Ciara is a well established RnB female artist. She wrote 'like a boy' after many girl conversations about how men in relationships can do certain things, but when women do the same it is looked down upon. The protagonist in the video wishes to act 'like a boy'. It is to be portrayed as a female empowerment record and a role reversal of male and female steretypes.
The start of the video is of ciara as the male, she is wearing what is strereotyped as males clothes, bagging jeans hanging off her bum, a long vest top, tattoos down her arms, chains on her neck, a beanie hat and trainers. her hair is straight to try and reinforce a masculine look. This costume is to be portrayed as a males character and i think it has been portrayed well, in the way it isnt too exaggerated but you can clearly see that ciara is playing a male.
We then have a shot of the female in a cropped top and tight jeans, her hair is curly and she has make-up on to reinforce a more girly than usual look to clearly differenciate the two. The cotume which she is wearing is typically worn by veiwers so they can relate to the narrative and character.
The scene of ciara dancing as the male gender and female, uses merging of two scenes to put into one, which enables ciara to look asif she is in both scenes. The male is wearing a suit, hat and trainers, the colours are all dark maybe connoting mystery or danger considering he is the male who thinks he can do as he wishes. This is a steretyped male look to reinforce the realism of the gender, the female ciara is then wearing a white dress connoting purity and innocence of a women being the victim. In the dancing scene, the style of dancing alone differenciates the two genders clearly, as the girl is using more softer ans sultre movements, making her out to be a pretty, sexy female. The male character is dancing typically of RnB male artist using blunt, small, and complicated movments, perhaps refelcting on the characters personalities.
In the scene where ciara plays the males and she is dancing with 4 other dancers, her costume is different to the other to make her stand out, however they are only different by a slight change in top, ensuring that group of dancers all look cohessive and stereotypical too. The style of movement that ciara is doing is masculine, toy like and in the style of a break dancer, this too reinforces the realism of the reversal.
The use of the grey scale background could be used to perhapd keep the focus on the characters instead of what is going on in the background. Grey scale is also used in alot of RnB music videos, such as Beyonce...they are often used to show the real artist natural and real. This could be why ciaras video is in grey scale to reinforce the realism of the message that she is trying to put across.
The lighting used is very minimal, due to the grey scale it is quite light anyway. Spot lighting is used on the male character when he is dancing and the rest of the scene is a darker colour to, as to not deflect attention away for the male. Also key lighting on ciaras face is used when she bends down behind the young male character at the very start of the video, this could be connoting that now she is in charge and that the male is not as important as the female, connecting with the message of patriarchy being put across.
Camera shots used are varied throughout, however there are alot of close ups and an extreme close up of ciara spelling out her name in her boyfriends ear, this could be connoting a taking of controle and showing who is boss by spelling out her name.
A medium shot is also used to show the two characters dancing, clearly showing the difference between the two.
Close-ups are used also to etablish the characters, as it is the same person playing both roles it is important for the audience to understand the concept, by having a close-up pf each character it allows the viewers to connect with the steretypes being presented.
The editing used is fast paced to enable us to see both characters and thier individual personnas. Straight cuts are used to link the two characters together, from the girl ciara to the male ciara. This creates realism and reinforces the idea and message that is trying to be put across of reversing the roles of men and women.
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