Beyonce

Feminism/ audience/
representation

Starter 5mins
Write a paragraph on R&B genre

Ref to History
Hybrid
Convergence (technological) effect
Conventions
Crisis?

Is R&B Having an Identity Crisis?

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/0
4/is-r-b-having-an-identity-crisis/255310
/
Trey Songz, one of the few successful artists where the
R&B tag is actually applicable, echoed Badu's thoughts
in an interview with the Power 105.1 radio show , "The
Breakfast Club." "The success of crossover is
something we all want to attain, but the route to
get there is what's important to me," Trey said.
As for why so many of his peers have changed
their sound, he acknowledges that it was "the
easy thing to do right now to get a hit." Indeed,
Trey noted that, "It's not cool to be an R&B
singer no more."

Run the world Todays

Tasks

Appeal
Position
Respond
How are women/ men represented,
Two points for each include effect/
purpose/ theory/debates/
Terminology/

BLP Making Links

Our Video of Focus

Run the World (Girls)
What is the narrative of the video?
Where is it set?

BLP Making Links

Types of music videos

Performance (appeal of shared
Genre conventions? Pleasure!)
Mainly focus on the artist or band
playing the music
No narrative
Wide variety of camera angles which are
regularly repeated
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Types of music videos

Narrative (Clear linear narrative
target younger/ older/
mainstream audiences)
Follows a clear story line that reflects
the song lyrics
Performer may be involved in the story,
may also be kept separate

BLP Making Links

Types of music videos

Concept (Appeal to more alternative
audience?)
Based around a central idea
Often concentrate on specific editing
techniques
Look unusual
Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

BLP Making Links

Target
Audiences

Who is the target audience (TA)

for the video?
Primary/ secondary
How does the video appeal to this
TA?

Target Audience
Primary audience: Teenage
girls/young women, who are fans of
pop/ RnB music.
Secondary audience: Teenage
boys/young men, who are fans of
pop/ RnB music.
More detail more points!!!!

Helpful hints
Empowering message - that women "run the
world".
Egyptian headdress
Beyonce's costumes are very provocative
Beyonce is seen taking the wallet from a man
The video features a range of interesting and
attractive fashions
Beyonce uses many sexual poses and dance
moves.
a mid-shot of Beyonce in chains
Long shot holding two hyena's which she whips
into control
a post-apocalyptic state / dystopia
Beyonce has two male bodyguards stood in front

How do different texts target their audience?

The track features an empowering message - that women "run the world".
The Cleopatra headdress connotes power- this links to Egyptian matriarchy.
It may appeal to young women/teenage girls, who may aspire to be confident
and dominant. Teenage girls may find her role model gratifying in this it
helps them create a sense of personal identity (Blumler & Katz), teaching
them how to be attractive and in control.
Beyonce's costumes are very provocative, revealing her cleavage and
exposing her thighs. The "skimpy" and "sensual" costumes may appeal to
the sexual desires of young men. However, it also provides a model of
behaviour for young women who want to know how to look appealing.
Beyonce is seen taking the wallet from a man, and he appears powerless and
doesn't protest. This appeals to young women's desires to be in control of
men.
The video features a range of interesting and attractive fashion. The fashion
may appeal to women's desire to look attractive, but also to express
themselves through their clothing.
Beyonce uses many sexual poses and dance moves. The dance moves may
appeal to men as it may offer them some sexual arousal (Blumler & Katz).

How are audiences positioned in this text?

The text has tried to position the audience to agree with what Beyonce is
trying to portray - that women "run the world". Beyonce is shown to be in
command of all the women dancers and the male prisoners. When she
dances the rest of the girls follow her lead and she is always at the forefront
of every dance and singing part, reinforcing the idea that she is the wizard
that runs the world. This challenges Berger's observation that, in art, "men
act and women appear".
Women are positioned as being matriarchal by proving she is more powerful,
by the men being scared of her and stepping back when she walks towards
them. The lyrics Who run the world girls positioned the audience to think
women are powerful by suggesting that they are in control of the world and
the men have to listen to them.
The video subverts the idea that women are repressed, there is a mid-shot of
Beyonce in chains reinforcing the notion of patriarchy. There is a straight cut
to a long shot of Beyonce, where we see the chains are actually holding two
hyena's which she whips into control, connoting she is powerful and
dominant. This could also position the audience to consider the hyenas as
how Beyonce sees men - weaker than her and she is in power over them.

Beyonce takes the wallet from the man, showing she has
ownership over the man. The man does not protest
symbolizing he is scared of her and she is in control. This
subverts the stereotype of women being passive (John
Berger). The audience are made to think that women are
sexy. This is portrayed through the fact that Beyonce is in
control of two Hyenas (wild animals renowned for being
hard to control) - suggesting again that they are dominant.
Also the mise-en-scene of the video is showing the world in
a post-apocalyptic state which could suggest that the
answer to the lyrics Who run the world? was men and that
they screwed up and now women are in charge trying to
sort everything out - equilibrium and disequilibrium.
The use of the Egyptian headdress suggests that she is
powerful, this positions the audience to think of her as a
modern day Cleopatra and being in control.

How might audiences respond to this text?

