Students Music Video Textual Analysis - Can't Hold Us by Macklemore

Introduction:

This textual analysis is based around a student music video for the song “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore. It includes a variety of shots and effects that make it look professional and it is clear that they have thought about narrative when making it. With use of special effects it easy to see that they have tried to make their music video seem like a comic book.

Genre:

The genre of the music itself is hip hop but the genre of the music video is different. They have clearly tried to add comedy into the song through use of the stereotypical criminals that fail there attempts to rob someone. All characters within the music video are stereotypical making the genre clear and making the narrative to the audience clear despite there being no dialogue.

Narrative/Character:

The narrative for this music video is clear and easy to understand. As an audience member all the characters make sense and due to the genre of the music video are stereotypical making it easy to understand both the story and characters. The stereotypical criminals are wearing black and white striped clothing and face masks which is iconic and easy to see as an audience member. Despite the lack of dialogue the narrative is still clear since it is very simple.

The music video doesn’t really follow Todorov’s five stage theory as the disruption stage (stage 2) is at the beginning of the video and there is no stage of equilibrium prior to it. The disruption in the video is clearly the criminals since in media criminals are stereotypically seen as bad guys. Stage 4 is shown in the video (resolution to disruption) during the dance scene. There are some stages of Todorov’s theory within the music video but they are not in the correct order or are very brief.

Audience:

The audience for this music is clearly teenagers around the ages of 15-30 years old, but the music video is within the comedy genre and any minor violence that is featured within the music video is censored using a big bubble therefore the music videos target audience can be slightly lower from around the age of 12-30 years old. The reason the audience is still so high is due to the fact that with the genre the music is part of (hip hop) it has a fairly high audience and younger audiences typically do not enjoy this type of music.

I think both the music and the music video is aimed at males. This is due to the fact that the content within the music video can be seen as targeting both female and male whereas the music is trying to attract males due the song being within the hip hop genre. The music video can also be seen as trying to attract male audience at some points due to the fact it features male actors and the artist who features in the music video is also male, but overall I think the music video is fit for both male and female audiences, but some features may try and cater to a male audience more than a female audience.

Intertextual References:

The music video uses multiple special effects in order to make the music video look more like a comic book. This includes use of a filter that makes the colours look more like the ones used in comic books as well as speech bubbles which show what certain characters are saying or thinking. It also features bubbles that have word like “KAPOW” during a fight which censors the violence. This also could be a reference towards comic books or old super hero movies where bubbles like this were used (e.g. Old Batman TV show).

Visual Codes:

Visual codes within the music video suggest it is set in modern day in London. I can see this due to some of the shots featuring famous London landmarks (London Eye) and the large structures. On the other hand the clothes the characters within the music video are wearing suggest that the video may be set in the past as the clothes they are wearing are not popular today and may have been worn more popularly in the past.