Janelle Monáe - 'Q.U.E.E.N.'
This video is one of the ones around which I mainly want to base my music video, because I love the simplicity of the background and the costumes - I love the idea of the whole video being set in a high-key lit studio, as I think it can allow for a much higher- quality-looking overall video, whilst also allowing the on-screen time of the artist to be as long as possible (brand advertising), although the is very little in the way of male gaze. She clearly wants to viewer to see her as a power woman who can do what she wants (singing and rapping), and not one specifically designed for a man's attention and, despite wearing some tight-fitting clothes, there is no real gaze of the audience either.
http://youtu.be/tEddixS-UoU
Kanye West - 'Black Skinhead' (EXPLICIT)
Although the themes of this video and actually the song in general aren't appropriate to replicate in my music video/song, I find the sharp editing on the beat quite interesting, as this song had a particularly prominent drum beat. This looks really effective in this, and other videos. I also love the black and white simplicity.
Miley Cyrus - 'Wrecking Ball' (EXPLICIT)
The main inspiration I have taken from this video is actually the opening shot, which is a relatively long cut extreme close-up of Miley's face as tears roll down it, with her lip syncing the first verse of the song. I think this is a really great feature, as not many music videos contain cuts of this length, and it sort of sets the tone of the whole theme of the song - which in this case is clearly that of heartbreak and upset. I plan to use something like this in my video, depending on the style of song (this sort of thing probably wouldn't be as effective in a music video for an upbeat track). The rest of this video replies heavily on the male gaze, particularly the gaze of the camera and the audience (there is no male actor), with naked shots and heavily sexually suggestive themes.
Lady GaGa - Alejandro
This music video is one that mostly breaks away from the conventions of Mulvey's 1975 theory entitled 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema', which states that the gaze in cinema (and subsequently music videos) was 'specifically male'. GaGa does this in a number of ways, chief among which is the fact that the common music video roles are reversed - she is the one ruling over men, with males dancing in front of her instead of it being the other way round. Couple this with the fact that the men are dressed in stockings, suspenders, fishnets and stilettos and the idea of the 'queer gaze' is introduced, which is the gaze of homosexual men. This is a common theme across GaGa's whole brand image.
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