A- level media

1. Analysing a music video‘California Gurls’- Katy Perry
By Nicole Oliver

2. LYRICS
‘California girls, were unforgettable
Daisy dukes, bikinis on top,
Sun- kissed skin, so hot we’ll melt your popsicle’
The lyrics for this song and the title show that Katy Perry is singing about
California, and gives the impression that all girls from this state are what
people would see as an ideal woman, what men would see as attractive.
Some lyrics from this song are sexual and it uses a lot of sexual innuendos,
and from this you can tell that this song targets teenagers and young adults.
This song features snoop dog, a well known hip- hop artist, his lyrics from this
song are also sexual, here are a few examples of this:
‘kiss her, touch her, squeeze her buns’
‘all that ass hangin’ out’

3. MUSIC
This song is a pop song, the conventions of a
pop song is that the music is normally upbeat
and portrays a happy image, this videos matches
with this due to the bright colours and the
dancing contained in this video and the beat to
go along with it.
The lively atmosphere makes the video
enjoyable to watch and appealing to the target
audience.

4. GENRE/ MISE EN SCENE
As a pop video, this video involves a lot of dancing and
movement. It also involves the artist and the extras in this
music video to wear revealing outfits, this video also involves
some nude scenes of Katy Perry on a cloud, this shows the
video has a sex appeal that its target audience are looking for.
The video was influenced by the films ‘Charlie and the
chocolate factory’ and ‘Alice in wonderland’ as the video is
very unrealistic due to the whole setting being made out of
sweets and chocolate and other edible things that most
people would find appetising e.g. the candy floss clouds. The
video is very creative and imaginative due to this. The dances
performed in this video also follows men’s sexual desire when
Katy Perry is seen squirting cream from cans attached to her
bra.

5. CAMERAWORK
This video has many close up shots of Katy Perry
showing the audience how good she looks which
appeals to them. There is a camera shot of her laying
on a cloud without any clothes on, which gives the
audience a false idea that that is what all California girls
are like. Voyeurism is used here as this image is the
type that men would appreciate and enjoy to see.
There are also shots used frequently such as midshots, and wide shots.

6. EDITING
This video has a lot of editing in it, mainly to do
with the animation as they would have to make
the video look real, as the artist chose to use a
fantasy like theme for the video. The setting is
very dream like and surreal. This includes
animated objects such as ginger bread men and
gummy bears that come to life. At the beginning
Katy Perry is seen as an inanimate object which
is also produced in editing.

7. NARRATIVE/ PERFORMANCE
There is not really a story behind this music
video, it involves a very dream- like atmosphere.
At the start of this video Snoop Dogg is seen
playing a board game which is shown as him to
be the controller of the rest of the video and
Katy Perry’s actions. This come across to the
audience as women are seen as objects and that
they can be taken control of by men.

8. VOYEURISM/ LOOKING
A lot of voyeurism is used in this video, for
example the naked scenes of Katy Perry on a
cloud, the artist and dancers are seen in outfits
which could be seen as attractive as it exposes
their bodies. the voyeurism used makes this
music video appealing to men and teenage boys
and it meets their sexual desire.