Music Video Essay

Explain how representations in music videos are chosen to promote the artist(s). Refer to one of the music videos you have studied to support your answer. (10 marks)

(Choose from David Guetta-Titanium or Corinne Bailey Rae-Stop Where You Are)

Stop Where You Are is about stopping in the moment you are in and forget about the past or the future and instead enjoy the moment you are living, this is the message that Corinne Bailey Rae portrays throughout the video in various ways.

Throughout the whole video, CBR is seen as an angelic figure who fleets in and out of stereotypes and bad situations. One of these is the homeless woman sitting on the floor. CBR walks on the stairs where the homeless woman sits before we actually see her, then later on in the video an upper class man stops by the woman and gives her a coffee to make her moment better. This helps promote the artist because it presents her in a positive light because she seems to fix the situation unknowingly.

Corinne Bailey Rae's video represents ethnicity through mixed race actors. There are two mixed race men/boys who are dancers in this video, CBR has chosen to represent them as dancers to show they are also expressive and creative, this is to deter from the stereotypical black gang members/criminals which society normally sees. This helps promote CBR because it shows that she is against societies' stereotypes and she wants to change peoples views on mixed race people. another example of Corinne Bailey Rae breaking stereotypes is by using actors who have an image that breaks down stereotypes. There is a male actor who has lots of artistic and floral tattoos and wears eyeliner, we can see this in the close-up in the video. This appearance helps to stop societies pattern of men having to appear masculine. A final example of CBR breaking the stereotype is when she sits down with the man with the tattoos and strokes his dog. This dog is an American bulldog and it has a reputation of being a scary, threatening dog. The fact they are both acting compassionately towards it suggests that these stereotypes of branding dogs of that nature as 'threatening' are being broken. This makes the artists appear as someone who doesn't let stereotypes stop her from living in the moment and change the way she lives her life.