How does media language incorporate viewpoints and ideologies in this music video? [15]
Timings
Component one
Section A - unseen section
Two questions
Music videos and media language
KOTV and representation
Two minutes per mark
Section B - Industry and audience
Newspaper industry
Wateraid and audience
One minute per mark
Component two
50 minutes per industry
Knee jerk reaction
The Tyler The Creator video uses media language to create a challenging and atypical ideology for the target audience
Plan
Unconventional MES
Single tracking shot
generally tracks Tyler
Extreme shot duration
Long take
Extreme long take
Outfits/costumes challenge black stereotypes
Challenge rap/hip hop stereotypes
Early 90s
Retro
Postmodern
Desaturated
Amateurish
Romantic narrative
Sex pest
Creepy
Lip syncing is poor and amateurish
Intradiegetic gaze - where one character looks at another character
Only major representation of black people
Symbolic annihilation
lack of white representation in a stereotypically white setting
Exemplar answer - Michael's response
Ideology refers to the beliefs and values of the producer. Typically, producers will attempt to engage audiences through ideology, and audiences themselves will interact with media products through a process of negotiation. The video to WUSYANAME by Tyler, The Creator presents a subversive and atypical ideology, that challenges not only many of the conventions of the rap and R&B genres, but also the representation of men and women, in order to both confuse and delight the target audiences. Music videos are typically uses as promotional material for a musical artist, but in many instances, they function as a complete media product themselves.
WUSYANAME begins with an establishing montage of Ariel tracking shots, following the protagonist's vehicle as he approaches his destination. The colour is both desaturated yet vibrant, and the MES is rich and suggestive of a warm, west coast summer. The stacked boxes on top of the car function as a proairetic code, suggesting an important journey. However, it is essential to point ut that this is never realised in this video. These opening shots additionally do not show Tyler, the performer, which is also highly unconventional for a rap video, which typically will feature the performer in every shot. However, this opening montage does construct a continuous and conventional narrative, that raises many exciting hermeneutic codes for the audience.
This smooth montage is completely disrupted in the master shot of this video, which features a single handheld panning shot, painfully zoomed in and nauseatingly shaky, that follows Tyler as he bothers an uninterested women in to going out with him. It is essential to note that this scene has little to no relation to the establishing montage, and thus is particularly disruptive and confusing for the target audience.
This master shot breaks the conventions of the hip-hop/R&B video in many ways. For example, the lip syncing is poor and unsynchronised with the singing, with the performer frequently giving up and rubbing his face instead of performing. The complete lack of cuts, focusing instead on a single extreme long take is also highly atypical of music videos in general, which are generally cut to the beat and beat matched in order to provide as much pleasure to the audience as possible. It is clear that from an ideological perspective, the producers of this video are attempting to subvert and to deny the enjoyment of the audience, which raises many issues about the function of the music video.
The video is also highly atypical when it comes to its ideological perspectives on gender. Tyler is represented and coded throughout as being a pathetic and belligerent sex pest, which is a highly self-depreciating representation that subverts typical representations of hegemonic masculinity in hip-hop. Tyler runs in in an undignified manner, and immediately begins gesturing wildly, pushing himself in to the young woman's immediate proximity. His facial expressions are often over exaggerated and is anchored by the bizarre and even creepy lyrics "Aw, you look malnourished/Let's get some bread, fry it in egg yolk and drown it in syrup". Tyler's exaggerated gestures are further anchored through the excessively colourful and elaborate costume he is wearing, which combines a Russian bear trapper's hat and a tiger print tank top in a confusing, highly postmodern mode of address. This forms a stark binary opposition to the clean and conservative style of the woman he is bothering, who is wearing a white buttoned short and slate grey cardigan. This binary opposition diametrically reinforces and elaborates a critical issue that exists in contemporary society, one of male entitlement, and one of assumed female submissiveness, where women are expected to cave in to the desires of men., This video draws attention to this issue in a humorous and stylish way.
However, the video is not only subversive in its representation of gender, it is also subversive in its representation of race and ethnicity. Tyler is black, and every other main performer in this video is also black. While this is typical of rap and hip hop videos, the setting and MES is very much stereotypically white, and perhaps subversively presents a symbolic annihilation of white people. The spacious, chilled MES of the café garden, combined with the conservative, middle class white American costumes of the performers (including cardigans, chinos, three quarter length trousers and pastel tank tops) are clearly demonstrating a subversive and atypical mode of address for the target audience. By challenging the conventional representation and ideological assumptions of black people in hip hop videos, who are often stereotypically represented as thuggish and/or highly sexualised, WUSYANAME presents a delightful and exciting address to its target young black audience.
To conclude, the video for WUSYANAME is both challenging and atypical in every sense. It challenges and breaks the paradigmatic conventions of music videos and hip hop videos. It also challenges gender stereotypes, by presenting a crude, embarrassing representation of male bravado. And finally, it challenges representations of race and ethnicity, by subverting stereotypical assumptions of black people and their role in rap music videos. These elements combine to create a subversive music video. However, it must also be noted that these elements, despite being confusing and even off-putting, the video is constructed in such as way as to use atypicality and subversion to appeal to the target audience through carefully constructed hermeneutic codes, this ensuring the financial viability of the product. After all, the primary function of a music video is to sell the music of the artist