Homosexuality Within Music Videos

Our narratives centres around Girl A and Girl B who cross paths and begin a relationship. Although we originally intended for the relationship to form between a girl and boy, the availability of actors has meant we had to consider other alternatives. However, this has gave us the opportunity to venture into raising issues through our music video, i.e the acceptability of homosexuality within the music industry. Although socially homosexuality is now widely accepted, its is still not seen often in music videos. I feel the decision to go ahead with this narrative within our music video is in-line with the progressive thinking that I discovered in my research for electronic music videos.

History

In 1981 after the emergence of MTV the popularity and volume of music videos increased drastically. At this time homosexuality in music videos was few and far between. However a growing number of artists sporting the androgynous image such as Annie Lennox and openly gay artists such as Boy George introduced the issue into their music videos. However this did not represent the average homosexual person as the character were often over dramatized.



One exception was Bruce Springsteen. The video above was for his track Tougher than the Rest. Couples are shown kissing throughout the video, with gay and lesbian couples featured alongside heterosexual couples and this projects the correct image of homosexual relationships- no different from all the rest! Many Rock 'n' Roll artists used lesbianism in a derogatory way in the late 80's/90's. Instead of promoting sexual differences positively they were often glorified and for entertainment purposes. Women often shown stripping, kissing and getting intimate featured strongly and a feminist reading of this is that it is purely for a mans entertainment.



The emergence of t.A.T.u (Russian short hand for this girl loves that girl) glamorised lesbianism in a way that some may criticise as not being beneficial to the cause. The above video is for their no.1 hit All The Things She Said and features the romance of 2 girls and kissing throughout. Some praised the video for putting lesbians into the mainstream, and the cinematography of the video- showing girls behind bars etc- accurately portrayed the struggle of lesbian couples. However the video also received a huge backlash as the girls are in school uniform and the fact that the are both heterosexual in real life means that the video was just to entertain the male population. More recently artists such as Lady GaGa have fought for equal rights for homosexual and transgendered couple as displayed in her video for Telephone.

Planning: Digi-Pack and Print Ad

What do we need on the Digi-Pack?

This varies from artist to artist but includes the following..

• Artist name
• Album title
• Background images/ artist image
  
• Parental advisory if necessary
• Promotional stickers
• Audio formats
• Record label
• Track listings
• Website
• Artist management
• System requirements for disc
• Legal disclaimers
• Bar code
• Trademarks

What do we need on the print ad?

On the print ad we will be promoting the album as opposed to just one single or a tour. Again this varies from artist to artist...

• Background images/ Album Image
• Artist name
• Album title
• Release date
• Website links
• Where you can buy it from
• Trademarks
  

Production Meeting 5

Shooting is now complete and Jess is beggining to capture footage and getting to grips with Final Cut Pro. Although we are all excited about having Macs this year it does mean we all have to learn how to use a completely new piece of software. We have decided that Nicola concentrate on the album cover and album advertisment, and Maya will help Jess with the editing.

We were not able to shoot some of the shots on Maya's storyboard due to our conflicting time schedules and accessibilty of locations. We had planned to shoot in a record shop but the only times we were allowed to shoot in there were times when at least one of us were unable to do so. However we are confident that the footage that we do have will prove adequate.