In this blog post, I will be conducting secondary research circulated around symbolism. I want to look at the definition of symbolism, music videos that include symbolism and the controversy surrounding it. I have acknowledged that my video concept will be a visual poem, but like I mentioned in my last post, I consider music as poetry so it will be easier for me to find videos that involve symbolism. So to start off, according to Google dictionary the definition of symbolism is:
An artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestions.
This is the main reason why I’m drawn to the subject. I find it interesting when I watch a video and notice some sort of hidden message. It gives a deeper meaning to the music video than what you originally think. Symbolism can be portrayed through religious images, commentary on politics and so much more.
Symbolism in videos
There are quite a few music videos I’ve seen that includes some sort of symbolism. Sometimes it goes hand in hand with the lyrics of the song, and sometimes it doesn’t. Personally I believe it makes a video much more interesting to watch.
The first video I want to mention is by Kesha. Back in 2014 she filed a lawsuit against her producer accusing him of sexual assault and many other abuse claims. This inspired her to write a song about her struggle dealing with the trauma she went through.
Due to the lyrics of the song, there is a lot of religious symbolism embedded into this video. This video caught my attention by the use of bright colours and imagery.
The context of the song is quite dark and upsetting, but the video manages to shed light on what happened, as well as the lyrics, and turn the upsetting situation into something she is able to move on from. The people standing over her at the beginning are wearing pig heads and suits. The only thing I could find about this was that the book Lord of the flies uses this imagery to signify evil.
I tried looking for other explanations to why pig heads are used in a lot of horror/thriller films and other pop culture but they all seem to link back to Lord of the flies. In the video’s context, this evil clearly represents her producer and what she alleged he did to her for years.
The next video is from Naughty boy and Sam smith. The lyrics of the song are about someone who has had enough of someone who is verbally hurting them.
The music video starts by showing a door with the number 1111. I looked this up and apparently it is a number that symbolises change and positivity. I found this out by reading through a number of different websites and articles. Here’s one of the websites I looked at.
The scene then changes to a young boy who is being verbally abused by his father. He covers his ears and blocks out the sound of his father symbolises that he now has power over his father.
The majority of the video has a very Wizard of Oz feel to it, and this is supported by the people he meets along the way. The boy meets a dog who looks very similar to the Lion from Oz.
The man holding the dog is wearing bright clothing, and as I’ve mentioned before bright colours represent happiness and positive emotions. The next character he meets is a man dressed in grey and covered in a chalky grey substance – this is the tin man.
In the Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man needs a heart – in this video the grey man buys a heart and places it in his coat pocket next to where his heart would be. Next person is this videos equivalent to the scarecrow, he’s tall and lanky and his clothing is reminiscent of straw.
His mask makes him look very similar to a scarecrow as well as his clothing choice and overall demeanor. The four then walk in different locations to the final place where the child wants to go. This is where some religious symbolism is displayed.
The two men and dog leave the child walk into a cave. The child then kneels in front of an eerie looking stature of the devil. Just like the beginning of the song, the child plugs his ears and blocks out the evil of the statue. I did some research into this statue and found out that the name of the statue is El Tio. The statue of this figure is apparently present in a lot of Bolivian mines.
There’s a lot of references in this video that I noticed after watching it over today. Now that I’m more aware of hidden messages and references in music videos, I was able to pick up on subtle hints that I may not have figured out before.
This video is more recent than the other two I mentioned. It’s a song performed by Miley Cyrus and produced by Mark Ronson. The lyrics of the song describe a relationship that has just been ended and the grief the narrator is feeling.
Surprisingly, the lyrics of the song don’t actually represent the music video itself. This music video is quite politically motivated and comments on how celebrity culture is now more important than real world problems. There are quite a few references in this video so I’ll just mention the ones that are most memorable to me.
The first thing we see is a child playing with two bullets. This is a comment on gun laws in America and children using them.
Its quite sinister considering the amount of controversy around gun laws in America has gathered in the last 20 years or so. The next scene is an obvious reference to OJ Simpson’s low speed car chase back in the 90s.
This gathered a lot of attention from the media, and as the car drove underneath bridges, fans were holding up signs showing their support for the alleged murderer. This (to me) is an obvious reference to how people now worship celebrities and turn a blind eye to the bad things they have done.
A minute of so later, we see Miley Cyrus in an adult club. The club is full of priests and people of religious statuses enjoying the company of the women surrounding them.
I believe this represents corruption in the church, especially since there has been quite a few news stories accusing some members of a variety of churches hiding crimes that were committed against young people years ago.
The final thing I wanted to mention was the ending of the video. A car is places vertically up against a wall, and Miley is standing there with her arms outstretched as the camera moves away from her.
This is a clear reference to Jesus on the cross. As I mentioned before, celebrity status seems to have grown tremendously in the last few decades or so, and there have been times where people will worship these celebrities and become obsessed with them. Here’s an article explaining it. I’m assuming that the message is celebrities being the new gods which makes a lot of sense considering how many people are dedicated to reach fame these days.
Controversy
Some music videos can gather controversy with the use of symbolism, especially if it’s related to religion in some way. One of Madonna’s videos gathered so much controversy that protests started around the world blaming Pepsi for promoting the song in one of their adverts. Here’s an article explaining what happened.
The reason why it made a lot of religious people angry was because they claimed the imagery in the video was blasphemous, even the Vatican was upset by the video. There are scenes of burning crosses, white supremacists and a black man being arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. Even though the video shows problems that occur in the world, people will still try to boycott it if it upsets their religious beliefs. They have a right to do so, but as the video explains it’s just turning a blind eye to what’s really happening.
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The next video is by Nirvana. A controversial band themselves, they pushed hard to get a message across in this video. A lot of people were confused by the imagery and what they were trying to say, but this made the video more popular even if it was for the wrong reasons.
A little girl is seen wearing a KKK gown (White supremacy), she also has blonde hair and blue eyes (Aryan race) , a man wearing a Christmas hat climbs onto a cross (Consumerism) and foetuses are tied up to dead trees (Abortion). This music video is surrounded in controversy and is still controversial to this day.
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While I was watching these videos, I noticed that there was a lot of commentary on religion. I haven’t looked at any poems to decide on what type of symbolism I want to feature in my video, but I will eventually get around to doing that.
Another thing I noticed was some videos being politically motivated. It seems lately the discussion around politics has become more popular among younger people. The music videos artists make allows them to show how they feel about the world rather than talking about it. I’ve already spoken about this video and its symbolism before, but Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’ is a great example of political commentary in music.
If I want to create a visual poem, I need to make sure that it doesn’t offend anyone. Lately I’ve noticed that it’s hard not to offend anyone these days so i need to be aware of boundaries and try my best not to offend anyone. Hopefully I will be able to find a poem that reduces the risk of this happening.
FINAL MAJOR PROJECT 2019 