‘Girls’ by the 1975 was released on the 23rd of October 2013, 11 years after the band was created. The British Alternative rock band made it to number one with there debut album in September 2013; since which they have released another album. There track ‘Girls’ is a hybrid between performance and narrative; we expect to see rock bands using performance video’s but it is very rare to see them do videos with some narrative in. After the release of there song ‘sex’ before the release of ‘Girls’  the band decided to continue making music videos in colour; which wasn't conventional. A quote from matt Healy said “ When we released our last video 'Sex', people really reacted to the fact that it was in colour. There was a lot of conjecture and talk surrounding it - due to the fact that it was an unexpected stylistic change. It was brought to our attention that certain people thought we were 'conforming to a record company's wishes' along with other expected and unexpected clichés. Obviously this couldn't be further from the truth, we are lucky enough to be surrounded by a group of individuals whose mantra centres on facilitating our creative wishes, we found the whole idea of us being told what to do fascinating.”. The song is all about love and relationships and about how it isn't just girls which get hurt when things fall apart; but its also about how sometimes things can get hurtful within a relationship and it can affect both people.

 

The camerawork within the video is very conventional; there is a great use of Mid-shots and close ups which is expected in the rock genre. The establishing shot being a mid shot backs up the idea that the band want to be a rock band but they also want to be alternative. Its conventional to have shots of the band performing on the instruments to showcase there talent and to help represent them as organic. The close up shots throughout of the boys pulling at the string on the guitar and also the girls playing on the guitars could represent to us about what happens when you fall in love; people will have play with heart strings and cause pain to people.This idea could be backed up by the idea that whenever we see someone play with the guitar in a close up shot we will often see a close up of Matt looking tired, upset and fed up. Suggesting that the song may possibly be about boys getting hurt when it comes to love too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Within the video to there is also representations about the artists and genre through the use of Mise En Scene. The setting of the studio is extremely common within the pop indie and alternative rock genre, often plain backgrounds are used in the genre so there is no distraction from the performance of the artists and the audience is fully focused on the vocals and meaning of the song. The props which they use in this video also help represent there genre. Having the Guitars, speakers and amplifiers puts emphasis on the idea that they are a rock band which have heavy based lines and electric rock guitars. Lastly the costumes of the band member is very conventional to the rock genre; black leather jackets and heavily conventional to rock music with bands like the rolling stones wearing them too. Although being very conventional they also try and make it there own when it comes to the females costumes. The females at the beginning are very sexualised and are represented as ‘rock chicks’ with there black leather and red lipstick on; but towards the middle when we see them in there colourful bikini’s it goes against typical ideas of what a rock chick would wear. Then at the end of the clip they girls are back being represented conventionally with there leather coats and big hair and dark makeup.

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The representational theory of male gaze can be applied to this clip. The band themselves aren't classes within this but the women within the clip are undoubtedly, extremely sexualised. The girls are dressed in ‘rock chick’ outfits, lots of short shorts, heels, red lipstick and stockings sexualise the females. This is what men like to think and see women as;  when women are sexualised they are seen as objects not actual human people, this is what the male gaze theory is all about. The video doesn't really fall into any of the uses or gratification categories as such. It could be in personal identity because many boys could relate to getting there heart broken but the target audience for this video isn't based on teenage boys, its mainly based towards teenage girls; many teenage girls can’t relate to the emotions which boys feel when it comes to love therefore its not relatable for them.

 

To conclude I believe that the band in this video are represented as both organic and conventional. They have kept to many of the conventional idea of a rock video like costumes, camera angles and representation; but they have also been suggested to be a very organic brand with there own alternative ideas towards the rock genre.

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