Representation of Masculinity

 Within media, the male gaze theory has explained how women are percieved, however it is less likely to be analyitical of the way men are shown.
 There are two main theories which explain why this is

THEORY ONE

This is associated with the polarisation of masulinity with femininity. If a man isn't shown to be completely masculine, then they are automatically seen as feminine. Stereotypically, a feminine man, described as "camp" is assumed to be homosexual.
 Lady Gaga shows a man to be feminine in her video "Alejandro" through both clothing and movement. The dancers will automatically be assumed as gay just through their exterior motives.

 

 Knowing this, many glam rock bands such as "Slade" purposefully wear clothing overly feminine. By doing this, it cancels out the idea of femininity and homosexuality and brings back the idea of the band being masculine by having purpose images in a video.

 

The most popular image to represent masculinity would be the Phallic Symbol. This is a large, usually long object which symbolises manhood by refering to power via the metaphoric size of a penis. Madonna is greatly known to use this in her videos to show power and dominance within the pop industry, however it is now common in boy bands.

 

 

 Take that give a clear indication of power through a Phallic Symbol, the microphone stand and the use of buildings. These long and tall objects represent the male genitals and suggest dominance within the gender in order look superior.

THEORY TWO

Age- this is seen to be a deciding factor of masculinity, when a male is young they look inexperienced, innocent and vulnerable. When a male is shown to be masculine, they need to appear dominant, confident and powerful. Older men, after having much more life experience and confident within themself, are much more likely to be percieved as masculine than a younger male. This is also down to the facial shape, with age the jaw line is more dominant to the face, the ability to grow facial hair etc all help to make a man appear masculine.
 

 

 

 Another part to this theory, is that a male on his own, is much more masculine that a boyband/group of men. This is down to the idea of one man having power over the rest, survival of the fittest, however when in a band where all the memebers sing, they are all shown as equal, thus, making them appear less masculine. When a male vocalist is singing solo, an emotional connection is allowed to be made with the audience. Much more eye contact can be made with the camera, and the focus is purely on the male rather than scattered throughout a band. This allows females to look up to the male and become sexually attracted or interested in him, thus selling more records.  

 

 

 

 

Robbie Williams appears much more masculine when appearing on his own, than when in a group of other men. When in a group, the members of the group look equal to each other, and the singer usually gets the same amount of shots as the other band members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Out of the three videos, the most masculine I would say to be Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ”.  I have chosen this one due to the idea of the women circling him, showing him they want his body. The fact of him peeling his skin off and throwing it to the group of women could represent the fact they want “meat.” It could also mean that they want him badly to be their own, reflecting his power over women. Although no phallic symbols were used, the audience’s imagination suggests his penis is out but blacked out whilst the girls “admire” it. 

3 Indie Pop Band's/Artists

Florence And The Machine

Florence's album, 'Lungs', was award winning and one of the best albums of 2009 and 2010. It stayed in the UK Top 40 for sixty-five weeks! The second album, "Ceremonials" became their second successive No. 1. Although Florence and the machine fits the genre we are looking into, we wanted to chose a boy group as they are the most common

The Script

Danny- vocals, Mark- guitar, Glen- drums

 Known for having gritty contemporary narratives.

In August 2008"The Man Who Can't Be Moved" and "Break Even" were the two stand out tracks on their first album. The album became number one in both Ireland and the UK.Their second album, Science and Faith, released in September 2010,includes the stand out song "For The First Time". The album was number one in Ireland and the UK. Their third album was released in the UK on 10th September 2012, hitting the charts at number 2 in the first release week.

Scouting For Girls

 

Three piece English boy band. They originated from London, and the band consists of the lead singer, who also plays guitar and piano, a bass guitarist and a percussionist.

OUR CHOSEN GENRE

INDIE

Hybrid, indie-POP.

It was originated in the early1980's as a genre of alternative rock. It has a much more medlodic tone. It came around due to the C86 tape. This allowed artists to record their own music without having to go through a professional record label. The word "Indie" is designed to show a self-recorded band. We find this genre to be more inspirational due to them making their own music, rather than just performing a song produced by someone else.



Our Chosen Band

 NAME: 4Kicks

5 piece boy band (typical indie convention)

 We have tried to make contact with the band in order to get further information about them and the original lyrics to our chosen song "I Never Get Lost Except By Your Side" however haven't yet heard anything back from them.

