Texual Analysis

Textual Analysis of a music video

‘Flex’ was the third single from Dizzee Rascals third album called Maths + English. It reached number 23 on the UK singles charts and was released on the 19^th November 2007. The genre of this music video is UK garage and grime. These genres are well known in the UK and there are lots of different artists around in this genre. The artist is Dizzee Rascal. He has been around for a while and is well known by the UK public. This music video is a Narrative and a Performance video. This is because it tells a story but Dizzee is performing in some parts too. In the video he falls asleep after sitting on the sofa with nothing to watch on TV. The video copies X Factor (a TV series of people wanting to sing) and changed it to ‘Flex Factor’.  Through the whole video the video censors the "X" logo of X-Factor, which was on the TV Dizzee was actually watching. The target audience for this music video would be teenagers. This is because Dizzee Rascal promotes his music to the younger audience and also his music is played on young people’s music channels. To specify my target audience, by teenagers I mean mainstream kids who dress in caps, baggy clothes and wear jewellery. Mostly the male gender of teenagers would listen to Dizzee as he could be called an idol for some young males. 

The artist is represented as a well known, rich common rapper. You can see this as he is wearing props that big rappers wear. For example the hat sideways, the chain, the gold watch, earrings and also the ring. This shows that Dizzee has a lot of money and wants to show it off. He is wearing the conventional clothes rappers would style themselves in today, it shows that he also wants to be noticed. The genre can be recognized by the clothing of the artist, the background and the pace of the song. Also the location tends to be in a party or a club, usually an expensive location.  Also the costume of what the artist is wearing, are they recognized brands and clothing?  And expensive cars or houses are used. Dizzee has appealed this music video to the teenage audience as the lyrics are about teenagers and the video is shown from teenager’s point of view.

In this music video there are long shots and establishing shots, these are long shot duration to show the money and what’s involved. Close ups are also in the video to show the emotion of the artists face and the expensive jewelry and clothing of Dizzee. This can appeal to the audience by showing them a wider view of Dizzee’s style. The camerawork used in this music video are very stereotypical to the pop genre because it is fast paced, jumps to some of the beat and close ups of the artists are used to promote the artist. The editing in this music video does not illustrate the beat of the music. There are jump cuts and normal cuts to change the scene of the music video to not bore the audience. Fast editing is used throughout the video as it is a fast upbeat song and it tells you straight away about the artist, genre and the type. The Mise en Scene of the video worked well for example, the props used were thought well and were used to their extent. The location was perfect as it makes the whole video much more happier and fun throughout. The lighting is all put on Dizzee from the front and the sides, the background of the people dancing are darker than him so they are trying to promote him by making him look bigger and important. The colours are bright and vibrant to show they are having a good time and everyone is in a good mood. 

Andrew Goodwin’s theory is a useful point in this video. The lyrics to visuals in the video do not match to what he is talking about. This means the video is a contradicting style of a music video. He promotes himself and demonstrates the genre characteristics by showing in the video that it’s all about him. The lighting is all pointing on Dizzee and the cameras are facing him. This shows it is a performance video. 

The people dancing in the background of him are mostly all girls. This shows that he is appealing to the female gender and that he is wanted by them making himself popular. The mise en scene appeals to the target audience as they are all happy, popular and bright thing to connect with so it’s easy to appeal to the target audience which is teenagers. 

In conclusion this is a stereotypical video for pop music. Dizzie Rascal has upped his career and made a better and bold music video that he’s spent more on. This has promoted him and also made him look bigger. This is a more mainstream song than his other songs. This is because the mainstream audience has more than any other audience so Dizzie will gain for money from this audience as more will hear his music.