Male Gaze Theory

Music Director: A Case Study

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Controversy and Regulation in Music Videos

Controversy:



According to Dave Grohl (whom is quoted in the article), 'when a musician starts to use the phrase 'mini-movie' to describe a video, it's time to quit'. Grohl is talking about Guns N' Roses' 'November Rain'. The article goes on to talk about the controversial music video for Rihanna's 'Bitch Better Have My Money'. The video is age restricted due to the violence, nudity and expletives. It has been called highly controversial. The video was supposed to make her seem like a 'no-fuck-giving badass' but instead became controversial and made her seem 'desperate'.

Taylor Swift's 'Bad Blood' is also mentioned as being 'star-stuffed' as well as appearing 'smug and strangely outdated' due to the decade old intertextual referencing of Kill Bill and Sin City.

The article says that controversial videos sometimes work. 'Bad Blood' topped the charts due to its large number of views on the video, whereas without a video, 'Bitch Better Have My Money' only reached 17.


Controversy plays a huge role in the music video industry. It is used by many artists for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is just to get attention from the press and gain more views. However, some artists may use controversy to get their political or particularly strong view across. Controversial music videos are likely to be watched as they get shared more for the simple reason that they are controversial. So some artists use controversy as a way to get their opinion well known. Unfortunately, more and more artist are like Rihanna and are just using controversy to get noticed.

Regulation:

Throughout the history of music videos, there have been certain themes, such as extreme violence, and explicit content, such as nudity, that have caused music videos to be banned. Music videos reflect the society in which they are created, or the zeitgeist, and so as time passes the view on certain banned music videos change or will have the potential to change.

An example of a music video that was banned when it was released is 'Relax by Frankie goes to Hollywood. It was banned due to homosexual sexual relationships. However, in today's society it is no longer banned as homosexuality is no longer thought of as something 'taboo' and wrong'. It is now socially accepted.

Music video regulation is difficult to achieve. While it is easier to regulate music videos shown on television, it is extremely difficult to regulate those on the internet and YouTube. The watershed means that certain music videos cannot be shown before 9o'clock and this helps to regulate music videos. However, on YouTube the music videos can be seen by anyone at anytime. Parental warnings do appear before some videos are played, but these can easily be ignored. Other videos are age restricted but these can be worked around if you lie about your age, effectively rendering the regulation on YouTube useless.

It is not easy to regulate music videos and most methods are ineffective. Inappropriate content is viewed regularly by young children but there is little to be done to prevent it. It may reach a point where the government would be controlling what we see and regulation companies must be careful not to do this. Parents have little control of what their children can see and access on the internet and it will be difficult to change this.

Textual Analysis 6: Taylor Swift

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Taylor Swift : 'Shake It Off '

Music in the pop genre doesn't have as rigid genre expectations as others such as heavy metal. Pop is a much more fluid genre and can use aspects from a variety of other genres. It often reflects the zeitgeist such as individuality.

Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' is from the genre of pop. The song follows the conventional verse-chorus-verse structure of a pop song. It also features the repetitive phrase of 'Shake It Off' which is catchy and therefore often remains stuck in the audience's mind. The music video was directed by Mark Romanek and filmed in Los Angeles in June 2014 over three days.

The mise-en-scene of the music video is very varied which goes against the typical conventions of the pop genre. Hartley argues that genres 'limit the meaning of a given text' and limit creativity but Swift has the intertextual references of other genres in her video including hip-hop, lyrical, ballet and jazz. This indicates that she is not limited or constrained by her genre.





Fiske says that genre conventions 'embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular' meaning that the genre and the lyrics indicate the zeitgeist of the time. Swift's lyrics are about being yourself and not letting other people bring you down with their snide comments, which indeed represents the zeitgeist of people being who they want to be.

'Best' Music Videos and CD Covers