Are music videos commercials, porn or art?
Music videos in recent years have become part of an on-going debate, “what purpose do they actually serve?”, the three common classifications from this argument are porn, art and commercials. Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze would suggest that a voyeuristic and pornographic persona of music videos are used in order to attract viewers to increase popularity and opportunities to generate money, while Musical auteur Adam Levite suggests that involvement from the music industry results in “mediocrity”, which would suggest that music videos are commercial and are only existent to generate profit. However, many music video directors and musicians and other creative groups have managed to retain their artistic integrity and express their music through their music videos, often with strong links between what is happening on screen and the lyrics/music of the track.
In modern society, it has become the norm for a single from most genres of music, especially pop music, to release a music video with the single, to essentially advocate the track and artist. But many argue that these music videos are simply using voyeuristic treatment of the both the male and female body to attract viewers and ultimately generate profit. Barthes’ theory of stereotyped action codes may lead people to interpreting many of the character’s actions within music videos as sexual acts. Laura Mulvey’s essay of “visual pleasure and Narrative cinema” would further support this idea, as she discusses the use of scopophilia and identification in order to attract male (and possibly female) attention. However, Tim O’Sullivan’s argument that all media texts tell the viewer some kind of story, does counter the idea of music videos as porn, as it suggests that there is a deeper meaning. The music video for Kylie Minogue’s ’All The Lovers’ (Joseph Kahn, 2010) consists mainly of males and females simply partaking in sexual and intimate activities, this reinforces the meta-narrative of the Kylie Minogue ‘brand’ who often tries to establish herself as a sexually attractive person. However, the video does translate the lyrical meaning of the song, as the term ‘lover’ is often used in contemporary society when talking not only about the emotion between two individuals, but also when referring to the physical act of love.
However, Sven Carlsson’s theory that music videos fall into two groups’ either performance clips or conceptual clips, which may suggest that music videos are neither commercial nor pornographic, and instead are simply for artistic purposes, or perhaps they simply reinforce the meaning that the lyrics and music put across. But many critics may dispose of this argument, as many believe a clip to only be purely artistic, if it contains no perceptible visual narrative and contains no lip synchronized singing, an iconic example of this is ‘Here it goes again’ by OK go (choreographed by Trish Sie). This music video simply consists of a complex dance carried out by the band members on a number of treadmills, and contains no performance or narrative. However, many others will argue that a music video can contain narrative or performance and still be deemed as a artistic music video, (in terms of this argument), as long as it does not contain any material which may be deemed pornographic, or any commercial aspects (such as synergistic promotional activity).
Thirdly, possibly the most controversial of the three classifications of music videos in this argument is the idea that music videos are purely commercial. The most notable point in terms of music videos being commercial, is actually their purpose. The purpose of music videos (whether they are porn, commercial or art) is essentially to promote the music artist and the track, which is in turn, to make money. Music videos force the audience to consume the track, which may lead to them downloading or purchasing the single, or some of the artists other work. Synergistic promotional activity has become increasingly popular in music videos, where the a fee is paid to those who own the rights to the music video, and what has become quite popular is that the party who pay the fee, will have their product/brand advertised. ‘Call me maybe’ by Carly Ray Jepsen (directed by Knechtel, 2012) where the camera techniques clearly create an emphasis on the car that the protagonist (Jepsen) is shown to be driving. Many have began to argue that it is the genres of music with more involvement from the music companies such as R&B and Pop, which will contain more signs of being commercial. Possibly the most crucial piece of evidence to music videos being commercial, is how they are seamlessly integrated with adverts on music television.
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