Music Video Analysis - Michael Jackson - 'Billie Jean'

Genre characteristics

This is a pop/R’n’B styled music video, and seems to follow those characteristics but with a large basis on a narrative and features showmanship mixed in along with Jackson’s own flair, known as his ‘Star Image’.

Pop and R’n’B music always has an upbeat tempo that’s catchy and makes you feel as if you should dance along with it. This is something that ‘Billie Jean’ had with it’s continuous beat throughout and the tempo.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

Jackson doesn’t use a lot of lyrical mimics in

his music videos, using subtle ones rather than them being big and obvious. The image that’s included with this section is during the dancing scene where the songs’ lyric is “round”.

The lyrics are more loosely mimicked through references rather than actually visually replicating them. In the second image the lyrics are talking about him nor being the baby’s father, which is what he’d been accused of in real life. Whilst there’s someone walking behind him either by the look of it to plant something onto him, arrest him or attack him. It is not clear which by just watching the video though we later find out that this character is part of the paparazzi. 

A strong link between the music and visuals is obvious when you’re watching the music video. In the scene with the steps lighting up when he stands on them the steps are in time with the beat of the music at the time. Another moment then this is particularly obvious is in the beginning when Jackson is dancing, all of his steps and moves are in time with the music and never seem to be out of the beat. 

Close ups of the artist and star image motifs

This music video has a lot of moments of showing Jackson as a star. He’s shown literally turning everything he touches into ‘gold’, e.g. The Tiger and The Homeless Man into wearing a suit. The image shown with this section is aimed to illustrate his star qualities of being able to do very difficult dance moves that have eventually been recognised to be one his ‘signature’ moves.

References to the notion of looking/voyeuristic qualities

One of the main scenes that particularly show the motion of looking is when the camera is the window is taking a shot of the man sneaking up behind Jackson and the Polaroid prints out showing just the man and the pole with Jackson missing.

Michael Jackson is demonstrated in a voyeuristic way quite a lot with the dance moves, including a lot of pelvic motions and him posing in front of the camera flipping his leather jacket and matching jeans.

This video is based largely on narrative; the paparazzi following Jackson trying to get a shot of him getting into bed with a woman to prove that he is having a relationship with her.