The music video that I will be analysing is a Jennifer Lopez pop music video called ‘I’m Glad’ which was directed by avid LaChapelle and choreographed by Jeffrey Hornaday.
The stereotypical concepts of a pop music video include all the cameras focusing on the artist and painting them in a God like way.
This music video both contradicts and compliments the lyrics. For example J Lo sings the line ‘I dig the way you get down’ and the visuals on the screen show a male dancing and getting down and J Lo standing a little way from him staring at the man entranced. However a contradiction between the visuals and lyrics is when J Lo is singing about loving holding her mans hand but she is dancing as the exotic dancer and she isn’t holding anybodies hands.
There is a relationship between the music and the visuals right from the start of the video to the end of the video. For example at the start of the video the beat is a slow one and the visuals match with J Lo doing slow dance movements and her overall movements being slow. Them as the beat starts to fasten up J Lo is shown to be riding a bike illustrating the fastening of the beat and the setting of thee pace, J Lo’s dance movements also start getting more fast paced and more precisiced. However on the other hand the visuals and music dont always compliment each other for instance when J Lo is dancing at the club the beat is fast paced this go’s however it then cross cuts to J Lo sitting by herself looking vulnerable an the beat is still the same, that doesn’t go it contradicts.
The record company is firstly trying to sell this track by making the video resemble the smash hit 80’s film Flashdance, the video is almost like a summary of the film or a trailer of the film if you like. Making the video like this not only attracts fans of the film but helps to give the video a sense of being enticement to the audience to watch the video again and again. This is because the narrative of the story makes the whole video flow easier and sort of gives the audience a knowledge of whats going happen in throughout the video. Furthermore the record company is selling the video to the male audience by appealing to their more natural instincts and basic desires, this is done by J Lo’s costumes being very revealing and most shots of include her legs, bum and face. The image that she is portraying is one of fierce independence as she is clearly working in a more stereotypical mans job role which is that of a construction worker. We can tell this through the mise-en-scene where she is in a dark and setting, where no other women is and by her clothes which include a helmet covering her face and by her wearing overalls. Her being a construction worker contradicts the mans role and makes her fiercely independent as she shows that she doesn’t need a man. Previous videos by J Lo in 2003 include ‘All I Have’ and ‘Baby I Love You’ these videos are different to this video even though they portray her as strong and independent they dont show her as a sex symbol so much as they do in ‘I’m Glad’.
In the video there is a sense that J Lo is on sexual display this is shown more obviously when she is in the role of an exotic dancer, this is shown by all the men leering at her, sweating and even when on fainting as she dances in front of him. That sense of her being on display in front of the men is re-enforced through her lack of clothing, her make-up and hair and also the close up shots on the parts of her body which we as a society see as very sexual and not be on display too much like a long shot of her whole body with her legs taking up most of the shot an the close-up of her rear end. Furthermore there is a long shot of J Lo sitting on a chair and her being drenched in water, this is clearly an intertextual reference to a dance move Alexandra Owens does in the film Flashdance. However this could have also been to show that she isn’t just a dancer but a performer or entertainer as most entertainers use elements in their shows such as fire or water and that the role of a dancer is too entertain the audience to wow it. It could also be a sort of ‘wet t-shirt’ fantasy to help keep the male audience and the general audience watching the video.
Intertextual references are present in the video to a film called Flashdance which is an American romantic musical film made in 1983. Produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer the film is about Alexandra Owens who works as a construction worker in the day time and an exotic dancer at night. This is portrayed in the video as Jennifer Lopez seems to play the role of Alexandra Owens as she looks exactly the same as Alexandra in terms of hair and costume.
This video is an equal mixture of performance, narrative and concept based. Firstly it is a concept based video as its the producers David LaChapelle and J Lo’s concept of what an dance audition is like e.g. when J Lo is walking through all the ballerinas to get to her dance audition. It was their concept that all people who go for dance auditions are young, female and all ballerinas. Secondly this video is very narrative based as we get the story of J Lo’s character that she has two jobs, one as an erotic dancer and the other as a construction worker, and that she wants to be a professional dancer as she is auditioning for possibly a dance school? Lastly this video is performance based as J Lo basically dances to the audience and she does sing to the audience s well’.
In conclusion J Lo’s pop video ‘I’m Glad’ is one big long intertextual reference to the 1980’s film Flashdance, it puts J Lo on sexual display through her costume, the camerawork and through lighting.
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