Beyonce

Feminism/ audience/ representation

Starter 5mins

• Write a paragraph on R&B genre

• Ref to History• Hybrid• Convergence (technological) effect• Conventions • Crisis?

Is R&B Having an Identity Crisis?

• http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/is-r-b-having-an-identity-crisis/255310/

• Trey Songz, one of the few successful artists where the R&B tag is actually applicable, echoed Badu's thoughts in an interview with the Power 105.1 radio show , "The Breakfast Club." "The success of crossover is something we all want to attain, but the route to get there is what's important to me," Trey said. As for why so many of his peers have changed their sound, he acknowledges that it was "the easy thing to do right now to get a hit." Indeed, Trey noted that, "It's not cool to be an R&B singer no more."

Run the world – Todays Tasks

• Appeal• Position• Respond• How are women/ men represented,• Two points for each include effect/ purpose/

theory/debates/ Terminology/

Our Video of Focus

• Run the World (Girls)

• What is the narrative of the video?

• Where is it set?

BLP – Making Links

Types of music videos

• Performance (appeal of shared Genre conventions? – Pleasure!)

– Mainly focus on the artist or band playing the music

– No narrative– Wide variety of camera angles which are regularly

repeated

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Types of music videos

• Narrative (Clear linear narrative target younger/ older/ mainstream audiences)

– Follows a clear story line that reflects the song lyrics

– Performer may be involved in the story, may also be kept separate

BLP – Making Links

Types of music videos

• Concept (Appeal to more alternative audience?)

– Based around a central idea– Often concentrate on specific editing techniques– Look unusual

– Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

BLP – Making Links

Target Audiences

• Who is the target audience (TA) for the

video?• Primary/ secondary

• How does the video appeal to this TA?

BLP – Making Links

Target Audience

• Primary audience: Teenage girls/young women, who are fans of pop/ R‘n’B music.

• Secondary audience: Teenage boys/young men, who are fans of pop/ R‘n’B music.

• More detail more points!!!!

Helpful hints

• Empowering message - that women "run the world". • Egyptian headdress• Beyonce's costumes are very provocative• Beyonce is seen taking the wallet from a man• The video features a range of interesting and attractive

fashions• Beyonce uses many sexual poses and dance moves. • a mid-shot of Beyonce in chains• Long shot holding two hyena's which she whips into control• a post-apocalyptic state / dystopia• Beyonce has two male bodyguards stood in front of her

How do different texts target their audience?

• The track features an empowering message - that women "run the world". The Cleopatra headdress connotes power- this links to Egyptian matriarchy. It may appeal to young women/teenage girls, who may aspire to be confident and dominant. Teenage girls may find her role model gratifying in this it helps them create a sense of personal identity (Blumler & Katz), teaching them how to be attractive and in control.

• Beyonce's costumes are very provocative, revealing her cleavage and exposing her thighs. The "skimpy" and "sensual" costumes may appeal to the sexual desires of young men. However, it also provides a model of behaviour for young women who want to know how to look appealing.

• Beyonce is seen taking the wallet from a man, and he appears powerless and doesn't protest. This appeals to young women's desires to be in control of men.

• The video features a range of interesting and attractive fashion. The fashion may appeal to women's desire to look attractive, but also to express themselves through their clothing.

• Beyonce uses many sexual poses and dance moves. The dance moves may appeal to men as it may offer them some sexual arousal (Blumler & Katz).

How are audiences positioned in this text?

• The text has tried to position the audience to agree with what Beyonce is trying to portray - that women "run the world". Beyonce is shown to be in command of all the women dancers and the male ‘prisoners’. When she dances the rest of the girls follow her lead and she is always at the forefront of every dance and singing part, reinforcing the idea that she is the wizard that runs the world. This challenges Berger's observation that, in art, "men act and women appear".

• Women are positioned as being matriarchal by proving she is more powerful, by the men being scared of her and stepping back when she walks towards them. The lyrics “Who run the world girls” positioned the audience to think women are powerful by suggesting that they are in control of the world and the men have to listen to them.

• The video subverts the idea that women are repressed, there is a mid-shot of Beyonce in chains reinforcing the notion of patriarchy. There is a straight cut to a long shot of Beyonce, where we see the chains are actually holding two hyena's which she whips into control, connoting she is powerful and dominant. This could also position the audience to consider the hyenas as how Beyonce sees men - weaker than her and she is in power over them.

• Beyonce takes the wallet from the man, showing she has ownership over the man. The man does not protest symbolizing he is scared of her and she is in control. This subverts the stereotype of women being passive (John Berger). The audience are made to think that women are sexy. This is portrayed through the fact that Beyonce is in control of two Hyena’s (wild animals renowned for being hard to control) - suggesting again that they are dominant. Also the mise-en-scene of the video is showing the world in a post-apocalyptic state which could suggest that the answer to the lyrics ‘Who run the world?’ was men and that they screwed up and now women are in charge trying to sort everything out - equilibrium and disequilibrium.

• The use of the Egyptian headdress suggests that she is powerful, this positions the audience to think of her as a modern day Cleopatra and being in control.

