This video from Arctic Monkeys is a performance video. The song and video is based around prostitution in Sheffield (this is also where the band are from) and a man that is implied as either the prostitutes pimp or client and throughout the song is described as a "scummy" man. The first image of the video is a woman who turns out to be the prostitute. This first image is from the start of the music video and we can tell that she is from a urban, poor area from the background having a tower block in it. I think that the tower block going around her is making it seem like she is caged in as it goes all the way around her in the shot. The woman is seen at a mid shot so you can see the expression on her face this is a sad and depressed one and we can also see her clothing in the shot, she is in a hoody and jacket which is the stereotypical clothing of someone who lives in a council estate area. My first impressions of this woman are that she is relatively poor and very unhappy. As the video plays, our impression of the woman doesn't change as she stands on the estate and smokes a cigarette until the image of her leaning in a car window and standing on street corners our impression turns to more sympathy towards the woman for the condition of her life. In the video, the women is seen walking down a spiral staircase. This could be showing us where her life is heading: in a downward spiral. The "scummy" man either her pimp or client increases this feeling of pity for the girl as he seems controlling as he cuts and places food on her plate almost as if she were a child and abusive as he picks her up and carries her as she struggles to escape, his grasp, pulls her around by her hand and whilst in the back of a car he licks her face and manhandles her. Despite this the video portrays she puts up with this abuse because he in a way looks after her by supplying her food and warmth and at one point is shown to be placing extra layers on her to keep her warm.
The video also shows the lack of glamour in the girls life as when she tries to become a magicians assistant which is normally a glamorous job the man gets jealous and beats him up and forced her to slap and punch the magician showing she is trapped being a prostitute and trapped being with this man who abuses her. The atmosphere of sadness and depression is exaggerated through the weather as well. It is shown as cold, wet and a winter environment making the situation for the prostitute a lot worse.
The reason why we did notes and looked over this music video in class is because it is a good music video for the genre that it is in. We did this also to get used to doing textual analysis' on different music videos and this will help us and ultimately myself in doing good deep textual analysis' on a variety of different music videos from all different genres.
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