Music Video Theorists

Andrew Goodwin’s Theory

Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
Genres often have their own music style/iconography (the typical depiction in images of a subject, and related sense.
Close-ups should always be included.
The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image (identify).
Voyeurism (the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviours, such as undressing, sexual activity usually considered to be of a private nature) is a common theme within music videos.
Intertextual references are also popular.
Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualized treatment of the star.

Steve Archer’s Theory

There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.
Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band.
A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

John Stewart’s Theory

The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with lots of close-ups and lighting being used to focus on the star’s face.
He sees visual reference in music video as coming from a range of sources, although the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.
Stewart’s description of the music video as ‘incorportating, raiding and reconstructing’ is essentially the essence of Intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meanings.
The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can. The mise-en-scene, in particular, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.

Sigmund Freud’s Theory

Refers to the notion that erotic pleasure may be gained by looking at a sexual object (preferably when the object is unaware of being watched).
Laura Mulvey’s Theory

Because filmmakers are predominantly male, the presence of women in films is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes).
The purpose of this displace is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which presumes a ‘male gaze’ one that is a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display, who is effectively objectified and passive.