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Music Video and the Politics of Representation
Sex, race and gender are often controversially represented in music videos. How does this influence culture? This text explores the formal aspects of the music video in order to highlight industry-wide conventions, and the impact of this medium as it relates to the wider context of popular culture.
This text is written with the intention of helping to form a critical vocabulary for studying music videos and covers a wide range of music genres in a variety of national contexts.
- GenresMusic
184 pages, Hardcover
First published April 30, 2011
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September 5, 2018
It's telling that there are no reviews for this solid work on Goodreads and pretty much anywhere online. The preface to the book laments exactly this - the lack of interest to music videos both on the part of academia and more mainstream magazines devoted to music or film. And notwithstanding the efforts of some aficionados this still seems to be the case.
Another point that Diane Railton and Paul Watson are making is that even in those books and articles that actually pursue the subject, more often than not it becomes merely a handy example in service of Big Theories. What they set out to do is transcending these limitations to attempt a meaningful discussion not around music videos but about them and to describe their specificity as a medium. Don't get me wrong, what follows definitely deserves your attention. Still, I can't but feel that the difference between overindulging in post-structuralism, gender studies, identity politics etc. and employing them meaningfully remains undefined here. Well, unless just paying more attention to the video you're writing about is enough of an explication for you. But this is probably the only drawback of the book which is otherwise quite illuminating.
The most lucid chapter is probably the one dealing with authorship and authenticity. One of the useful but sometimes limited theories used in critical discource has for a good while been the auteur theory. It is, however, particularly problematic in regard to music videos where the auteur role can be variously assigned either to the director or to the star. The solution to this problem does imply being more attentive but it also has a clear conceptual outline (namely, the proposed reading of authenticity). Oh, and if you still don't get how it's possible for an underprivileged man to still belong to a hegemonic order, perhaps the reading of Robbie Williams's and D'Angelo's music videos will finally help you. All in all, there's a very good chance that you are going to enjoy this book or at least some parts of it. So definitely pick it up if you chance upon it somewhere.
Another point that Diane Railton and Paul Watson are making is that even in those books and articles that actually pursue the subject, more often than not it becomes merely a handy example in service of Big Theories. What they set out to do is transcending these limitations to attempt a meaningful discussion not around music videos but about them and to describe their specificity as a medium. Don't get me wrong, what follows definitely deserves your attention. Still, I can't but feel that the difference between overindulging in post-structuralism, gender studies, identity politics etc. and employing them meaningfully remains undefined here. Well, unless just paying more attention to the video you're writing about is enough of an explication for you. But this is probably the only drawback of the book which is otherwise quite illuminating.
The most lucid chapter is probably the one dealing with authorship and authenticity. One of the useful but sometimes limited theories used in critical discource has for a good while been the auteur theory. It is, however, particularly problematic in regard to music videos where the auteur role can be variously assigned either to the director or to the star. The solution to this problem does imply being more attentive but it also has a clear conceptual outline (namely, the proposed reading of authenticity). Oh, and if you still don't get how it's possible for an underprivileged man to still belong to a hegemonic order, perhaps the reading of Robbie Williams's and D'Angelo's music videos will finally help you. All in all, there's a very good chance that you are going to enjoy this book or at least some parts of it. So definitely pick it up if you chance upon it somewhere.
Displaying 1 of 1 review