 In order to remain on task and have everything planned by shooting day, we need to listen to the song ourselves and write out the lyrics, highlighting the key parts in order to try and form a narrative.

 When reviewing these lyrics, the male vocalist is singing about a female who has obviously caused him a lot of emotional harm. He doesn't sound as though he thinks highly of her as the words chosen to describe her are very negative, such as "lying eyes". This tells us that he has not forgiven what she did to him and holds a grudge. When we first saw this we automatically thought that they were a couple, however she was unfaithful to him. This typical boy/girl love story is a direct convention of our indie pop genre.

 The line "Oh think you're better than me" shows that the girl may be out of the singers league, with high opinions of herself. He obviously loved the girl however now he is full of hatrid and anger towards her making their relationship negative, if at all existent.

"can't you see you've been holding me back for too long now" this line suggests that the boy has fixated an obsession with her. She stops him from doing normal things and she is all he can think about. We want to show a broken down relationship and get the raw anger and hate within the song to be shown as clearly visually within our promo. Indie pop is known for it's literal feelings within videos and so we want our audience to feel the same anger towards the girl as the singer does.

20th Century Art Movements

 Nowadays, many people think art is unappreciated, however artists are now starting to use art to inspire their videos. Occuring in the early 20th century, artists wanted to show their own emotional experiences through their art work.

 

EXPRESSIONISM

 German expressionism- Monochrome with a strong red colour coming in at different moments. 
The idea of expressionism is to show an emotion from only ONE perspective. Artists wanted to get their audience to experience an emotional connection to the piece. It's mostly associated with Germany due to i's popular use in the Weimar Republic.

  

  My Chemical Romance have adopted the style of expressionism and formed it as their brand recognition. The whole video of "Welcome to The Black Parade" is in monochrome with occasional objects in bright red. This colour is stereotyped with negativity such as danger and blood. This dark background of expressionism reflects extremeists such as the Nazi party.

THE OTHER SIDE.

Capturing “the other” mirrors, doorways, windows, tunnels etc. This focuses on the idea of something being in the way of  a being. Mirrors especially are seen as a vortex into a person soul. Many people fear that when looking into a mirror, instead of seeing their own reflection back they see a bad side to themselves or something they are unfamiliar with.

 

 

SURREALISM

Surrealism- the swap. This began in the early 1920's.Surrealism is an unexpected switch usually seen on visual art work. It is meant to shock it's audience in a clever way. It originatedduring world war 1 and has affected literature, philosophy and social theory. This picture shows surrealism, due to the fish, which are meant to be in the bowl, being out in the open, and the sky, being put into the bowl. They have swapped purposes in this picture making it surreal.

POP ART

 This was introduced in the mid 1950's in Britain. Pop art can do a range of things, it can show one specific part of a picture, making a familiar brand or object appear unfamiliar from a particular angle, it can also be combined with many unrelated objects in order to make it's audience think and try to form a connection. It is seen as an abtract form of art, and often difficult to understand. It includes modern arts such as comics, advertisements, movies etc. It was founded by the "Independant Group" where they wanted to make fine art, more modern.



Why are men not discussed?

 Sexuality

 If a man isn't shown to be completely masculine, we therefore think he must be feminine. Stereotyping has made us as an audience think that any feminine man must therefore be homosexual.

 Through Lady Gaga's video "Alejandro", the dancers have been made to be dressed feminine by wearing things such as fish net tights and suspenders with high heels. These three objects in particular are associated with female seductivity and are not worn on males. They are unexpected items of clothing to be worn by a man, leaving the audience feeling shocked by the costume, as well as seeing the men dance in a feminine way.

 

 Lady GaGa has purposefully reversed the stereotypical role of the masculinity of men, making them appear like women in posture, movement, and clothing. The shot shows that he is indefinately a male, however  from the waist down, all masculine associations disapeer as his legs are the central of the picture.

 

 

HOWEVER if a man is shown to be over feminine, this will counteract the femininity, making him appear very masculine. Many glamour rock bands do this in order to be seen as different, yet appear as a masculine male when on stage.

