Representation issues:

Gender

Female gender is often stereotypically represented in music videos through the use of “sexy” women (appealing to male audiences) as well as powerful women (appealing to women who aspire to be like the star). Most females in a music video are dressed revealing wearing hardly any clothes and dancing provocatively. When there is a man featured in females music video the female artist becomes devious and sexual, often dancing with the man and leading him on. For example in Jason Derulo’s music video – It girl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oGUHRXT-wA&ob=av2e

Men are also typically represented as sexy and powerful, as they are often dressed in designer clothing connoting that they are wealthy. Again this appeals to the male audience in a sense of them wanting to be more like the star. It also appeals to females who see the male artists as their ideal partners in life, as they are successful and look like they could care of them. Men more often than likely have control over the women in these videos particularly in Hip Hop videos. For example in P.I.M.P, 50 cent is shown with lots of bling, an expensive car and semi naked women throwing themselves at him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDApZhXTpH8&ob=av2e

There are exceptions of course to the above generalisations, particularly in concept driven videos. For example in Jamiroquai’s award winning “Virtual Insanity” lead singer Jay Kay is not portrayed in a provocative manner. He is dressed in very plain clothes and wearing a weird hat, portraying him as a geek or more of an intellectual, appealing more to this particular target audience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE&ob=av2e

Also in regard to females, Adele’s “Someone like you” shows women in a different light. Adele represents the bigger woman, breaking the stereotypical image of women in music

videos as she dresses in plain clothes with simple makeup. This video does not feature any men and is very simple showing that she is a strong woman and wants people to concentrate more on her voice rather than what’s going on in the music video around her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQl3WQQoQ0&ob=av2n

Ethnicity:

Ethnicity is represented in many different ways in music videos because of the different types of music. In RnB or Hip Hop videos there are mostly Caribbean or African girls because that kind of music comes from their roots and backgrounds. The men are represented sometimes as “gangster” types whilst the women like to dance routines. For example: Kelis – Milkshake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKHER9JvkSQ. In other types of music like, Dubstep and Baseline, white people are represented as crazy and mental as they jump around and look like they have been taking drugs by the way that they move to the beats.

Disability:

Disabled people are not really featured in music videos. It is hard to find a well known music video with a disabled person in unless the song is for charity or a special event. These days’ people want to see the latest fashions shining through in music videos so you normally have typical good looking young people. This is because younger children like to look up to the famous celebrities and be like them, so they wouldn’t put a disabled person into a music video. The only well known song and music video that features a Blind man is Andrea Bocelli – Time to say goodbye http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtivSTZrezc His music is inspirational because he writes it all himself, plays the soundtrack on the piano and sings as well. I think more disabled people with talent should be given a chance to shine through a music video.

Age:

Age is represented in music videos through the genre involved. For example, in R n B and Dubstep you would tend to have younger people aged from 18 – 30 and you would rarely find anybody who was older than that unless it was the artist themselves trying to look cool and fit in with the younger people. For example Kylie Minogue is 44 but in her videos she has men and women who are in their 20’s because she still wants to appeal to the younger generation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWTDR6ztcnQ&ob=av2n

In other music like, Classical and Country, there would mainly be the older generation represented as the music is from their era and not recognised very much now apart from the odd young person who is really keen to carry on this type of music, for example Charlotte Church. Here, people are generally represented as “clean cut” and dependable/mature/part of the establishment. However, such artists may have been rebels in their youth or still are. Some good examples are Mick Jagger and Ossie Osborne.