Unit 1.1 Goodwin's Dancing In A Distraction Factory

Madonna, Material Girl (1985)

Music Videos Demonstrate Genre Characteristics

Material Girl is a song sang by American recording artist Madonna, which was released January 30, 1985 by Sire Records as the second single from her sophomore album Like a Virgin. The genre of Material Girl' by Madonna is pop and throughout the music video there are examples of this. One convention of the genre pop is dancing, and other pop music videos that show this are Womanizer by Britney Spears, Stupid Girls by Pink, Cry Me a River by Justin Timberlake and many more. This video consists of Madonna and a group of men, who are well dressed up, dancing to the the music. They dance from near the beginning of the music video till the end. Pop music tends to include the artist in their music videos, like Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson where the music video is only on her, Piece of Me by Britney Spears where she is also in a lot of cut scenes singing by herself and many more. In this video she is the only female in the video compared to the mass of men around her, making her the centre of attention. She is also the only person that is singing in the video. 

There Is A Relationship Between Lyrics And Visuals

This song is about Madonna being too 'expensive' for anyone. In this video men are trying to woo Madonna by giving her expensive gifts but she is saying that they are not worth her standard. Here are some of the lyrics:

“Some boys kiss me

Some boys hug me

I think they're OK

If they don't give me proper credit

Then I walk away”

“They can beg and

They can plead

But they can't see

The light

Cause the boy with the cold hard cash

Is always Mr. Right”

In this video she is ignoring and rejecting them. So there is an illustrative relationship between the music and visuals. There are also close up shots of her which shows her importance, and most of her movements seem to be degrading the men, to show that she is like a material girl, hence the name of the song Material Girl. 

Links Between Visuals And Music

In Material Girl there is a great relationship between visuals and music. The music in this video is very upbeat and rhythmic and the dancing is as equal. At the chorus part when the beat changes, so does there dance routine, in the latter part of the song when the chorus part comes up they walk down a step at a time, in time with the music and as every beat changes they do a different move, like they put their hands inside their blazer, then they open their blazer and then they lift Madonna up. When all the men get in a straight line behind Madonna they all open one part of their blazers one by one and go down the line, with a domino effect, all in sync with the music.

 

Intertextuality

In this video there is clear intertextuality, with the music video referring back to the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a musical comedy released in 1953 starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. The song Material Girls is referring back to the scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where Marilyn Monroe is singing “Diamonds are a girls best friend”. In that scene Monroe is wearing a long pink dress with diamonds around her neck, wrist and fingers. The men are wearing lavishing suits and are following Marilyn Monroe wherever she goes like an obedient dog. In Madonna's music video everything is replicated from the dancing routines to the costumes. Props, that were used in the scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, are also exactly the same in Madonna's music video. Like when the crowd of men brought out a cardboard cut out of love hearts and showed it at Marilyn Monroe, this is exactly what happened in Material Girl, men flashed out love hearts at Madonna and she rejected them. The background in Diamonds are a girls best friend is all red with a a couple of steps, just like Material Girls. The dance routine in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes consist of Marilyn Monroe generally being lifted and in Material Girls Madonna is generally swept off her feet.

The Demands Of The Record Label Will Include The Need For Lots Of Close Ups Of The Artist And The Artist May Develop Motifs Which Recur Across Their Work (A Visual Style).

In this video Madonna is the sole focus, this video is all about her as she is the artist. The director of the video makes this happen by having loads of different camera angles on her and close ups. One thing that the director done really well in selling the artist is by making her the only female in the whole video, so this video would really appeal to the male audience. In the video Madonna is wearing a long 'lustful' pink dress that make her stand out between her male dancers who are wearing dark suits. Madonna has also been made to look very extravagant with jewellery on her from head to toe. Madonna is also being lifted in a seductive manner around the scene by the male dancers. In the music video there is a scene where there are two lines of men behind her and one of them drapes a fur scarf over her neck. She then acts really seductively with it and the men, two by two, go across her shoulder and touch her. This really sells her face, her figure and her as an artist. This sexiness in songs has become her motif, throughout a lot of her music videos she has been acting flirtatious and that is a way everyone remembers her, they remember her for her tempting routines. 

 

There Is Frequently Reference To Notion Of Looking (Screens Within Screens, Telescopes, etc) And Particularly Voyeuristic Treatment Of The Female Body.

This music video, Material Girl, has voyeurism throughout the whole song. It ss meant to be a flirtatious video so Madonna's face can be cemented into everyone's head and her name would become a household one. In the video there is an example of screen within screens which is at the beginning, there are two males who are looking at a cinema screen with close-ups of Madonna in it and talking very highly of her. In this video a colour she mostly wears on her clothes is pink and pink is seen as a lustrous, seductive, enticing colour which really attracts the eyes of male audience, so there is voyeurism in her clothes. The routine in the video that they follow is a very 'touchy' act, in the video all the male dancers are picking her up in a sexy manner. In the video she is holding a fur scarf which she is caressing with her face and getting touched by men as they move across her shoulder, which shows a lot of voyeurism. At the end of the video Madonna kisses a man and gets intimate with him inside a car he rented, which is basically voyeurism in it self. There is also an over-the-shoulder shot at the beginning of the music video where the two men are watching Madonna on a cinema screen. A simple action like that supports the idea of looking and shows voyeurism.