Representation In Our Video

Representation is the way in which a director portrays a character, social/age group, culture/communities or experiences. In our music video we will be representating couples, our protagonist and teenagers.

Protagonist

In our video we are portraying a stereotypial teenager by dressing her in clothes that you would expect a teenage girl to be wearing in autumn. We are doing this by dressing her in a simple outfit of a jumper, boots and jeans. We didn't want to dress our protagonist in anything too over the top as we want her to be relatable to teenagers a similar age and don't want her to end up looking too old or too young. Similarly, we wanted to keep the makeup simple and nothing too crazy as you would expect a teenage girl to be wearing makeup due to stereotypes, however again we wanted it to be relatable to the audience as an everyday look.

Ideas for our protagonist

Possible Actresses:

When choosing someone for our protagonist we wanted either Eleanor, who was in our project last year, or millie to play the role as although they look young, when they are dressed in costume with their makeup done they would look much older. However, because we are aiming our video at a niche audience made up of a majority of females aged between 13-18 we wanted the protagonist to be as relatable as possible so we would need somebody between the age of 16-18 so it looks professional and realistic. 

How women are usually portrayed
In music videos women are usually objectified and are represented as sexual objects for the male-gaze. Especially in rap and hip hop videos you expect to find the women exposed and dancing around the male singer in a sexual matter as they know this is what will sell in the industry, however all it does is give the impression to males that women are only objects of pleasure. Because of this it encourages the idea that sex sells in the media and advertisemnent industry. This idea links to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey who believes women are only placed in music videos as objects for males and are victims of the male-gaze. Mulvey used the term 'male-gaze' in 1975 when she said that an audience have to 'view characters from the perspective of a hetrosexual male', meaning women can only watch a film/video from a secondary perspective. An example of this is in Robin Thickes, Blurred Lines where they are treated as objects with no respect:

However, despite this nowadays there are many feminist singers who go against these stereotypes to produce empowering videos and songs. There are many wome in the industry such as Katy Perry, Chritina Aguilara, Beyonce, Madonna and many more that use their music and videos to show independent and strong women with a feminist message. An example of this is Christina Aguilaras 'Can't Hold us Down' where she emphasises the importance of resepct and the double standards women face on a daily basis in society, the whole way through the video it encourages girl power. It is also a perfect example of how after all these years women finally have a voice to stand up for themselves which she starts off the song by singing "So what am I not supposed to have an opinion / should I be quiet just because i'm a woman".