Representation in music videos...

By Leyan Yucel

What does it mean?

Representation refers to the image of reality shown through various media, like people, events and cultural identities. These can be shown in many different ways in the music industry, through the song, the costume or the narrative of a music video. Often there are stereotypes used which are false representations of people in reality.

Gender representation...Girls are often sexualised in music videos to be

represented as objects for men, especially when the artist is male. This is extremely common in the hip hop genre. This is due to the narratives and the lyrics being focused around women and sex. They are usually set in a club or party and often consist of lots of women dancing provocatively whilst showing a lot of skin.

Are all genres the same?This contrasts with other genres, like pop or R&B,

where women are represented as powerful and dominant over men. Beyoncé is a key example of a powerful female artist who is always in control of the men in her videos. Her video of We Run The World (Girls) represents women as respected and powerful which is replicated in the lyrics as well. This shows that is some music videos, gender representation depicts women as more important than men.

Indie equalityThe indie genre doesn’t tend to define one gender as

having a higher level of power. Both are equal and often both male and female characters will be part of the narrative. They will often be doing the same things or have an equal status in the narrative. We need to focus on this when creating our own music video because gender equality is a key convention for the indie genre. The audience needs to understand the lyrics through the narrative and we don’t want to cause any controversy like there often is in response to hip hop music videos.

Boy bandsBoy bands are usually represented as characters for girls to swoon over. They dress in

casual, trendy ways, keeping up to date with fashion and taking a lot of care in their general appearance. They are represented as individuals as well as a group in their music videos through close-ups of them individually. Another way they are represented as individual is that often each and member has a different colour which they wear. A great example of this is JLS. Part of their outfit in their music videos is of their allocated colour. Often as the band gets older they will lose these typical traits and go for darker, more neutral colours to represent how their music has matured. In the pop genre, the boy band are usually performing a dance routine whilst singing or are performing a narrative based around themselves. The main focus in pop boy band videos is the members to please the often large global female audiences.

Indie individuality

Indie boy bands are quite different. The focus of the music video isn’t on them but often on a narrative instead. These have hidden meanings which represent the band as very enigmatic and unique. The focus is more on the music which represents the band as modest. If the band does feature in the music video, often it is just the lead singer who wears casual clothing that is not too bold in colour although still capturing a sense of individuality through their unique “hipster” style.

R&B and Hip Hop videosThe artists in these genres are represented as powerful through lots

of low angle close-up shots of them. They are looking down on the audience, giving them status and attention. Male artists are usually presented as being appealing to women by having lots of two shots where a female is standing/sitting beside the artist for no particular purpose. This is regularly present in 50 Cent’s music video for ‘In Da Club.’ Normally a crowd is shown dancing to the song which represents the artist as more credible and shows that people like the song. This encourages the audience to like the song as well. The mise-en-scene in R&B and Hip Hop videos is also important to assist in representing the artist as wealthy. There are often shots of stacks of money, cars or jewellery.