How might audiences respond to this text?• As Stuart Hall has argued, audience can oppose the intended message of a text. This is

very true of the Beyonce video for the song Run the World (girls), which many people have read as sexist and patriarchal.

• It could be argued that Beyonce and all of the background dancers are catering for the male gaze, which is demonstrating that the only reason that they are seen as powerful is because they aren’t wearing many clothes which entices men, and apparently means that the females can control men through their looks and seduction alone (reinforcing the Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf)). At the beginning of the video, Beyonce thrusts her breasts, which instantly positions her as catering for the male gaze (Laura Mulvey).

• Although Beyonce is positioned to ‘Run the World’, which is a positive thing, the world that she in fact runs appears from the mise-en-scene to be a crime ridden, messy, unappealing, ‘world’, we can see this though the visual signifiers of dust bins on fire, deserted bikes, burnt out cars and so on. This portrays her as being a poor leader of ‘the world’ that she is supposedly ‘running’ with all of the ‘girls’. This positions ‘girls’ in a negatively and harsh light, seeing that they are running a world that is so out of control.

• The fact that all the way through the music video Beyonce has two male bodyguards stood in front of her shows that, although the females are being portrayed as powerful, they still need men to protect them.

Representation

‘However realistic or compelling some media images seem, they never represent the world directly. They are always a construction, a re-presentation, rather than a

clear window on the real worldSome media re-present certain images, stories and

situations which might make them seem natural/familiar.’

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

• What is a stereotype?

• What are common stereotypes of men and women?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

• What is the traditional male stereotype?

– Appearance– Personality

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Male Stereotypes

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

• What is the traditional female stereotype?

– Appearance– Personality

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

Female Stereotypes

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes• Which of the below images conform to gender

representations and which subvert?

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes• How are women/men represented in the music video?

• Does this reflect the world we live in?

• How does the Music video reinforce or subvert female stereotypes?

• What thoughts might a woman/male have watching this music video?

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes• How are men represented in the music video?

• Does this reflect the world we live in?

• How does the advert reinforce or subvert male stereotypes?

• What thoughts might a woman/male have watching this music video?

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

• The media plays a strong role in constructing gender roles.

• Most product invoke gender identity, allowing notions of femininity and masculinity to provide a meaningful system of difference that helps products to be associated with particular gender– for example; men = shaving, driving fast cars, having

hearty appetites juxtaposed against women = applying make-up, in the home, eating ‘lightly’

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

• Some music videos create meaning by subverting these roles, playing with audience expectation and saying something new about the artist or band and their audience through this exchange.

• Does our video conform or subvert to gender stereotypes?

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Stereotypes

• How are females represented in the modern world?

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

• How are females represented in the modern world?

Stereotypes

LO – What information needs to be included in a representation essay?

BLP – Making Links

Beyoncé and the Ethics of Sampling

• Beyoncé’s sampling from artists and cultures of the global south permeates this video. Her creative team saw a YouTube video of the kwaito dance troupe Tofo Tofo performing at a wedding in Mozambique and decided to reach out to them to choreograph and dance in part of the video. Frank Gatson Jr., Beyoncé’s choreographer, told MTV News that “It was hard finding them. They were really in a remote area; we had to get the embassy people involved. That was a process that took about two months or more. Beyoncé really loved them and I’m pretty sure we’ll see them again. It was magical.”

• The Johannesburg Times notes, “While pantsula dance is nothing new to us Africans, it’s the first time that it has been given such exposure. I’m glad Beyoncé saw something great in them and the movement as a whole. But I wish the genre was as appreciated and respected here. Why do our artists always need the American/ European stamp of approval for us to value them?” We in the U.S. could also ask ourselves the same question: Why do we value third world culture only when its mediated via first world celebrity?”

Referencing

Beyoncé is holding the chains of two hyenas, referencing the work of White, South African photographer Pieter Hugo and his photographs of Nigerian “Hyena Men.” This work has been stridently critiqued for the racialized and exotified undertones to his photography. This raises the uncomfortable issue of how so many images in Beyoncé’s video echo exotified, Orientalist representations of the third world (Africa and the Middle East in particular).

• “Run The World (Girls)” at the Billboard Music Awards,

• Tofo left out = Hiphop culture

HOMEWORK…

• Complete all the tasks within the following slides

Read and make notes

• http://www.racialicious.com/2011/06/02/who-runs-the-world-on-beyonce-sampling-race-and-power/

Feminism

• Read and make notes• http://www.slideshare.net/andywallis/theoret

ical-perspectives-feminism?ref=http://mediauxbridgea2.blogspot.co.uk/p/theoretical-perspectives.html

• http://mediauxbridge.blogspot.co.uk/p/representation-of-gender.html

Run the world

• Women• Men

• How are they represented in this video?• 300 words• Conform or subvert stereotypes and why• REMEMBER to give 3 specific textual analysis

examples for each

Representation

• How and why is Beyonce represented differently in the two magazines?

• Analyse the magazines REMEMBER key magazine terminology

• Think about the target audience and Industry

Representation Magazines

TA: Single Men, 35, educated Professional / Managerial

• https://prezi.com/bps8hyw3zrtx/beyonce-knowles-representation-of-feminism-and-black-female/