Applying Music Video Theory : Little Mix 'Shout Out To My Ex'

           


The music video to 'Shout Out To My Ex' by Little Mix is focusing primarily om empowering the vocalists: mainly through the use of mise-en-scene and carefully chosen camera shots. In terms of costume, although the clothes they're are wearing are quite revealing, the girls are not objectified and portrayed as something male audience can gaze upon, being aware of their own sexuality and attractiveness; using it to empower themselves.

The empowering role of their own sexuality can be seen many times throughout the video - Carlsson's idea of commercial exhibitionism can be easily applied to this particular example. The girls are selling themselves as powerful and confident, each one of them being different from the other (adhering to Goodwin's 'demands of the record label'), thus appealing to a broad range of people from all sorts of different backgrounds, whether it be body size, race or regional identity . The band's main target audience is teenage girls and thanks to the diversity between the members, many girls will find it easier to emphatise with the band. The sexuality throughout the whole video is not particularily vulgar (except for maybe the first verse), even despite the little clothing in certain shots, and the video could easily be interpreted as one to help young girls feel confident and empowered.

His idea of binary opposition is also present in the video and only highlights the emphasis on empowerment of females: when the girls are driving past a hitchhiker (who looks oddly like discount Zayn Malik, Perrie's ex-boyfriend at the time when this song came out) and live him alone in the desert; they're in a positon of power, he's hopeless without them.

Railton's theory comes into play when talking about the representation of certain ethnicities within the music video; she said that black girls are usually portrayed as more sinful and promiscuous whilst white girls are usually considered more innocent. This music video disproves her point: in the first few shots, Leigh-Anne is the most covered up member of the band whilst Perrie appears to be making the most sexual references (the line 'I hope she's getting better sex' and the sexual gestures towards the camera); although that could be argued, since later on in the video she is wearing the most revealing bikini (however that's rather appropriate in the pool party scenario).

Goodwin's theory can be called upon regarding many aspects of this production; firstly the aforementioned demands of the record label. Secondly, the connection between the music and the visuals (also mentioned by Keazor and Wubenna) - there is frequent cutting to the beat, especially in the opening bit of the video. His policy of connecting visuals to the lyrics also occurs on a regular basis: usually, the visuals are amplifying the empowering lyrics (such as Perrie wiping away non existent tears on the "that hurt me, I'll admit" line), however the illustrating aspect can also be seen in the video (such as when Jade shoots a gun with a flag of the sung lyrics "over it"). A very subtle intertextual reference to 1991 'Thelma and Louise' could also be inferred from the video: the girls are driving a similar car, using a Polaroid camera and they're having a 'girls only' road trip.

When it comes to camera shots, there's a large emphasis on close ups of individual members of the group and long/mid shots of the group as a whole. Each girl is marketed and shown as a separate human being, adhering to the aforementiond element of Goodwin's theory. The video has multiple references to the notion of looking, with the girls making frequent eye contact with the camera while lip syncing, but very little shots following the principle of the male gaze: the girls sexualise themselves rather than the camera sexualising them.

There are also frequent shots of the girls playing together/taking selfies/enjoying themselves, which adheres to Railton's idea of a pseudo-documentary: the whole video is mostly staged, with girls dancing and lip syncing to the camera, but those little snippets of footage make the whole experience of watching more interesting and let the target audience relate more to their idols.

In terms of editing, the video follows the usual conventions. Both Vernallis and Kaplan mention that a music video may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing (with Kaplan saying music videos, although being visual mediums, are different to normal films in a sense that the editing in films is usually seamless whereas it's made to look noticeable in a music video); in this one, there are constant cuts between girls, actions and scenes in montage-like style (althougb still remaining in rather chronological order).

This video is also following the main conventions pointed out by Keazor and Wubenna: there is synchronisation of the music to the beat (also mentioned by Goodwin), a very high frequency of cuts, varying from extremely long shots of the girls driving in a car to close ups of their individual face. There is also the use of visual effects, such as colour correction (the trees on the road trip are definitely not purple in real life) and frequent occurence of slow motion, which emphasises the tone of the video.