1B Question Representation

Evaluate the ways you have challenged or used representations in one of the media products you have produced.

I am going to discuss how I managed to use and challenge representations in my advanced portfolio. I have produced a music video called 'Starry Eyed' which had two artists rapping within the song. After doing a lot of research via interviewing potential audience we decided that the song came under the 'UK rap' genre. We have targeted an audience of both male and female aged between 18 - 25. A lot of audience research using You-Tube was done to help us come up with this final decision, as we asked over thirty individuals if they would watch the music video after briefing them on what it's about. Both of the artist's are male, which we discovered is the stereotypical gender for a rap artist as it is rare to find female rap artist in the current industry.

During the construction of my music video I decided to follow many stereotypical representations of the UK rap artists. The song is filled with meaning and pain from our main artist Moonz Outkast as he speaks about his struggle from previous experiences of friends who have betrayed him of those who passed away. We used careful mise-en-scene through dressing our characters in stereotypical urban clothing;  for example, the stereotypical view would consist of baggy clothing, american baseball caps and jewelry. I made Moonz Outkast wear an american snap-back (cap), baggy jeans, a baggy denim jacket along with rings and ear-rings. We represented him in a positive way to our target audience as I feel the urban look helped build a connection between my artist and my audience through iconography. We were hoping that our target audience will look up to our artist as they may be able to relate to him by dressing him as an everyday London teenager. I feel by dressing him in this way we have managed to gather a large audience within the UK as Moonz can be looked at by the audience as 'one of us'.

Another positive representation was made of Moonz Outkast through narrative. During the music video there is a part where a young woman is being mistreated by her boyfriend. Moonz then raps about this and almost comforts her by presenting her with a note which contains a positive message. This goes against Mulvey's theory of using female characters for visual pleasure as the female character is given a lot more value within the music video. He devotes a part of his verse to rap about young woman telling them to ignore the difficulties a guy may put them through and to work to achieve. This goes against stereotypes of females being used as an object, this was done to put a positive message across to the audience which I believe was done very well. I also believe these positive representations have created a very positive reputation for Moonz from both our male and female audience as he is shown to go against the stereotypical representation of using a female actor as eye candy by making sure her cloths are kept on within the music video, providing her with worth and value.

The stereotypical artist of the UK rap industry is looked to be 'tough' and 'masculine'. Moonz has presented him self as neither of these, he shows confidence within his ability to rap and is almost represented as a father figure who is here to set a positive message to his audience. This challenges stereotypes giving him a unique image, differentiating him self from the everyday UK rap artist. I feel this is a good way to present him self as it gives the audience a different type of person to look up to, instead of the expected rough looking, aggressive male artist. Moonz almost presents him self as a freedom fighter who likes to speak the truth and his audience does respect him for this.

In conclusion some stereotypical representations have been used through mise-en-scene such as costume and many have been challenged. Female actors have been given value and worth within the music video which is different from the everyday music video as women in the everyday music video are normally used as eye candy and are made to dress seductively.