Feminism in our Music Video

Yoli and I agreed that we wanted to create a piece for girls to look up to. Last year, when creating our short film opening, we conformed to 'Final Girl Theory', to show young girls everywhere that they are capable of being the hero. 

 This year, we believe we have represented feminism in our music video in different ways. 

First of all, what is feminism? 
 Feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes" according to Google's dictionary. To me, this means gender equality - though feminine is in the name, and women are featured in the definition, it's about both men and women being treated the same. 

A huge problem in media is the sexualisation of women, recognised by Laura Mulvey as the "Male Gaze", though commonly referred now only as to "Gaze Theory", as in contemporary media, it's common for the sexualisation of men to be seen as well. Yoli and I wanted to represent something pure - yes, passionate, but innocent too. With the risk of falling into the trap of the "Virgin/Whore dichotomy", Yoli and I had to be incredibly careful when designing our artist, making her relatable and an icon. In the end, the pair are just kids - why as directors, we have to worry about the sexualisation of our cast shows how ridiculous representation in contemporary media has become. 
 In order to 'purify' our characters, we made sure they wore and were surrounded by bright colours (representing childhood), were covered up in terms of costume (no thighs or cleavage on show), and limited affection shown on screen - the subtleness adding to the atmosphere of a childhood crush, and making the whole relationship appear modest. 
 The costume designing of our cast wasn't simply built to destruct sexualisation of our characters, but also to break stigma around gender expectations. Angela McRobbie identified particular traits were shown in men, and often opposite traits to be shown in women. For example, men would be considered angry, where women are considered caring. Women shown as emotional, whereas men are expected not to cry. Men may be seen as bosses, whereas women are shown to be mothers. The feminist movement, in recent years, has made efforts to emphasise how important it is for men to talk about their physical and mental health. In order to aid and represent this campaign within youth, Yoli and I tried to entwine characteristics of it to be analysed within our media product. We tried to portray Arthur in a soft light, having him wear colours such as orange and pink not only to show him as angelic, but as gentle - a characteristic not often listed as masculine. 

 Additionally, Yoli and I tried to avoid conforming to Propp's character theory. He believes you need particular characters in order to move the narrative along - I suppose if you were to assign characters to our music video, you may choose 'Hero' (Arthur) and 'Princess' (Robyn). However, although Arthur may appear to 'save' Robyn, he is actually the cause of her distraction. We tried to portray Robyn being in love, but not going out of her way to 'earn' Arthur's affection. Instead, we chose to portray the pair as equals, shown excellently in the transition where the childhood couple are running in the field and Robyn is leading, to the present day couple, running across the bridge with Arthur leading. We used eye-level shots for the both of them, as both hold a vulnerability and both are relatable to the audience.