existing music video analysis

Micheal Jackson- beat it

The video style is basically narrative possibly mixed with performance. This can be seen from the fact that the video is basically about a street fight which somewhat follows the lyrics of the song, and in which the singer or artist of the song is seen singing it. This we can say is to make us the audience connect with the singer or make us think that we kind of belong with him. Something that i believe was somewhat uncommon for artists at the time of the songs release in the late 1980's or early 1990's.

This is further emphasised in the fact that almost all the shots in the video are either mid shots or closeups either of the singer or the action taking place in the narrative in the video (e.g. neighborhood toughs gathering for a typical fight scene from an old gang movie= men in circle, combatants bring out knives and circle each other.). This is obviously meant to attract attention of audience or make people from the lower middle classes of society more likely to think that the singer is similar to them.

The evidence to show this is the fact that the costume of most of the people in this video is either biker or gangster from the late 1980's or early 1990's in America. All except for the artist who is wearing somewhat more normal clothes that is to say a white t-shirt, a pair of black pants, and an orange jacket. This is again meant to make us pay attention to him or see him as an equal if we are going to use the "male gaze" theory, or possibly make us think he is superior to us and trying to exert power over us if we are going to use the feminist-marxism theory. The location of the video only serves to further show this as it is a sort of gritty area of an american city in diners, bars, apartments, and a warehouse with mostly men in the general area. What women you do see in the video seem to subservient to the men or just there for the appearance of the men which further shows that the artist is basically showing off the typical male idea that they are superior to men.

Something further enhanced by the fact that the only instruments used in the song that the video is based around are the electric guitar and the drums. These are stereotypically used in rock music which is seen as a predominantly male form of music. The fact that they are used in a pop video is something to consider as somewhat eccentric or perhaps at that point in time it would have been seen as inevitable that they would be used.