Representation in our video

The only character presented in our video is a female. We have a female actress lip-synching and dancing to the song which I would describe as quite a bold move when you consider the song is rapped by a male voice. The reason why we did this is because it's fresh, no other music videos that we have seen nor music videos in the mainstream spot light do this. And secondly the underlying message demonstrated with a black young woman portraying an established musician is quite a feminist statement and communicates that anything a man can do, a woman can also do.

The way the woman is represented in our video is influenced a lot by third-wave feminism and Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. As I understand it third wave feminism embraced diversity and accepted beauty outside of what is conventionally beautiful. European beauty is epitomised as a standard of beauty in the west and so we chose to combat that by choosing a mixed race actress with afro textured hair appose to the kind of girl presented a lot in music videos... a white girl with a tall nose, sleek long hair, and light round eyes. In today's society, fourth-wave feminism and the mainstream aims to encourage us to see beauty in diversity however in my opinion there's still a clear difference to how caucasian women in the music industry are represented versus how women of colour are represented. If we compare the music video legacy of some equally mainstream female musicians of different racial background, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry: in women of colours most popular music videos I feel like they generally have to provide more entertainment in addition to her beauty. If you look at all of Rihanna's music videos, a portion of them including her 2010 single "Man Down" were really popular because not only did she look beautiful but also it was an interesting narrative based music video. Another portion of her music videos like "California King Bed" are not popular because Rihanna is simply walking around the set being beautiful, which unfortunately isn't enough to sweep in an audience. If we look at Beyoncé's music videos, whilst she's always been established as a singer I don't
think her music videos have been celebrated until her most recent albums. They lure in an audience because in addition to Beyoncé elegance and beauty, her mise-en-scene and movement are interesting and intriguing and the concept or sometimes narratives of her music videos are entertaining. Again, her earlier videos were mainly composed of her strutting around looking beautiful which simply wasn't entertaining
enough to attract an audience. When I look at Katy Perry in comparison though, her videos generally compose of her walking around and looking beautiful. While it can be argued that her videos are artistically intriguing with her use of colour and concepts, that's only her surroundings, she is normally portrayed as just standing there beautifully in her videos. I don't think if she was a woman of colour her music videos would gain as much interest. Taylor Swift's music videos link to this as her music videos also incorporate her standing there beautifully. If we look at my favourite music video of hers which is "I Knew You Were Trouble", in spite of the narrative unfolding in the video of a breakup, there are still frequent 20 second segments of Swift walking in slow motion through a festival setting, or her standing outside a gas station. I don't think a musician of colour could make an iconic video with simple shots of her beauty unlike white musicians who seem to be able to do so... However, which is worse - white women only having to rely on their visual characteristics or that women of colour have to serve more than beauty? I don't know but this representation is something we considered in our music videos. We have aimed to spectate the black actress with being pretty as her only asset; yes she is dancing and yes the edited overlays are cool but what will hopefully really attract our audience is her beauty, not a narrative or concept or movement. It is an experiment because I think if a caucasian singer did a video similar to ours, it would receive very well and be considered very entertaining.

Additionally linking back to third-wave feminism and embracing different cultures and beauty standards, our actress has an african-braid hairstyle to represent beauty in her heritage and racial background.

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory encapsulates the sexy way women are always presented in film and states the causes of this to be due to the voyeuristic camera work and mise-en-scene elements like costumes.

When planning the costumes in the video, my partner and I wanted our character to look like a normal urban teenager however we did not want to suffice the criteria for the Male Gaze Theory. Therefore our character was presented in two minimalist outfits rendering little flesh. Her outfits look on trend and cool but they're not majorly sexual nor frigid, which I think is good because I don't think women should be sexualise to the extent that they're purely denoted as sexual objects however I also don't think that women should be represented as anti-sexual and sex should be deemed as unwomanly and dirty or that virginity should be praised. So I think her outfits demonstrate that balance which is positive.