CRITICAL REFLECTION
How do your products represent social groups or issues?
Representations of social groups and gender have changed considerably over years, although there are still many uses of stereotypes in most of the media texts we as part of the audience, consume in a day to day basis. The use of stereotypes in media texts becomes part of the way in which we perceive certain aspects of the life around us, it shapes the reality to be viewed from the same perspective. This is why challenging the representations imposed by the media nowadays is so important. Given that there isn’t one way of viewing something, everyone is entitled to having their own opinions and to not be forced upon acting in a certain way because of certain representations or because of how people expect you to act. This is why in my music video I challenge the traditional stereotypes of woman's, my SINGER AURORA is an independent young woman who is 18 years old, She is entitled and independent, she is a young female who runaway yet explores alone in Egypt, this immediately breakers some of the representations young teens have now a days, given that the stereotypes imposed in teens is to be in need of care of parents, disrespectful and who are expected to party. These stereotypes lead to real life problems by making teens believe that because their idealised TV stars normalises the actions they have, however wrong they may be, then justifies the actions, copied by the fans. Also the fact that AURORA goes alone to a country who sadly nowadays still has some laws and legislation's in which women are not as free as in other countries. Egypt is still a hard county to be in as I was filming. I saw some of the things that were heartbreaking, there is still a lot of poverty and sadly it’s stated that Egypt is a patriarchal county. Which makes the fact that Aurora who is presented as a strong female character who is also of another ethnic group making her stand out even more, she is kind of presented as the superhero in the video, but the question could be who is going to save the superhero.
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How do your products engage with the audience?
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Aurora in some cases goes from not looking at the camera at all to having a long conversation with her, as if she were expressing her feeling or telling a story to an old friend this again by demonstrating or portraying a scene of familiarity and closeness with the audience and this scene of highlighting the beauty of a natural image without it being severely edited or without it having to reach the unrealistic standards of perfection imposed by the media and instead bringing the beauty of a naturality. THIS SONG and music video is meant to wake up the eyes of people, by showing the truth in the images, true visors are not edited, and Aurora has no make up, it shows point of view shots and sloppy camera holding at times by handheld, but the question is, is it done on purpose to fulfil the naturality the reality. ‘Runaway ‘ is not built on stereotypes and more likely I believe challenges them. <in addition I must say that some scenes in the video involves shots with a crowd as background given that it was impossible for me to film in a public space without capturing some of the people on camera so as they say if you can’t work against your enemy work with it, so I introduced or indulged the crowd as part of auroras music video culture that part was something improvised and that I didn’t realise until it was to late. Although I realised that this small detail helped the video reach the objective by creating the desired impresión of nature. The music video presents a kind of life that many may aspire, intertextual reference to the outer banks like Netflix series, the life almost every teenager desires. Or at least some people that after being so stuck now desire to go out and face the world and threat they will face many challenges and will want to go home.
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