Music Video Analysis (Sabrina)

lily Allen - Smile

This song and video is about a stereotypical female at the end of a relationship being miserable and over emotional. The video starts with a cliché shot of lily sat on her bed looking sad and eating chocolate. This follows the stereotype that heartbroken women eat chocolate and ice-cream when they are sad.  It also keeps cutting to her and her ex-boyfriend to show what she was thinking about and who was making her so miserable. This could either appeal to other women who can relate or to a wider audience in an ironic way as it over exaggerates the conventions. It is conventional of the genre to see a woman acting this way.

She is sat in a red room this could be connoting love and passion but also pain; which is what the song lyrics are about. She is also wearing a green cardigan, this colour can connote envy or jealousy, and this also can link into the song lyrics as she said her boyfriend left her for another woman. Her social class can also be assumed as she is wearing big gold earrings and necklaces, this is stereotypical of people we associate as ‘chavs’.

The next section shows her outside leaning against a brick wall in a deprived urban area. This could be appealing to lower social classes, her target audience, as they can relate. This is also where the narrative of the video starts as pays one of her ‘friends’  as we later see him in the video beating up her ex-boyfriend. He then walks up to bunch of men wearing hoodies this suggests to the audience that they are dodgy sort of people as people in hoodies have connotations of being criminals.



Ed Sheeran - The A Team

The video for this song is about a prostitute living in London on the streets. The video begins with a girl mourning over the main character of the video. In the next scene we see the girl who was dead sleeping on a park bench, this shows the video is in non-chronological order of scenes as we have seen what has happened before it has. This is sometimes a convention of music videos with a narrative. She is then seen walking through the park smiling this is contrasted with her life as she is sleeping on a bench, cold and should be miserable. Her costume is stereotypical of a tramp and she is shown with holes in her tights and multiple coats on. She is also wearing hoop earring which suggests she is a chav or lower class. The video is also in black and white which could connote depression – lack of colour in life, or survival instincts – life is only about survival; (being a prostitute).

In the next scene she then shown being a stereotypical tramp begging on the side of the road, a speed up effect is then used in cinematography, this could suggest that time is moving faster for her. A close up shot of her face is then shown to show her crying, this is appealing to the emotional side of the audience.

She is then shown cleaning herself up in the mirror as in the next shot she is shown getting into a strangers car, walking into a hotel room and taking money out of a man’s pocket. This has told the audience in an obvious way what she is doing and what her life consists of. She is then seen handing her money over for drugs, this goes along with audiences expectations of prostitutes being on drugs and this media text reinforcing this idea again. Marxists would argue that the media text has done this to reinforce the idea that tramps are the dregs of society selling themselves for drugs.




Pulp - Common People

this song is about a class divide between the upper class and 'common people'. The main background of the video is a very stylised and colourful disco. A close up shot is frequentlty used of him miming the words all through the video as the narrative goes along with the lyrics of video. The video also follows the words of the lyrics, for example it mentions a supermarket and it cuts to, a very fake looking, one. The video looks very happy and colourful, showing the common peoples side of life, to make it look appealing. this contrasts to the reality of the working class. The expressions on peoples faces in the video also looks very fake like they're putting on a front pretending their life is better than it actually is.

in the video the lead singer, and main character in the narrative, is wearing an un-matching suit (maroon blazor, grey tye and black shirt)  this could represent the fact that he doesnt have much money. He also wearing sun glasses on his head with an otherwise formal outfit, this could that 'common people dont understand the conventions of upper class living and dont belong there.

In another scen he is shown in a typical, but overly happy, common street. This carries on the ideology that they are putting on a front. In the street scene a repeat effect is used to show people doing conventional thing on repeat such as kissing, hanging the washing out, reading a newspaper etc. This could be representing 'common' liofe is mundane and repetitive. The video also keep cutting back to the band singing and playing this is a convention of music videos along side the narrative.