interest, who are abusive to their bodies and physically to each other. The
video reinforces the meta-narrative of the controversial artist/character, Rihanna
- and overall, it translates the lyrical meaning of love as well as
difficulties of a relationship upon the two reckless main protagonists in the
video. The track is classified roughly under the R&B, electronic dance
genre, and so there are scenes of dancing and crowd-surfing to the sounds of
the DJ. The characters in the video are portrayed as city dwellers that aren’t
rich, as they indulge in acts of shop lifting and spending time in a run-down
fish and chip shop. However, the celebrity lifestyle and values are portrayed
perhaps hidden underneath an unwealthy image. Their free spirits seem to be unbound by money, and their consumer needs are
easily depicted through the expensive car, an infinite number of pills and
designer clothes.
Laura Mulvey, critical
theorist, who wrote ‘visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ in 1975 believed
that in mainstream, Hollywood films, a woman is sexualised and presented as an
object – viewed by the audience in a forced heterosexual male gawk, known as
the ‘female gaze’. This theory was written in the 70s, and perfectly relevant
to today’s films and music videos. It raises the debate that many artist videos
are created to serve purposes of soft pornography in order to sell the product,
labels profiting from the exploiting of the artist’s physical assets. A perfect
example would be the video for ‘Radar’ by Britney Spears, directed by Dave
Meyers. Right from the beginning, she walks seductively towards a man, and his
vision is met with a POV shot, forcing the audience onto the receiving end of
her seduction. These characters are soon placed together and instantly he is
layering her with diamonds, and seemingly as her object. Correlation with the
Mulvey theory occurs again here, with the notion that the female becomes the
personal sex object of the viewer. Secondly, there are countless shots of skin
being caressed by a female hand, made to be believed as the protagonist, and
artist; at the beginning a medium close up of the artist’s bare stomach is
displayed, stereotypical of a camera lingering around the female body. In an
unsubtle scene featuring this character kissing a separate man, the montage features
camera lingering. This voyeurism is regarded to be sexist, as the female
audience are denied woman agency and thrown without a choice into the
scopophilia of a male viewpoint.
Other videos are
completely disjunctive from the source music, or down to interpretation from
the audience. Imagery may be presented as beautiful cinematography rather than
follow a storyline, expose the artist or promote the song. There are many
examples of artistic videos, but one for ‘Mojo’ by kidkanevil, directed by
Ricky Kershaw features vibrant inks and clouds of paint exploding, contorting
and shots cutting to the rhythm of the beats of the song. The song itself is
contemporary electronic music featuring sampling of different vocals, in a
disjointed way, so we can question the director’s intentions, perhaps to
correlate and retain a detached state. We can understand he created those
particular visuals from connotations received by his own self. I believe that
with the entire absence of narrative comes a video determined for artistic
purposes; the function of the video completely changes with the disregard of
storyline.
In ‘Reinventing Music
Videos’ by Matt Hanson (2006), he opposes the categorisation of music videos
completely at times. He states ‘[The music video] inhabits that crucial space
between the commercial and the experimental, and acts as the crossover point.’
However, many believe that every music video purposes can be categorised into
commercial use, soft porn or artistic only uses. I believe this is true due to
the modernised mainstream use and purpose of production of videos, and that is
to be released alongside a single that will need sales in order to climb the
chart. Meat shots, or close ups of the band are displayed in these types of
video so that they are given prevalence, directly leading to exposure.
Identification from fan to artist is provided, of course along with heavy use
of desirable props and costumes to create lust of possessions, and lifestyle – and in some cases physique, or sexual
lust. This is where soft porn comes into play; the use of objectification and
sexualising during videos is simply another aesthetic to commodify and
commercialise the artist.
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