Seminar 1: M.I.A versus Lily Allen

In seminar last week, we discussed more about music videos and media theory. This knowledge of media theories is something that I am still getting used too. I have no idea what anyone is talking about and I feel lost. However, I know that I am learning and seeing how media is represented to the entire world. It does not change anywhere you go in the world. It basically has the same representation in the United States as it does here in the United Kingdom. I am learning and enjoying what I am learning about media.

            As I talked in the last blog, music videos are now becoming more about what the artists think people want to watch. Furthermore, artists are creating videos that have nothing to do with what the actual song is about. This has changed over the past couple of years because I remember when artist have music videos that went along with the lyrics. For example, Taylor Swift’s earlier songs and music videos when she was a country singer. Her music videos matched up and showed what the lyrics were meaning. Just to name a few, “You Belong with Me”, “Our Song”, and “Teardrops on My Guitar.” I think that making a music video that matches the lyrics of the song makes listening to the song more enjoyable and easy to listen too.

            There are two music videos that I am going to analyzing which then I am going to compare them. The first music video is by Lily Allen called “Hard Out Here.” The second music video is “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. These videos were made about a year apart from one another. It seems to me that both of these songs and music videos were the artists come back hit. However, I’m not so sure about that. I think that both of these music videos did not represent what the song was about. The music videos to me caused controversial about what was going on in the music video.    

            Lily Allen’s song was mainly about women being objectify. Women for many decades it seems that they have been objectify by everything and it is still going on. In her song, it seems that she may be talking about how men want women to be. However, that is the opposite of what the song is about. The song is about women not beating the odds, but it is hard out in the real world for women. Women can be working as hard as a man to get a promotion, but the boss could give it to the man because the person in charge of the decision can do that. This is what I have consider the lyrics to be about however, the music video tells me a different story.

            First off, the music video was horrible and went against the grain of the song. Allen had her back up dancers in skimpy outfits that were very revealing, and she was fully clothed. In addition, she had the dancers twerking, smacking each other’s bottoms and pouring champagne all over themselves. For example, she says, “Don’t need to shake my ass for you ‘cause I’ve got a brain.” I think that Allen’s video should not be all the backup dancers twerking and then teaching the manager how to twerk. The controversial thing about this song is race. Someone might not see it when they watch it the first time but if someone else brings it to your attention, you notice it. In other words, all of Allen’s backup dancers are African American who are shaking their bottoms and wearing practically nothing. However, this was concluded be Allen that this was not the case and that she was racist. When in fact, that she as a white person front and center stage which she just walked off at the end of the song. Allen left the backup dancers on the stage and that was how it was in the beginning of the music video. In my opinion, I do not think that Lily Allen made a comeback because of this music video which made her look extremely bad.

            M.I.A’s song is promoting to be a bad girl because the entire song she repeats “live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.” Throughout music video, there are people racing cars and on cars that are on two wheels/sideways. The background and beat of the song seems to be set in India or an Iraq type country.

            This is where the controversial notion steps in because of where this music video is taken place. As I stated before about where I think this video is being set in because of what the backup dancers and other people in the video are wearing. The men and women are wearing

traditional Arabian clothing. To put it another way, the women in this music video are not wearing black burkas. They are wearing cheetah print with jewelry, sunglasses and other items. This supports my argument that this is a controversial topic. Also, M.I.A throughout the music video is wearing regular clothes but they are bright and stick out among the crowd. It seems to me that the artist is degrading a religion because the lyrics of her song have nothing to do with what the video is about.