TEXTUAL ANALSYSIS OF LADY GAGA'S MUSIC VIDEO "TELEPHONE"

Whilst analysing Lady GaGa's music video, I noted the way Andrew Godwin's conventions of a music video could be applied. For example, as soon as the music video beings there are notions of voyeurism as the audience view the prison through the security cameras, allowing them to begin to understand the narrative of the music video. Furthermore, voyeurism can be seen through the use of tracking shots and high angles which show the female sexual body parts, thus conforming to conventions of music videos as suggested by Andrew Godwin. 

Another convention that is found in the music video is that the artists style iconography is shown. For example the close ups of the prisoners staring back at Lady Gaga suggest that they think her style is 'odd'. This reflects the ridicule that Lady Gaga has to go through everyday for being 'different'. This is reinforced when the guard is stripping Lady Gaga of her odd clothing, which represents the 'haters' criticising Lady Gaga and trying to change her to be 'normal'. 
 Additionally, there are intertextual references. For example, shot reverse shot is used to show a conversation between guard when they say "I told you she didn't have a ****". This would remind the audience of when there were rumours that Lady Gaga was a transexual, and thus this conforms to Andrew Godwin's conventions of music videos. 

Moreover, as the music begins, the lyrics begin to match the visuals. This amplifies the lyrics and the meaning of the song, helping the audience narrate a story to the audience. The relationship between the lyrics and visuals can also be seen through the quick cuts on the beat in order for the artist's performance to be amplified, so that they can entertain the audience. Therefore, the narrative of the music video is mostly shown during the chorus, whereas the performance is mostly shown during the verse. 

Further intertextual references are used to make the audience believe they are watching a action film rather than a music video, which helps the director to manipulate the narrative of the music video. For example, the name of the car is "pussey wagons" which is what the car from Kill Bill is called. Therefore this reminds the audience that the characters in the music video are playing strong women, who are about to murder people, just like the actress in Kill Bill did. This intertextual reference is reinforced when Beyonce and Lady Gaga arrive at a diner, where they begin to murder people. This again reminds the audience of the action films 'Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction" and thus this suggests to the audience that they will blow the diner up like the characters did in this film. 

In conclusion, the "Telephone" music video represents the pop genre. We know this because it includes bright and vibrant colours which reflect the pop genre, thus  this also conforms to Andrew Godwin's music video convention of iconography. Therefore, iconography allows the audience to clearly identify the performance and narrative of the music video.