Music Video – Letter to the Free is a product which possesses cultural and social significance. It will invite comparison with other music videos allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.
This is a targeted CSP and needs to be studied with reference to two elements of the Theoretical Framework (Media Language and Media Representation) and all relevant contexts
Common is an Oscar and Grammy award winning hip/hop rap artist who wrote Letter to the Free as a soundtrack to The 13th – a documentary by Ava DuVernay named after the American 13th amendment (the abolition of slavery). His output is highly politicised, existing in the context of a variety of social and cultural movements aimed at raising awareness of racism and its effects in US society (e.g.: Black Lives Matter). The product can also be considered in an economic context through the consideration of if and how music videos make money (through, for example, advertising on YouTube).
What needs to be studied? Key Questions and Issues
Media Language
Detailed study of Letter to the Free should help students to develop an understanding of how music video can serve a range of functions while communicating multiple meanings.
Analysis should include:
• Mise-en-scene analysis
• Cinematography
• Semiotics: how images signify cultural meanings
• Aesthetics
Narrative
• How does Letter to the Free appeal to its target audience?
• How is the narrative being constructed by the song lyrics reinforced?
• How does the narrative position the audience?
• How can the narrative invite a range of responses?
• What pleasures does the narrative offer the audience?
• How is the narrative incorporating views and ideologies?
• What is the role of Common in the narrative?
Genre
• Identification of the conventions of the Performative music video.
• How music videos serve the needs of media producers
• How music videos meet the expectations of audiences
• Genre theory including Neale
Media Representations
Letter to the Free explicitly focuses on the history and contemporary experience of African Americans and allows for an exploration of the effect of social, cultural and political context on representations of ethnicity.
• Representation of ethnicity, with focus on how Common is a black man exploring black culture-specific issues.
• Use of specific historical and contemporary experience to construct a political narrative and argument
• How representations invoke discourses and ideologies and position audiences
• Representation of gender within the video and in the context of wider representations of women in the music industry
• Representation of place
• Common as celebrity persona
Theories
- The idea of culture as a site of political struggle (re: Jodie’s presentation for Ghost Town see below)
- The the theory of hegemony – Gramsci
- Theories of representation including Hall
- Drawing on theories of Postcolonialism (Gilroy)
- Theory of the Public Sphere – Habermas
Key Concepts:
● Cultural resistance
● Cultural hegemony
● Subcultural theory
The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest:
● When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?
○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation
○ Organised political movements
○ Public protests
○ Petitions, marches
● However, we can look at political protest in terms of:
○ Cultural resistance
○ Everyday people
● Why look at cultural resistance?
○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash.
○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public
opinion.
○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.
Key idea: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined