Analysing the use of costume in music videos.

LADYGAGA –G.U.Y.This is a short filmstyle music videomade in early 2014.The song is aboutfemale empowermentand strength and hasthe running theme offantasy and Greekgoddesses as well ascreativity.The song is fromGaGa’s newest album‘Art Pop.’

At the start of the video the first costume wesee GaGa in is an angel or fairy like costume.She is wearing a pair of battered wings, askin tight body suit that is painted dark redand an arrow coming through her chest. theuse of dull earthy reds and browns in hercostume as opposed to bright and vibrantcolours suggest that she is weak and indanger of losing her life. This is alsosuggested by the pale makeup used on herface. This idea is reinforced by the way sheacts – struggling with pain and weakness.The whole concept of the costume is backedup with the lyrics “we are subjects offantasy” which is exactly what she is seen asat the start of this video, a fantasy creaturesubject to abuse because she is different.The next costume we see her in is after shehas been pushed in the water and transformsinto a pure white costume covered in laceand white feathers. This costume is a hugecontrast to the last costume we sawpreviously. Now her costume connotespurity, innocence and godliness s. Theseideas are backed up again by the lyricsbecause the word “Venus” is mentionedfrequently at this point implying that her oldbody had died and transformed into a puregoddess.We can see already that GaGa likes to usecostumes to reflect meanings and lyrics asshe often does in her music videos. So theaudience almost expects these elaborateand conceptual costumes from her.

The previous ideas of GaGa being God like isrepresented further for the rest of the video throughthe use of costume.

In the next few shots we see Gaga in Pure white again,but it is worn in different ways, giving off slightlydifferent ideas.

First we see her standing by of a bush of white flowerswearing a long platinum white wig and a white latexleotard. Since this song is about female sexual power, Ithink this outfit is trying to represent purity andgodliness but at the same time sexuality and femininitythrough the use of the long hair, white flowers and theway the leotard hugs her body and covers so little ofher.

These ideas are represented in the following outfitsafter this one but more dramatically. Next she is seenwearing nothing at all, with only a strand of sky bluefabric winding around her body along with her long hairdoing the same. Again this draws a lot of attention toher womanly body however she isn’t sexualised in theseshots because she's represented more like a piece of artas she does not act in a suggestive manor.

After this we see her again dressed in white underwearin a white room on a podium. She is dressed similarly tothe first shot with the white rose bush however thistime she is wearing a lot less and is surrounded by backup dancers who are dressed similarly to her. In theseshots she is dancing a little more suggestively and issurrounded by red roses this time. With this she couldbe trying to show that the has a soft and innocent sideand an aggressive and passionate side because of thecolour and costume changes. These changes in hercharacter is also reflected in the music as the lyrics asthey get increasingly sexual at this point.

The sexual themes start to develop asGaga’s costumes start to follow the similarstyle of the previous costume – stillfollowing the godly theme however theoutfits are more sexual and suggestive.In the next few shots we see her stillwearing the long white wig, still connotingideas of femininity and purity, but as wellas this she is seen wearing a range ofdifferent outfits that hug her body andshow it off but elements of it still link tothe theme of the song. For example wesee her wearing gold Greek/Roman styleunderwear holding a gold bow and arrow.This costume sexualises her and shows offa lot of her body which relates to the songwhich is about her ideas about love andsex. But it also relates to Greek gods andmythology because of the style in whichthe costume is designed, implying thatshe is still god like.After these shots we see her approach the‘God’ theme in a different way throughthe use of her costume. This time shetakes a more futuristic and scientificapproach. She is seen wearing a longwhite lab coat style outfit and in othershots she is seen in in a transparent andsilver dress. These outfits both relate toher actions in these shots in which shebrings back famous people frim historyback to life, so the element of being pureand god like is still there but isapproached from a futuristic sciencerespect.

PARAMORE –PLAYING GODThis is a song from alternative rock bandParamore’s third studio album ‘BrandNew Eyes’. This song is about faith, beingblindly opinionated and pretending to besomeone you're not.

Although thecostumesfeatured in thisvideo are not aselaborate as inthe Lady GaGavideo, thecostumes in thevideo still reflectthe narrative ofthe video, thestyle of musicand messageswithin the songbut in a moresubtle way.The lead singer inthis video is theonly one seenwearing any kindof themedcostume. Thefirst one we seeher wearing is

this red and black dress with matching bow hair clip, fragmented tights, and bright pink wavy hair. This outfit is veryordinary and conservative looking and almost gives off the impression that she's innocent. This is ironic however as weonly see her wearing this outfit when she is in a dark room ripping photographs and plotting revenge. The red colour ofher dress connotes that she could be a dangerous person. This outfit goes with the more threatening and intimidatingparts of the lyrics such as “how can that be logical, just keep on cramming ideas down my throat.” because this outfitmakes her seem more aggressive.

The other costume we see the lead singer in is a greytea length sleeveless dress which is very conservativeand formal looking. Her hair has more of a controlledand formal curl to it this time too so she does nothave that childish look anymore however she still hasthat look of innocence and class.Again, ironically, we only see her in this outfit whenshe is around other people acting aggressive andconfrontational. Her appearance becomes somethingtotally opposite to her character – she looks quietand unsuspecting but she is actually aggressive anddangerous.After she poisons her fellow bandmates she puts onthese black and white glasses. By putting these onshe seems expressionless and uncaring almost as ifshe is using the glasses to blind herself from what shehas done so she cant see how bad it is. Interestinglythe glasses are black on one side and white on theother. I thing these glasses were chosen intentionallyto reflect her split personality in this video whichagain related to the idea that what she looks like andwho she is are two binary opposites. It also relates tothe lyrics “I’m on both sides of the fence” becauseshe leads a double life.

In contrast to the lead singer the other members of the band are seen wearing dark and dull colours thatdon’t really reflect their personality at all. The use of dark colours could be to foreshadow their bleakand dark future because they end up being poisoned. The clothes also look laid back and informal, astyle often seen by people in the rock music scene.

MYCHEMICALROMANCE –NA NA NAThis is a song from MCR’s 4th

studio album ‘Danger Days: TheTrue Lives Of The FabulousKilljoys’ and follows the themeof living in a comic book likeworld.

This video is about a group of people living infuturistic California that have teamed up againstthe major corporation ‘Bli’ that have takencontrol of the towns and cities. The storyline forthis video is continued over two videos and wasinspired by the lead singers original comic bookseries ‘Killjoys’.The style and storyline in this music videosheavily influences the costumes used. This timethe costumes are used for the only purpose ofgetting into character and creating a persona forthe band (something they do quite often in theirvideos)In the video the band members play the part of‘the good guys’ so they are seen wearingincredibly bright and lively colours which iscommon in comic books because the good guysare often the ones that are the brightest. It givesoff the impression that they are superherothrough the use of masks and customised outfitsthat match their hero names (eg. The lead singershero name is ‘party poison’ and his jacket has apill on the back and his masks make references topills and smoking through a pipe). Despite thisthey do not look like conventional super heroes.Their laid back, messy jacket and jeans stylesuggest they are more like rebellious outlawsthan heroes.

In contrast to the bright colours of the band members, the bad guys in the narrative are seen wearingdull and dark colours and long heavy jackets that make them seem powerful. The dark colours mayrepresent their dark personalities and intentions in the narrative.The character wearing the vampire masks are seen in black and white uniform that is very lean andclinical. This relates to the story in that the corporation is like an infection and it turns people into dronelike beings with no personality or individuality, hence the uniform style costume.