Phallic Symbols

 These are usually used by Madonna, or male boy singers/boy bands to suggest power through penis size. They could be anything within a video, microphone stands, large buildings and other large long objects. 

 We don't mention masculinity in music videos due to the worrying idea of accusing them of homosexuality. 

 

 

 

 Out of the three videos, the most masculine I would say to be Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ”.  I have chosen this one due to the idea of the women circling him, showing him they want his body. The fact of him peeling his skin off and throwing it to the group of women could represent the fact they want “meat.” It could also mean that they want him badly to be their own, reflecting his power over women. Although no phallic symbols were used, the audience’s imagination suggests his penis is out but blacked out whilst the girls “admire” it. 

Summarising Groupings

Last year , as a group we discovered many things when we started to film. Our task was to film a Thriller opening, Henry and I chose to act throughout it. There were both pros and cons to this.

Pros

 Having the actors very familiar with the narrative of the piece allows a much more convincing performance allowing the audience to believe in the piece.

 All 4 members of the group could help to plan each individual take, and set up each individual camera shot, before Henry and I appeared within the shots.

 Both Henry and I have experience in acting due to taking performing arts as an A level this year, and so we know that if we feature in our music promo, it should be successful and convincing acting when watching it back.

Cons

 Only 2 members of the group could help doing the complex camera shots such as a pann. If the two filming members were unfamiliar with these shots, it would be time consuming to get the best outcome possible.

 Due to us choosing to keep our location, actors, props etc between the 4 of us in the group, we had to use what ever we could find in our video. Other group members had many more resources due to the large amount of people involved.

 What we should consider during our filming

 When using other members in our music promo, we need to make sure we are organised. Every extraneous actor needs to know when they are needed and the location we will be meeting at during filming. They need to know what each specific scene in our promo is trying to show, and how to act convincingly within the scene to give the the realistic look we want to achieve.

 When thinking of ideas such as props, we will be able to ask a large range of people, and not have the pressures of having to find a certain thing, or having to make the best of something which isn't right for our video.

Postmodernism Is A Shortcut To Mass Audiences. Discuss.

Although different genre’s of bands have different markets (i.e. Indie Pop bands target students) creating a video with postmodernism allows them to extend their market and maximise their sales. When audiences see a particular topic in a new light, many people become intrigued. By creating a video with postmodernism, the band get more freedom, and a chance to design their own look. Instead of having various shots of the band positioned to make them look good, they are able to create a video relating to their fans.

 Postmodernism is mostly known as occurring during the 1980’s/1990’s era, however a clear demonstration of post modernism is shown within Bob Dylan’s video “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Produced in 1960, people sometimes over look its meaning. Before this time, short films were produced. These include a non diegetic musical piece being added to a silent shot. No diegetic sound could be included but narrative would be followed through the actors gestures. Throughout the video, the song track is also non diegetic sound. No diegetic sound is included within the video, but the cards with the lyrics on are held up the camera and then dropped onto the floor. No lip synching is included within the video, unlike other music promo’s and although colour filming had been around for some years in the 1960’s, Bob Dylan chose to film in black and white. The idea of putting simple words of the lyrics on card and swapping them every few seconds, was a convention of older theatre. Instead of keeping up with the modern to make a promo, Dylan chose to make his video postmodern by showing he was backtracking in his promo, rather than moving forward. This demanded audience’s attention by the constant movement in the video. When watching, the audience try to discover a pattern between the selected words on card and this simplistic idea became a very popular video by Dylan due to post modernism.

 

 Another popular postmodernism video is Queen “I Want To Break Free”. Using the idea of a stereotypical housewife wanting to break free from their domestic lifestyle became easily relatable to women within the world.  By putting in a postmodern idea which has such a mass audience, quickly made the video extremely popular. By having this housewife with a big thick moustache, shocked the audience. During the 1980’s, America didn’t approve of transvestites, and so the video was banned from MTV and other US music shows. This element of shock and rebellion through postmodernism not only made audiences think, but by making North America disgusted in it, word of mouth made the video a “must see” by the public in many European countries.

 Postmodernism is shown to be a shortcut to mass audiences. Both Bob Dylan and Queen benefitted from using it within their video. Postmodernism is the new by referring to the old, this enables music promo’s to enrapture the middle age/older generation into their music, as well as their original market by using old topics with a new twist.