From what I’ve noticed so far the favorite theme of music videos is love – teenage love, fulfilled love, unhappy love, etc. No matter what is portrayed in these videos, love is usually the protruding topic. Invariably, music videos also deal with a lot of teenage issues (since usually teenagers happen to be their target audience) – party life, neglecting parents, problems of fitting-in with peers, family issues…
Although these are usually simplified to a certain extent, and at times also give a false image on reality.
This is where the cultural aspect of such videos can be debated. For example, Western music clips often show girls in excessively skimpy clothing. Now, if someone from a different cultural background is watching this, they might get a very negative impression and think, “These American girls are so indecent and easy”, etc. This kind of image will get permanently implanted in their minds.
However music videos are often also like a “dream-come true”, especially for those in developing countries. Let’s look at various Bollywood music clips as an example. They always show wealthy, well-dressed, happy and beautiful people, whereas the majority of India’s population is poor. However through watching such videos people get hope – they start to believe that their lives will also be as colorful and cheerful one day. I think that this is usually pretty positive, as hope gives people a new kind of existence. Without it, life would be meaningless.
1 comment:
I agree with your view that the favorite these of music videos being love as I have also written, I also feel that they emphasis on relationship problems and couples being in love which draws a false impression of reality in this perspective in many ways to the youth. They feel it is as simple as that (what is shown in such music videos) and in those that show problems, they see what they think is the answer in such situations. All this because they see it on the TV but do not realize they were paid to act in that way in the video! They can influence teen’s behaviors to what they view as being “cool” and want to imitate these action.
I also believe that our and other cultures a influenced and effected like the youth as when we view such videos we see a negative, false and wrong picture of that society (such as an American music video of African-American singers). It demeans their people and gives a wrong impression about them. This is true with many Arabic videos which show unreligious and untraditional scenes in an Arabic life (the story of that video) which also demeans Arabs and gives a wrong view about them to the outside world!
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