Textual analysis on music videos- "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga

As we are intending to plan and create a music video, we have decided as a group to analyse 3 different videos individually of different genres. This is so that we can get a better idea of what to include in our music video, and possibly think about adding a narrative theme towards it.

Emma has chosen 'Bad Romance' by Lady GaGa for her music video as she believes that this artist is very unique and individual from any other seen in the music industry. Her wacky, yet creative fashion sense is seen quite popular at the moment as it is giving the impression to viewers that she doesn't care about what she looks like.

Genre Characteristics:

• Pop video-Loads of dancing/Background dancing
• Fashion and image is important
• Lots of girly dancing for men

Relationship between lyrics and visuals:

• Warped up love between her and the mysterious man (the one she kills at the end)
• Quotes from lyrics-"I want your ugly,I want your disease" "I want your leather covered kiss in the sand,I want your love"-suggests that she is portraying her feelings towards the man.

What is the relationship between music and visuals:

• Earphones she wears in the bath
• Mp3 Box

Are there any close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?:

• Lady GaGa always wears mad outrageous clothes
• Unusual Videos
• She kills the man at the end-Explicit, controversial/cliff hanger
• Emphasis of fashion
• A lot of dancing

Is there any notion of looking?:

• Close-up on: face,boobs, naked body (centre of the video)
• Close up on a number of fashion costumes she wears
• Look through legs and crawling on the floor
• We can see through various different types of things such as, coffins,bath,mirror,computer and shower to get the viewers engaged

Are there intertextual references?:

• Fashion house "Haus of GaGa"
• Strange references: coffins, fire surrounding the bed-could suggest power or revenge.
• Animal references:cat,bear,deer etc
• A clip of Lady GaGa in close-up singing towards the camera-similar to Christina Aguilera's song, "Beautiful".

Is it performance,narrative or concept based?:

• A bit of performance based, a bit narrative based
• And also a little bit of concept based-random clips of her in the shower