Postmodern Music Video Analysis - Jessie J - 'Who's Laughing Now'

Introduction

Postmodernism can be expressed through a wide variety of medias, one of which are music videos. In this case with many other outlets of postmodernism, it is not always clear which are and which are not postmodern. This is because there is no real consensus of to what postmodernism actually means. Therefore any postmodern labels attached to a text are merely a reflection of personal choice.

One example of a music video that I believe is postmodern and has been influenced by the subject such as ‘Who’s Laughing Now’ by Jessie J.

The techniques of postmodernism:

Postmodernism can be expressed by visuals via the presence of postmodern techniques. These include:

Parody

Playfullness

Pastiche

Intertextuality

Eclectism

Hyper consciousness

Narcissism

But how can this video seen as to be postmodern?

Hyper conscience – 

In this video we can clearly see that the singer is play multiple, highly stereotypical characters as well as herself. This demonstrates hyper consciences as it reminds the viewer that what they are watching is not real.
Narcissism –

Furthermore the presence of these characters may also show narcissism, as they appear to over exaggerate their self image.




Intertextual references – 

This shows what seems to be an intertextual reference to the film ‘Mean Girls’. This is mainly because of the choice of pink clothes and the way they are presented.

Hyper-reality-

The video appears to continually cut from Jessie as a school girl to Jessie grown up. This depicts postmodernism as no distinction is made between them, by this I mean how the progression of time is conventional depicted with some kind of effect. The lack of this effect confused the audience and makes them question which part of the video is in real time. In other words, is the young Jessie a flashback or is it the grown up Jessie a product of the young Jessie’s imagination. This in turn creates postmodern irony because one of what we are watching is actually real.

Playfullness - 

This themes is relevant throughout the video and because of this, many funny and unusual situations have been created, such as the following images...

In addition, this scene may also be a reference to the media and celebrity status – possibly stemming from the idea of a media dominated society. Furthermore, the idea of celebrity status is also a grand narrative. However if this is correct it also signifies postmodern irony as Jessie is a celebrity herself. 

Parody - 

If you look closely many sources of parody images. For example the video parodies the school. This is done by over stereotyping it and the staff. It also parodies bullies by spraying them with foam.

However, this video can also be seen as not postmodern:

Bricologue: this video does not appear to borrow from any other form of media

Pastiche: the video does not openly previous examples

Intertextuality: there isn’t any many intertextual references as you would expect from postmodern text

Breaking down the fourth wall: there is a break down of the fourth wall but this is more conventional of music videos generally.