Sahara Russell

1. Name: Sahara Russell Candidate number: Critical Evaluation As our group is made up of four young females, we really wanted to explore ideals of the modern woman and represent strong female artists. After spending time in lockdown, slowly everyone become more and more drawn to their laptops and phones and consequently became even more fascinated by online media than before. Lockdown had a massively negative impact on people's mental health, and this mix with an increased use of online media is a very dangerous combination. As a young woman, I can only speak about my personal experiences being a young girl in this situation. I think that I spent lockdown comparing myself to the other women online and creating insecurities that I could obsess over. I found that there were certain creators that made this easier, for example creators on Tik Tok who post about body positivity or the difference between real life and social media. We wanted to create two artists who although appealing to young women would also not project all of these insecurities in a toxic way. We created two artists, a singer and a producer, who worked together to create our song. The two artists have very different vibes but still radiate the same kind of quirkiness and individuality that we think it is import for young women to be exposed to. Matilda Collins, who was our lead singer, was a very bright and colourful character, with a lot of energy and a clear passion for performing and art and painting. Malaika Pettigrew, our producer, had a more masculine and dark energy, she was more into the music and the technicality behind it. She wore darker, more alternative clothing and had a broody and more mysterious and quieter vibe. The two made a song with influences from Pop, Dance Music and DnB. The song would be described by the modern female audience as a ‘girl boss’ song, as it’s about a girl not sleeping

2. with a boy that she is interested in because she has discovered her worth. Although the music video itself isn’t a direct response to the song, there are definitely elements throughout that link them. In our campaign we wanted to represent our lead singer as an independent, confident and outgoing female artist who has slightly more alternative and trendy style, moving her away from the stereotypical ‘pop princess’ character. This idea is in line with the principles of Judith Butler’s ‘Theory of Gender Performativity’. In her 1990 book ‘Gender Trouble’, she argued that feminism has made the mistake of grouping all women together as if they all share common interests and characteristics. It doesn’t allow women (or men) to express their own individual identity or beliefs. In our music video, for many of our sets, we styled our artists in less conventionally feminine outfits to really emphasise their quirkier and less confirmative style. For example, in our first shot our artists are both styled in pant suits. The fact that they’re both wearing stereotypically manly outfits that cover their bodies up is unusual for young female artists. However, there is a more feminist twist as their suits are both in shades of silver, which is a colour usually associated with femininity and fun, and our lead singer wore heeled boots and a glitter corset underneath. The decision to style our artists like this reflects the desires of the psychographic group making them assimilate the style of the artist as they have a slightly edgier side to them. To an audience, seeing this allows them to feel represented and connect more with the artist due to a sense of similar identity.

3. My song used in my music video is a mix of multiple music genres including Pop, DnB and Dance Music. In our music video concept we focused on a Dance Music video visual and components of a Pop Music video. In my analysis of these types of music videos I found that typically the genre is identified through interesting and quirky visuals in terms of costumes and sets, bright colours, fast paced editing and artists singing in sync to the song. Theorist Steve Neale has a theory in which he states that genres are made up from ‘repetition and difference’ meaning that products tend to repeat typical conventions of a genre because audiences like products that are recognisable as a certain genre. This is because as an audience we appreciate consistency and predictability. Although, producers do have to try and include some elements that are unlike the usual conventions to create a sense of excitement and individuality and to not make it too predictable. We wanted our artist to be likeable but also not feel like a mainstream artist in order to keep a slight edge. We had our artists perform as if they were in a dance music video. There are similarities in conventions in our music video and music videos by the band, The Prodigy. I looked at the ‘Firestarter’ music video which had the same sort of performance and set conventions as mine.