LACEY’S REPERTOIRE

OF ELEMENTS• Characters

• Narrative Events

• Iconography

• Setting (mise-en-scene)

• Technical and audio codes

Characters

• Beyoncé is the only character on the album artwork. She

is represented in three highly sexualised images which

display her body and her looks. She is shown in three

various poses which are all suggestive and also artistic.

Her behaviour is expressive and suggests she is

emotional with the sexual imagery suggesting this may be

due to a relationship.

Narrative Events

• Beyoncé’s behaviour and expressive posing suggests she

is feeling strong emotion towards something, arguably a

person or relationship. She is gazing into space in all

three of the pictures suggesting she is consumed with

thought. The third image shows her looking away into the

distance and she appears to be guarded and no giving

any specific emotion away. If we assume that the three

images occur chronologically we may assume she

becomes more guarded as the sequence goes on and is

turning away from the audience.

Iconography

• Beyoncé’s all black costume suggests a darker side to the artist

and the fact that it is so revealing links to the R&B genre. She

is also seen to be wearing huge and unusual heeled shoes

which give the artwork a more contemporary feel. The fur

waistcoat Beyoncé wears is also stereotypical of the R&B

along with her gold jewellery as they connote wealth and

status. Her hair is very voluminous and full which links to her

ethnicity of being African American. Conversely, Beyonce

challenges tis stereotype as her hair is dyed blonde, thus

referring to a stereotypical hair colour of white females. This

notion may be linked to the ideas of media theorist Steve

Neale, Beyonce uses the ‘repetitions and differences’ hat he

refers to in order to keep her work interesting and engaging.

Setting (mise-en-scene)

• The mise en scene appears to be a rooftop above a city.

The area around Beyoncé appears to be quite plain and

desolate, leaving the focus on Beyoncé. Her dark clothing

contrasts against the plain, off-white surroundings.

Technical and audio codes

• The high-key lighting makes this a positive image, and the

images are edited in a pale sepia filter, which makes the

images appear authentic and vintage. Two of the shots

are long shots which display Beyoncé’s whole body and

emphasise the setting of a high rooftop. The first image is

a medium close up which means Beyonce takes up the

majority of the frame, drawing attention to her. Beyonce

uses a large black serif font in order to establish the

status that her name carries as a very famous artist. The

Guttenberg design principle is used effectively on all three

images as Beyoncé is present in the primary optical area

of every image, and every terminal area is left empty.