Saturday, 24 September 2016

Research: Parody

To gain a better understanding of postmodernism, we decided to focus on the idea of parodies as it will be a main feature in our music video. We took pictures of what the typical rap music video pictures would look like and here they are.


The second picture is from Wu Tang Clan Rap which is a very stereotypical rap video. We were parodying the typical low angle camera shot of rap videos. In many rap videos, low angles heavily emphasise the power and toughness of the individuals shown in the frame. You can see the difference in the clothing. They have the typical American gangster hood clothing with the gold chains, the sweaters and the hats. We parodied it by having casual clothing and a pink hoodie which is very unconventional of rap videos to have feminine colours. Also we parodied it by having a white male with glasses which makes fun of how in stereotypical rap videos, all the men in it are black and looking gangster. The white male with glasses usually has links with being a nerd, geek or being really smart. The locations are also parodied, typically rap videos are set in the outdoors, but in the picture above, they are indoors. The crouching is also very typical of rap music videos so we decided to imitate that in our own way.



The black and white filter is prevalent in some rap videos because it makes them look cooler for some reason (no idea why) and make them look 'artsistic'. We played on that convention with our own picture. In most rap videos, there are normally 'gang sings' which usually imply some meaning in relation to where they come from. We also parodied that idea by mocking their gang signs and having more well known signs. The hoods are also there to parody rappers who have hoods on all the time because it makes them look cool. However you can see that in our picture, my two group mates do not look cool at all.



The 'make it rain' action is a stereotype of rap videos which is essentially throwing money infront of the screen to show how much money you have.. The second picture is Lil Wayne doing the action. We parodied that by having a group mate throw leaflets instead of money which completely subverts the stereotype and adds comedy to something that can be seen as negative.