2. G.R.L Ugly Heart
I will be looking at this video as it goes with all the stereotypes but also challenges
them in many ways.
3. "Ugly Heart" is the second single by American-British-Canadian girl groupG.R.L.
from their self-titled EP. The song features songwriting credits from Ryan
Baharloo, Ester Dean, Lukasz Gottwald, John Charles Monds and Henry Walter,
with production credits from Gottwald and Walter under their production monikers,
Dr. Luke and Cirkut. The song was released on June 3, 2014 as the lead single
from the EP. "Ugly Heart" is a guitar-driven pop song that also uses a ukulele to
give it a country vibe.
4. This video is more narrative based than performance based as most videos are
either one or the other. They performing a song but showing a story of how they
had been arrested for showing someone's true colours. They are portrayed as
‘smug’ about being arrested because it's for all the right reasons they are showing
that although men seem pretty on the outside they can have a very ugly
personality and girls need to get revenge.
Genre and characteristics
5. Lyrics and Visuals
This video highlights a relationship between lyrics and visuals. In the video we first see a tattoo sign and
we hear a tattoo pen noise. This doesn't make sense at first and we see the girls being arrested but being
happy about it. Until the end this is not apparent why. They are talking about the word ‘ugly’ a lot and how
a man has a pretty face but he has an ugly heart but towards the end of the visuals they say ‘now your
face is like your heart...ugly’ where we see a man with the word ‘ugly’ tattooed on his face. This is showing
that the visuals have a complete relationship with the lyrics. This shows that the band members thought
they could relate to women and therefore shows they are aware of their target audience.
6. Music and visuals
I this music video the relationship between the music and the visuals is very
apparent. What is shown on screen matches with whatever the tempo of the usoc
is we can see it on the screen the girls also dance along to the music and we can
see many shots of this which shows they are aware of the music that they are
trying to promote.
7. Demands of the Label
The labels have certain demands for different types of artists. GRL motifs are showing how ‘sassy’ they
are. They are going against the stereotypes of being all girly and as people see ‘weak’ they are shown as
strong minded and independent. All of their songs are pretty much the same where this is concerned, they
show themselves going against the stereotypes but still appealing to the target audience of young adults.
They dress in clothes that show some bare skin this means that they are aware of their target audience
and that's what the label demands. This helps them be role models but in a good way that they won't let
men walk all over them. They also need to appeal to the male gender as that's what pop genre is mainly
about, this means they are shown so they can be easily sexulaised.
8. Emphasis of looking
They are very heavily sexualised in the way they are dancing and dressing in this
video. They show a lot of bare skin and short clothes, they also dance very
provocatively. This could be due to the fact they are shedding a bad light on men
so they need to keep that target audience interested and yet still match with the
pop genre. This is why they show themselves as being sexualised.
9. Intertextual references
The only intertextual reference in this music video is really the cliche police drama
style. They link it with your typical cop drama through visuals and the narrative.
They are being arrested and then there's the link with the police actually arresting
them on screen and we are lead through what happened in the narrative.
