Here is another music video by M.I.A, as it uses many of the effects we wish to use, I will be analysing this using Goodwin's Theory. These are the elements I will look at:
Links between Lyrics and VisualsLinks between Music and Visuals (Complimentary, Contradicting or Amplification)Genre characteristicsIntertextual referenceNotions of Looking (objectification of women)Voyerism (direct gaze, other people looking at artist, insight into artists life, screens and mirrors)Demands of the Record Label (representation of the artist)Performance based, Narrative based or Concept based music videos
One of the first images to appear behind M.I.A is a wire fencing with a city scape behind her, this directly relates the the lyrics which she says "london calling". She contunies using the lyrics "get down" as fighter planes dropping bombs fly over head, as M.I.A was from Sri Lanka and had to leave at the age of 8 because of the civil war, I have noticed many of her videos include war like themes. At such a young age she probably felt overwhelmed by a war going on in her country. This video especially, in which she appears to have a dominance over the planes on the green screen behind her could be her way of showing her power over whats happened to her in the past and how she has dealt with is now she has grown up. There also seems to be a short image of people protesting, this could be connected to the fact that her father was a political activist during the time of the civil war. We also see images of fire and bombs as M.I.A says "blaze a blaze". This song has a strong beat and her dancing fits to the beat. Often at the point of the beat, the image behind her will change or there will be a flash of colour. Because of the intertextual references of the video, there is a sense that we are looking in on something quite personal to the artist, which makes it voyeuristic. As she is the only person in the video, it is narrative based.
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