TheoriesFuture – Turn on the lights

Genre (Next page)

Jason Mittell (2001)Jason Mittell states that the music video industry use certain conventions for the audience to recognize what the genre the music video is and to make references to the society

I think that the music videos do use some conventions to show what type of genre the music video is because other wise the audience wouldn’t be able to recognise what type of genre it is if the music video didn’t have any sound. The genre gives the music video an identity for the audience to know what they are watching.

In the music video ‘Future – turn on the lights’ we can clearly see that the rapper is in the hip hop genre which the audience can identify quickly because of the dress code he is in and also how much money is seen in the video by the products the rapper has shown to the audience. We and the audience can also identify that this is a hip hop genre music video is by the use of a females which most of the music videos use.

Also if you look at the hip hop artist’s in general music videos then most of them do use money and women to make their video look more interesting and in hip hop videos. They also use expensive cars and cloths with super expensive locations like villas to present their richness, the more the years go by the more expensive products the rappers use.

Christian Metz Christian explains that as time goes by the genre goes through changes

I think that this statement is true and false because some artist still use the same representation of hip hop from ten years ago and some people move on to the new generation of hip hop for example, 50 cent has moved from the old style hip hop to the new by having more video effects and showing how much money he earns by the use of probs like cars and house’s. Also the reason I think that the statement is false is because rappers like Eminem still uses the same type of style he use to use when he started his career.

For example comparing the music video Eminem – sing for the moment and Eminem – space bound, we can see that his style has not changed through the years and he doesn't show that he earns loads of money though his probs but uses every products which people would use and he also shows a regular cafe which normal non famous people would go to. On the other hand Jay-z – hard knock life is a video about life and it shows the hard times when he started becoming popular and his videos were all like that and now he has progressed and we can see this from the video Jay-z – empire state of mind where he sings about everything he has and this shows that time does change the genre of the music video.

Narrative (next page)

Todorov’s Thoery

Todorov believes that the narrative has a pattern in the storyline, he says that it begins with a regular day then it is disrupted and lastly the disruption is resolved.

His theory summarised: Equilibrium and normality at the start Some sort of disruption Recognition of disruption Attempt to solve the disruption Back to equilibrium

I think that Todorov’s theory was used in the music video of ‘Future – turn on the lights’ because in the music video at the beginning its all normal and good when he finds the girl and takes her, then everything goes well. Later on in the music video the couple start fighting and then its back to the start of the equilibrium. On the other hand I don’t think Todorov’s theory is not the main narrative because the music video mostly has shots of the artist and the scenery.

Levi Straus’ theory

Levi Straus believed in the binary opposition theory which means that the narrative consist of ‘two sides’ in the story, as there is always some sort of opponent.

I think that the Levi Straus theory has been used in the music video of ‘Future – turn on the lights’ because we can see that the opposition is between the artist ‘Future’ and the women who he has met. We see that they are all friends at the start and then we see them hating each other because he cheats on her with another girl.

Stereotypes

Stereotyping someone means that you are labelling someone because of who they are and their situations and circumstances within the media as society sees it. For example people can see what is good and what is bad by watching videos and then seeing their representation of good and evil through other media videos.

The stereotype of hip hop videos used in this particular video is the use of women and how they use them for their advantage, for example the male and female characters are tend to cheat on each other like in the video the male has cheated on the female, while this is happening the male character portrays himself as he doesn't care about what happen and the video shows that the female doesn’t care as well but in the end we see they both fighting which shows that they do care.

Gender

Gender is portrayed in a certain way in hip hop music videos. For example the male characters are shown as the dominate characters while being treated as kings with females throwing themselves at them. For example in videos of Rick Ross’s we see the ladies throwing themselves at him and we clearly can see he isn't the most attractive hip hop artist but because he has money they do so. Also other males are portrayed as good looking with fresh new cloths and chains which shows of their look at appeals to women. The women are represented as sexy with nice clothing with attract men to the female and the video.

In the music video ‘turn on the lights’ we can clearly see that the male is presented as good looking to females with his nice cloths and flashy jewellery and the women in the video are sexy