Music Video and the Politics of Representation

by Railton, Diane; Watson, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780748633227
• ISBN10: 0748633227
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-07
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

Music Video and the Politics of Representation addresses music video as a significant contemporary cultural form, one which plays an important part in the production, reproduction and circulation of cultural identities. The book examines the representation of masculinities, femininities, sexualities, race and ethnicities in a range of music videos. Underpinning the argument is a concern with the ways in which this range of cultural identities is gendered and always operates in relation to normative definitions of the sexed and gendered body. The book is distinctive in its commitment to the political investigation of a key form of popular culture, while insisting on the importance of understanding the formal qualities and complexity of the videos it investigates. As such, the book not only operates as a key reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates studying music video and popular music, but also for students and scholars working in the areas of film and television studies, gender studies, and studies of popular culture more generally. Key Features:*The book is an important contribution to an under-theorised and, as yet, under-published aspect of contemporary popular culture;*It establishes and utilises a critical vocabulary for describing and analysing the specificities of the music video form;*It draws upon a number of contemporary and 'classic' music videos from both a wide range of contemporary music genres and a number of national contexts.

Author Biography

Diane Railton and Paul Watson are both Senior Lecturers in the School of Arts and Media at Teesside University. Their research centres on issues of popular entertainment and representation and the relations between them. Together with the work on music video, their recent publications explore questions of gender, sexuality and ageing femininity.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Introduction: The Kleenexes of Popular Culture?	p. 1
Towards A Critical Vocabulary
Situating Music Video: Between Feminism and Popular Culture	p. 17
Genre and Music Video: Configurations and Functions	p. 41
Making it Real: Authorship and Authenticity	p. 66
Sexed, Raced And Gendered Identity In Music Video
Music Video in Black and White: Race and Femininity	p. 87
That Latin(a) Look: Performing Ethnicity	p. 108
Masculinity and the Absent Presence of the Male Body	p. 122
Afterword: Music Video Goes Gaga	p. 141
Bibliography	p. 150
Index	p. 166
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