Music Video Analyses - Representation of Women

Song: Upgrade U

Artist: Beyonce ft. Jay-Z

Genre: R&B

This music video quite clearly breaks codes and conventions because we see Beyonce dressed up as a man.   In this music video, for Upgrade U ft Jay-Z, Beyonce is seen dressed up as Jay-Z, lip synching to some of Jay-Z's part of the song.  Later on, Jay-Z comes in as himself and raps the rest of his part of the song.  This is really interesting as normally we only see the main star in the music video lip synching to their part in the song. As Andrew Goodwin said "There is a demand on the part of the record company for lots of close-ups of the main artist/ vocalist"  If we don't see the main artist we tend to see someone of the same gender lip synching, so to see someone of the opposite gender lip synching to a voice that doesn't match up is rare but really interesting.

And quite ironically, Beyonce and Jay-Z sampled Betty Wright's 'Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do' yet Beyonce is doing exactly what the guy in the video does, dressed as him.

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Song: The Devil's in the Temple
Artist: Bon Jovi
Genre: Rock

Bon Jovi's music video is incredibly clever.  It could be - in my opinion, 'wrongfully' interpretted that Frank and Ivanna Borin directed the video to mock young female artists and 'pop' songs (partly because of the Ariana Grande 'side to side' intertextuality)  But after researching, I've discovered that they were actually challenging stereotypes, codes and conventions, more specifically the way that young female artists are treated badly in the music industry.

The woman in this video is lip synching to a male voice singing which breaks traditional conventions of a music video of any genre.

The directors have clearly put a lot of thought into using Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory in the music video to challenge the way women are treated.  Not only are we as the audience placed into the perspective of a heterosexual man watching this young woman in little clothing, we can also see her being watched by powerful male directors and being overly sexualised by them as they closely watch every move she makes.  They then stop her and say "you have to be more sexy, more pop, move your ass like this."