Katy Perry – Your So Gay

by Alysia Sharman

Target Audience

Age- 10 – 25 year olds, because of the use of Barbie dolls and the song contents/lyrics. Gender- Females, as the song is about boys. Interest- Boys, social networking, friends. Location- USA and UK, as of the language and Katy Perry is from the USA. Ethnicity- Mostly white, but it doesn’t aim at one targeted ethnicity.

Mise-en-scene : Props

Throughout the video the “actors” are played by Barbie dolls. In this scene, the female doll is sitting on the piano while the male doll is playing it to her. There is alcohol in the scene as well. This links with the age of the audience as there are dolls instead of people and this connotes that its not supposed to be “stressed” and mature like the song would first seem to be, its connoting that there is a sense of childhood and playfulness, not only being serious.

Mise-en-scene: Lighting

The lighting in this scene is very bright, almost natural looking, but the use of cartoon clouds tells otherwise that the scene is artificial. Throughout the video, the lighting changes but there is a main use of brightness and I believe this connote the feeling or the emotion that is trying to be given out to the audience. This would show that even though the song is about boyfriends changing their sexuality, the lighting, being bright, could make a bad subject seem happier or entertaining.

Mise-en-scene: Locations

The locations of the scenes are set in a dolls house, normal looking, computer, beds, posters. Meant to look like a real house, connoting a real situation. The use of Barbie's show the innocence and immature meaning to the set and possibly showing the relationship of the audience to the set, as how they could relate to the look of the scene, as this dolls house if simple with the rooms and props that any house would have.

Mise-en-scene: Body Language

The body language of the dolls in this scene are relatable to the audience. There are two boys, saying hi and high-fiving each other. They are an equal distance apart and this shows the relationship between them as well as the fact that they are made to make contact. This connotes friendship or, because of the subject of the song, more than friends and once again can be linked to the audience.

Mise-en-scene: Movement

Throughout the video, Katy Perry’s movement doesn’t change. She stays sitting in the field with blue sky and cartoon clouds with faces on them. This could connote the stability of her career or her life or the dolls lives.

Mise-en-scene: Facial Expressions

In this scene the line of the song was, “you’re so gay, you’re so gay” and her facial expression is mixed between shocked and almost as if she is stating a fact. This shot, being a close up, allows us to acknowledge her facial expression and what this connote, which is that she knows what she is talking about.

Over the Shoulder

This shot is the over the shoulder shot, and it allows us, the audience, to see the reaction of the face we are seeing to the sentence said by the person with their back to us. Even though this shot is played by dolls you could get the impression by the words in the song that she is annoyed.

Mid shot

This is a mid shot and mid shots allow the audience to see not only facial expressions, but the gestures of the person we are looking at. The positioning of the arms tell a lot about how the person is feeling. In this case, her arms are straight done the side, look like they are about to be bought up, to her head, connoting that maybe she is in shock or upset.

Close up

In this scene the line of the song was, “you’re so gay, you’re so gay” and her facial expression is mixed between shocked and almost as if she is stating a fact. This close up allows us to acknowledge her facial expression and what this connote, which is that she knows what she is talking about.

Pan

A pan is when the camera is still in one position but turns to either the left or the right. In this case the camera started off in position 1, and panned to the left to position 2. Panning shows either a room from the inside or a 360 degree view of somewhere allowing the audience to engage the atmosphere of the room/place and the mood of the people in it. This panned revealed a guy in his bed after a night out.

1

2

Zoom

A zoom is where the camera stays in the same place and either gets closer to the subject on screen or further away. In this case the camera was moving closer to the girl on the computer, showing us what she is doing on the computer, almost like an over the shoulder shot. Zooms also allow the audience to focus on one thing in particular or lose focus on something in the screen.

Pace of editing

The pace of editing in this video was quite fast, not too fast that you couldn’t understand what was going on but there were moments where I thought that the faster the editing was, was good, for example, the change from the blonde girl to the black haired girl, showing that she died her hair, seeing as she is wearing the same clothes and in the same room.