Creative choices music video analysis

The two music videos that I will be looking at are Kanye West`s Gold digger video and the TI live your life video. In this essay I will be looking at its conventions and subversions to its genre and what makes it appeal to the audience and also be relating these to my own creative choices. The Kanye West video follows the conventions due to the fact that it meets the genre requirements such as the use of objectification of women as this meets the audience theories of gratification as well as others such as belonging for the target audience.

There is also the use of Todorov`s theory used as in the video narrative there is an equilibrium, disruptor and a new equilibrium so this keeps the audience engaged throughout. The use of aspiration in the video is evident as it is presented in a manner to make it aspirational to men, for them to want to have that money and the lifestyle, whereas for women it creates generally a negative effect and image as within the hip hop industry they are viewed in an idealized and objectified manner and as gold diggers in looking for famous rap stars. The Laura Mulvey supports the fact that women are generally objectified and are at the centre of the male gaze, this also provides a sense of escapism from the target audiences own lifestyle.  

So for our own chosen music video of A Silent film – Sleeping dogs we are not looking to objectify women in our video as our genre differs in the expected content of the video, so we are going to be more focused on a more serious narrative as our video focuses on a corruption/Government element more.

The other video that I have chosen is TI Live Your Life; this is another song that is within the Hip-Hop/RnB industry, the conventions that the videos shows many type of aspects of the Hip Hop genre e.g. The clothes used, this is something that again in our video we will not be concentrating too closely on as in our genre as the target audience aspires to have a similar lifestyle of the artist in the video e.g. playing the guitar and being a musical artist whereas in the Kanye west and TI video the aspiration focuses much more on the lifestyle, clothing and women. The video of TI focuses much more on narrative so it ends up subverting in the fact that it does not objectify women in the video apart from at times they put Rihanna whose featuring in the video and focus her at the centre of the male gaze.

Due to the video being much more narrative based video it does not focus on money or women the conventional Hip Hop topic so for our video we are taking a similar approach as we are focusing on the narrative much more and sending a message in the video e.g. The effect of the government and corruption, whereas TI it is to live life. This also shows that the video is using the Todorov’s theory much more with the equilibrium in the video.

The video also uses elements of Dyer theory as it has a sense of belonging in terms of the lifestyle being lived e.g. Poor negative environment and having to be in gangs etc and sell drugs for a living, but it contrasts in that it shows a different lifestyle if you avoid the gangs and drugs etc, this is something’s that in our video can be effective as we can shows the affects and changes of corruption and not.

The video though still gratifies the audience even though it doesn’t focus on the bragging of their rich lifestyle or the objectification of women as it represents a lot of their lifestyles before they become rich so it relations to the Dyer theory of belonging. This is something that we intended to create an effect of, to make sure that we are able to make the target audience relate to the issue and have a sense of belonging.

The two videos that I have chosen have certain similarities to what our video has to include despite the difference in genre, so the use of clothing and typical features would have to be used effectively so this would include things such as instruments etc, these aspects symbolize the genre. There should also be things such as aspiration for the target audience to be used as well as the majority of audiences should be used in the video effectively e.g. Dyers Theory