15th December 2017= Michael Jackson

Zara Larsson
Robbi Williams
Coldplay

On August 1st, 1981, Music Television (MTV) was launched and although segregation legally ended in 1964, some 17 years before, MTV would only offer airplay to white rock artists.

Super Freak" was released about five months after MTV went on the air, and Rick James made a slick video for the song hoping it would get some spins on the network. At the time, however, MTV refused to play videos by black artists, and they rejected this clip, continuing to feed America a steady stream of rock and EuroPop. This refusal to play black music was a holdover from radio station programming, where conventional wisdom was that you would lose your white listeners if you played black music.

Superfreak Video

•Rick James video presented a hyper-sexualised black male who white women found attractive.

•Rick James’ subliminal media language of “the “Black Buck” was not suited to white white producers.

Black stereotypes

•black sidekick of a white protagonist (secondary role) – learners may independently research the meaning of the “foil” as a character role.

•the token black person,

•the comedic relief,

•the athlete,

•the over-sexed ladies’ man,

•the absentee father or,

•the violent black man as drug-dealing criminal and gangster thug. 

Stereotypes :Positive and negative stereotypes are often seen in contemporary British media.

–Musicians– jazz, hip-hop and soul

–Sportsmen and women

–Comedians

–Criminals

–Socially dysfunctional

–Prostitute/sexually promiscuous

–The stud/pimp

Michael Jackson

They wanted to make an album that would appeal to fans of all genres and prove so important that the press that would normally give a black man little coverage would be forced to pay attention to him.

Steven "Steve" Barron was the director of the music video. He ask produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Coneheads (1993)  a-ha's "Take on Me"

Took around 8 weeks to produce the music videos. 

He was seen as a heart throb and this could be down to his clothes, dancing and the close up shots of his face. 

Sexualisation within the music video includes the dancing movements but it is toned down so there isn't any strong sexualised things. Also the bed is sexualised because he is getting into bed with someone. 

The "foil' is the detective, he gets arrested at the end of the music video. This is the counter stereotype because stereotypically the black characters are the ones who are getting in trouble but in the music video, the white character was the one who got in trouble not the black character which is going against the stereotype of the time.

Another counter stereotype is that visually he looks different to what all of the other stars were wearing. He wears black leather which stereotypically is what the rough people wear but he isn't a bad rough character.

Discuss how Jackson’s video consolidates the representation of “talented musician/dancer”

He started all new famous dance moves such was the moon walk and going on the tip of his toes. He was the most famous artist of the time.