The Theme of today's assessment is the way that the media shapes, and reflects our reality. Most of the media content nowdays, especially those directed at teenagers, focus on shaping our world, rather than reflecting it.
The media medium I am going to critically analysis today is a Music Video Clip. A Music Video Clip, is simply a pop song, made into a video, and brought to the audience mostly using Television sets. Some Programs such as Videohits on Chammel 10, Rage on ABC, and MTv on Cable television all brings to it's viewers music videos, and more often than not, the messages conveyed via the music videos.
Today, I am going to critically analysis a clip that was a worldwide hit. Topped charts in the UK, US, and our Aria Charts. It also took out top spot in the End of year Aria charts in 1999.
Since it's release, the tune of this song has also be adopted by an ex-popular children's icon, Bob the Builder. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring to you Lou Bega - Mambo No.5.
Lets start off with analysing gender representations. In the video clip, the genders of the people featured is one sided, there were many females, and one male.
The male of the clip, clearly was "Foregrounded". He was the only person in the clip to communicate using words. He was the main focus of the clip, and thoughout the clip, most of the attention was focused on him.
In contrast. Although the majority of the people in the clip are females, most of the attention/camera focus was not on them. The females were literally in the background for the majority of the film. They literally dress in underwear, and danced suggestively such as the camera focus on one of the females tits bouncing up and down, i mean mammary glands, representing them as sex objects.
At one part of the clip, where Bega was singing the lyrics.
"Take one step left and one step right.
One to the front and one to the side.
Clap your hands once and clap your hands twice".