As Stuart Hall has argued, audience can oppose the intended message of a
text. This is very true of the Beyonce video for the song Run the World (girls),
which many people have read as sexist and patriarchal.
It could be argued that Beyonce and all of the background dancers are
catering for the male gaze, which is demonstrating that the only reason that
they are seen as powerful is because they arent wearing many clothes which
entices men, and apparently means that the females can control men through
their looks and seduction alone (reinforcing the Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf)).
At the beginning of the video, Beyonce thrusts her breasts, which instantly
positions her as catering for the male gaze (Laura Mulvey).
Although Beyonce is positioned to Run the World, which is a positive thing,
the world that she in fact runs appears from the mise-en-scene to be a crime
ridden, messy, unappealing, world, we can see this though the visual
signifiers of dust bins on fire, deserted bikes, burnt out cars and so on. This
portrays her as being a poor leader of the world that she is supposedly
running with all of the girls. This positions girls in a negatively and harsh
light, seeing that they are running a world that is so out of control.
The fact that all the way through the music video Beyonce has two male
bodyguards stood in front of her shows that, although the females are being
portrayed as powerful, they still need men to protect them.

BLP Making Links

Representation
However realistic or compelling some media
images seem, they never represent the
world directly. They are always a
construction, a re-presentation, rather than
a clear window on the real world
Some media re-present certain images,
stories and situations which might make
them seem natural/familiar.
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
What is a stereotype?
What are common stereotypes of
men and women?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
What is the traditional male
stereotype?
Appearance
Personality
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Male Stereotypes

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
What is the traditional female
stereotype?
Appearance
Personality
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Female Stereotypes

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
Which of the below images conform to
gender representations and which
subvert?

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
How are women/men represented in the
music video?
Does this reflect the world we live in?
How does the Music video reinforce or
subvert female stereotypes?
What thoughts might a woman/male have
watching this music video?

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
How are men represented in the music
video?
Does this reflect the world we live in?
How does the advert reinforce or subvert
male stereotypes?
What thoughts might a woman/male have
watching this music video?
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
The media plays a strong role in
constructing gender roles.
Most product invoke gender identity,
allowing notions of femininity and
masculinity to provide a meaningful
system of difference that helps products to
be associated with particular gender
for example; men = shaving, driving fast
cars, having hearty appetites juxtaposed
against women = applying make-up, in the
LO What
needs to be included in a
home,information
eating lightly

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
Some music videos create meaning by
subverting these roles, playing with
audience expectation and saying
something new about the artist or band
and their audience through this exchange.
Does our video conform or subvert to
gender stereotypes?
LO What information needs to be included in a
representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
How are females represented in the
modern world?

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

BLP Making Links

Stereotypes
How are females represented in the
modern world?

LO What information needs to be included in a

representation essay?

Beyonc and the Ethics of

Sampling
Beyoncs sampling from artists and cultures of the
global south permeates this video. Her creative team
sawa YouTube videoof the kwaito dance troupe Tofo
Tofo performing at a wedding in Mozambique and
decided to reach out to them to
choreograph and dancein part of the video. Frank
Gatson Jr., Beyoncs choreographer,told MTV News
that It was hard finding them. They were really
in a remote area; we had to get the embassy
people involved. That was a process that took
about two months or more. Beyonc really loved
them and Im pretty sure well see them again.
It was magical.

 The Johannesburg Timesnotes,While pantsula

dance is nothing new to us Africans, its the
first time that it has been given such
exposure. Im glad Beyonc saw something
great in them and the movement as a whole.
But I wish the genre was as appreciated and
respected here. Why do our artists always
need the American/ European stamp of
approval for us to value them? We in the U.S.
could also ask ourselves the same question:
Why do we value third world culture only
when its mediated via first world celebrity?

Referencing

Beyonc is holding the chains of two hyenas, referencing the work

of White, South African photographer Pieter Hugo
and his photographs of Nigerian Hyena Men.This work has
beenstridently critiquedfor theracialized and exotified
undertonesto his photography. This raises the uncomfortable
issue of how so many images in Beyoncs video echo exotified,
Orientalist representations of the third world (Africa and the
Middle East in particular).

 Run The World (Girls)

at the Billboard Music Awards,
Tofo left out = Hiphop culture

HOMEWORK
Complete all the tasks
within the following slides

Read and make notes

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/06
/02/who-runs-the-world-on-beyonce-s
ampling-race-and-power/

Feminism
Read and make notes
http://www.slideshare.net/andywallis/
theoretical-perspectives-feminism?ref
=http://mediauxbridgea2.blogspot.co.u
k/p/theoreticalperspectives.html
http://mediauxbridge.blogspot.co.uk/
p/representation-of-gender.html

Run the world

Women
Men

How are they represented in this video?

300 words
Conform or subvert stereotypes and why
REMEMBER to give 3 specific textual
analysis examples for each

Representation
How and why is Beyonce represented
differently in the two magazines?
Analyse the magazines REMEMBER
key magazine terminology
Think about the target audience and
Industry

Representation Magazines

TA: Single Men, 35,

educated Professional /
Managerial

 https://prezi.com/bps8hyw3zrtx/beyo
nce-knowles-representation-of-femin
ism-and-black-female/