Judas By Lady Gaga Music Video Analysis - PowerPoint Presentation

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Judas

By Lady Gaga

Music Video Analysis

context

The music video for Judas was filmed on April 2–3, 2011, and was directed by Lady Gaga and her choreographer,

Laurieann

Gibson. After its release to the digital outlets and radio, Billboard theorized that "Judas" would need to sell between 350,000 and 400,000 copies in two and a half days, and make a large number of radio listener impressions through the end of the airplay tracking period on April 19, 2011, in order to debut at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The song debuted at number 30 on the 

Billboard

 Pop Songs chart with 1,405 detections on 118 of the Pop Songs panel's 132 reporting stations, translating to an opening audience of 13.6 million. The song now has over 287 million views on YouTube.

Video characteristics

"Judas" is shot in a chronological order but with a conventional pop video feel with the dance scenes slotted in where appropriate. It has quite a fast tempo with a strong beat in it. This beat is kept to throughout the whole song. The beat is emphasized through the use of dance moves and actions being performed on it as well. There isn't really any moments when there's instrumental solos, but at one point the music stops all together to emphasize an important part in the narrative of the video. Judas is a pop song, whereas most pop song music videos take up a performance or narrative base, Judas uses elements from narrative, performance and concept videos which makes it stand out.

Narrative

The video opens with a motorcycle gang cruising down a freeway, wearing studded leather jackets. The motorcycle gang are the Twelve Apostles who followed Jesus, including Judas. Lady Gaga as Mary Magdalene clutches onto a Jesus-like figure (

Rick Gonzalez

) who wears a golden crown of thorns. This section of the video is without the song and introduces the narrative. The song starts with the gangs arrival at a bar, at this point the performance element of the video starts, as would be expected from a pop video. Judas enters the bar and becomes involved with a barroom brawl. Gaga tries to warn Jesus about his impending portal but gets distracted. The storyline is interspersed with choreographed dance sequences and close-ups of Gaga, Gaga is singing to the music.

narrative

After the second chorus, in a climatic sequence, the singer holds a gun up to Judas' mouth, and a stick of red lipstick bursts out and smears his lips. The scene portrays

Gaga's

choice to refuse to shoot Judas through the heart. As the breakdown ends, the music stops and Gaga is seen in a bathtub with Jesus and Judas, washing their feet and cleaning it with her hair. The sequence is interspersed with Gaga standing lonely on a rock as waves engulf her, the scene being reminiscent of artist Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venusand

, and Jesus marching towards his demise. The video ends with the death of neither Judas nor Jesus, but of Gaga as she's stoned to death by a crowd.

Concept

A controversial theme was deliberately used to create a popular video. The theme of the song and the video is strongly religious and this is enforced throughout the video through lyrics and visuals. There is a presents of religious connotations visible throughout: Jesus and his twelve disciples, a crown of thorns, the Crucifixion of Christ, baptizing, sinning and the singer being stoned to death. The religious concept can also be seen in the costumes, a red bandana, blue leather top and puffy white dress is worn by Lady Gaga in different parts of the video. The blue top worn by Gaga displays the ‘Sacred Heart’, a depiction of what Jesus is said to have revealed as a symbol of his love for humanity. The outcome of the concepts in the video is that even though one might seek for redemption it isn't always given, which is shown through her getting stoned (presumably for adulatory) at the end.

The male and female gaze

The main character, Lady Gaga, is shown as being a sexual object throughout this video with the revealing outfits showing a lot of skin and her being the only female in a large group of males. Voyeurism on this level is not surprising considering it is a convention of pop videos and the artist is known for her sexual innuendos in her music. Many of the dancing scenes involve revealing costumes and provocative dance moves that are designed to draw the attention of a male heterosexual audience. The female gaze is present but to a far less extent, as many of the backup dances have semi revealing clothing and are coping the dancing, it could be said that in the video the presents of the female gaze is caused by the presents of the male gaze.

Relationship between lyrics, music and visuals

During the second verses, Gaga points towards Peter during the line "Build a house", and towards herself during "Or sink a dead body". This is an example of the subtle connection that the video uses between the visuals and the lyrics, this is significant as it relates with the narrative and the performance aspect of the video. The video does not use any connections to a particularly noticeable degree and seems to favour having small and seemingly insignificant references from the song. This could be because this would push the video towards being a performance based one, whereas the choreographer and singer, who directed it, wanted to make a video with specific conceptual references, particularly towards Christianity.

Due to the performance side of the video, there is a strong correlation between the music and the visuals, evident most noticeably with the main character singing to the music. In addition, dance moves are predominant during chorus’ and the moves them self correspond with the beat of the music.

colour

The use of colour in the opening is effective as all but the main character, played by Lady Gaga, is desaturated; this draws the audiences attention to her and makes the motor bikers look more ‘thuggish’. It also puts more significance on the colours she is wearing, as an absents of white suggests an absents of purity, and considering the ending, this has elements of foreshadowing. However, as the song starts the desaturation leaves and we gain rich colour, particularly reds but this depends on the sections of the videos. Other scenes, like the sea scene that references Sandro Botticelli's 

The Birth of

Venusand, use cold blue colours to represent a development from the start, similar to the development in the narrative.

conclusion

Overall the video uses a balanced mix of narrative, performance and concept elements to make up the pop video, the incorporation of all three contrasts it from the other two videos I have studied. The video follows many conventions of the pop genre, most noticeably in the female and male gazes which are a large part of the video throughout, although this could be a response to the rebellious nature of the concepts the video brings up. The video has a strong correlation between the visuals and the music, this is a convention of a performance video as having the main character sing to the music is incredibly popular; as is the correlation between visuals and lyrics, though this is to a lesser extent in this music video.

I am unlikely to incorporate all three of Mulvey’s types of music videos in my own, as this would call for a very specific song and would need a strong justification. However, individual elements in this music video would be helpful when planning mine.