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Conventions of music videos • PARAMORE • -Misery business

Conventions of music videos paramore

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Conventions of music videos

• PARAMORE

• -Misery business

Semiotics (Ferdinand de Saussure)Saussure says that language does not reflect reality, meaning is constructed from language. We make meaning through the creation and interpretation of signs. The representations are constructed through these signs. The signs in question can be words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts, objects etc. Another way of looking at it is like SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN. The signifier is the object, the signified is the message that the writer is trying to get across. All together, this makes the sign.

Visual Pleasure and The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)Laura studied Hollywood cinema and argued that female characters were represented as passive objects of male sexual desire. The male gaze is composed of the males being the 'bears of the look' which is usually aimed at physically desirable, sexually submissive female characters. She then argues that spectators watch the film through the eyes of the male. Cinema offers voyeuristic pleasures, men getting enjoyment from watching women. From this, women supposedly connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness' or me look and women are looked at.

Stereotypes (Dyer)Media representations often use stereotypes as a cultural shorthand. Dyer argues stereotypes are a way of reinforcing differences between people, and representing these differences as natural. For example, stereotypes about men and women reinforce the idea that they are very different.

Simulacra (Jean Baudrillard)Baudrillard argues that society has become so reliant on representations that they can no longer distinguish between what is represented on TV and what people are like in real life. He says that there is no distinction between reality and representation, only the simulacrum. A Simulacrum is a copy of something that now has more reality then the original object. In this case, the representations have more reality than real life. He then says that media representations are simulations of realities that do not exist. He then calls them 'Hyper reality' or 'Hyper realistic'. This is where the lines between what is real and what is fiction are blended together so much that it is not clear where one ends and the other begins. An example of this is The Only Way Is Essex.

• There are a lot of symbols used in this music video. These symbols may contain meaning of the song which links back to the lyrics of the song, creating a link between the graphical theme in the video and the lyrics to the song. Doing this creates a clearer understanding to the lyrics through visual aspects for the audience.

• For example, in the music video, the bully has a lot of symbolic features to connote her as a character. She is see wearing big black boots which show authority and she is more powerful than everyone else. This also makes her look dangerous and everyone knows she is trouble. Another example would be her red lipstick symbolising danger or evil within the person. This leads the audience to believe the character to be aggressive and not to be trusted. This ties in well with the blue dress she is wearing which could represent cold; and how cruel she is on the inside. All of these symbols make the character out to be a bad person and is one of the key characters in the video as she stands out from the crowed.

• In one of the scenes, a girl is seen wearing a pink sweater of which has her hair cut off by the bully. The pink sweater could connote innocence and peace within the character of which the bully disrupts with cutting her hair and upsetting her.

• Hayley Williams hair is a bright colour of which makes her stand out from her backgrounds. This is a symbolic trait to the artist and helps her to advertise herself because she is well known for hair wacky hair colours.

Semiotics (Ferdinand de Saussure)

Visual Pleasure and The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)

• There isn’t much of a male gaze used in this video apart from the bully. The main male gaze would commonly be centred around the artist; but Hayley Williams is fully clothed and no camera angles are used to flaunt her. The main camera angles used on the artist are close ups of which would be a common convention of music videos.

• Male gaze is used in the opening with the cheerleaders that are pushed over. They wear a costume of which is revealing the stomach to the audience. This costume is not realistic and would not be seen in real life. This validates that the use of the costume if for the male gaze of the audience.

• The camera uses close ups and mid shots on the bullies face and body to convey the facial expression of the character in their situation and to show off the female lips for the male gaze.

• In one of the scenes, the camera does a jump jut of a pan up the females body starting from the bottom and moving it’s way up to show all of the females body.

Stereotypes (Dyer)• The media like to make representations and

stereotypes of people in their music videos, and like to create stereotypes so the characters personalities can be recognised elsewhere. In this case, the video is set in a high school The different characters used in the music video are stereotypically found in hyper-reality scenarios. High schools are commonly seen to have; a bully, a “geek”, and a couple. These are all displayed within the video.

• Women such as the bully are stereotypically seen as promiscuous and is shown through the mise-en-scene of the character. (The revealing dress and red lipstick).

Simulacra (Jean Baudrillard)

• Linking with stereotypes, the different characters within the video are represented with their own uses of mise-en-scene to display their characteristics. If we were to imagine a “female geek” in terms of reality terms; sweaters, looking smart, and very happy.

• A couple in love are typically seen as always together and in love. Often conveyed always looking into one another's eyes (heavily in love).

• The bully is usually seen as “slutty” and think they’re better than everyone else.

Hayley has bright coloured hair to stand out from her background and to be recognised. Hayley is seen as quite popular for her bright colo9ured hair and is recognised by it. The bright colours can represent being wild and wacky like her music. Doing this foreshadows her personality in a way which helps her to sell her music.

The background to this video has the words “Riot!” all over the walls. This is the name of one of her albums of which she was promoting at that time. This is a way of advertising her new album within the music video that is used.,