The song i am analysing is Stupid Girls by P!nk which was released as the first single from her 2006 album, I'm Not Dead. The video was directed by Dave Meyers and the song was produced by Billy Mann and MachoPsycho. P!nk generally falls under the genre of Pop Rock and her songs are usually upbeat with catchy lyrics.
The video shows P!ink as an angel and a demon on either side of a young girl, both are trying to influence her future. The demon tries to tempt the girl with typical girly stuff but then the angel appears giving examples of 'stupid girls' shown through current trends in female celebrity. Good role models are also shown e.g. a female president, a girl on the soccer team. The video ends with the young girl defeating the demons ways and choosing to follow the lifestyle that the angel showed her. P!nk has made the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics clear, e.g. 'What happened to the dreams of a girl president, she's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent' -the visuals to this is a female president asking questions, then cuts to the girl dancing with 50 Cent. 'Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?'- the visuals to this is the female president asking where the smart people have gone, this then cuts to the girl in the tanning machine. 'Outcasts, girls with ambition, thats what i wanna see'- cuts to a girl winning a football game and the female president. 'I don't wanna be a stupid girl' -cuts to the girl making herself sick to get skinny. The angel P!nk is showing examples of positive role models that young girls should look up to. By showing these independent women she is encouraging the female audience to be more like them and not follow the 'stupid girls'.
The video shows P!ink as an angel and a demon on either side of a young girl, both are trying to influence her future. The demon tries to tempt the girl with typical girly stuff but then the angel appears giving examples of 'stupid girls' shown through current trends in female celebrity. Good role models are also shown e.g. a female president, a girl on the soccer team. The video ends with the young girl defeating the demons ways and choosing to follow the lifestyle that the angel showed her. P!nk has made the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics clear, e.g. 'What happened to the dreams of a girl president, she's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent' -the visuals to this is a female president asking questions, then cuts to the girl dancing with 50 Cent. 'Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?'- the visuals to this is the female president asking where the smart people have gone, this then cuts to the girl in the tanning machine. 'Outcasts, girls with ambition, thats what i wanna see'- cuts to a girl winning a football game and the female president. 'I don't wanna be a stupid girl' -cuts to the girl making herself sick to get skinny. The angel P!nk is showing examples of positive role models that young girls should look up to. By showing these independent women she is encouraging the female audience to be more like them and not follow the 'stupid girls'.
'Baby if i act like that. That guy will call me back.' -Shows images of the boy next to P!nk losing interest in her because of another girl with bigger breasts at the bowling alley. 'Push up my bra like that'- P!nk pulls an emergency tag next to her bra to make her breasts large. This signifies that having big breasts will get a boys attention. “I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in. That’ll never be me” -The angel is telling the young girl that it is better to stand out and not be like these 'stupid girls' that she has shown her. This then cuts to images of stand out females who are represented as good role models in the video. P!nk is trying to set an example to her audience by showing these role models, she is telling them to be different and stand out from the 'stupid girls'.“Stupid girl, Stupid girl, Stupid girl…” -as the words are sung repeatedly, the visuals show images of various 'stupid girls'. The very last 'stupid girl' shown is a fake looking old blonde dressed in pink. This suggests that if you follow all the trends of the 'stupid girls' you will end up looking like this old woman.
The video is narrative based and concept based. Pink portrays the lyrics being sung in the video through the different characters featured. By using the lyrics to create the image this produces a narrative based video. A story is told to the audience throughout the video. It is also concept based as there is a message being told to the audience about 'stupid girls' and how it is not good to follow their ways. It also tells us to follow our own dreams and not to follow the trends of others.
The video cuts to the beat of the song. The beginning of the song starts with the words 'stupid girl' where the angel appears singing them on one side of the little girl, as the words are repeated this then cuts to the devil singing them on the other side of the girl, and then back to the angel. The scene and characters change according to the beat of the song.
A start image motif used in previous P!nk videos is her nose ring which she wears with all of her costumes in this video. Also her loud and outspoken attitude, bright blonde hair and sense of humour. Her main star motif originally is hair her short hair but this does not show in the video as her image changes with each character she plays throughout the video.
Executives at P!nk's label (Zomba Music Group) were reluctant to release the song. They decided to release the video before issuing the song to radio, this was to get people and radio stations to go online to download the audio from the video to hear the song. P!nks music videos usually have a story behind them with excitement. 'Stupid Girls' and 'Family Portrait' are both concept based videos with an important message.
A reference to the notion of looking would be through the costume of the girl at the bowling alley who distracts the man next to P!nk. Her top reveals a lot of cleavage revealing a great deal of her chest, this allows us to look at her in a sexual way, and she is therefore on sexual display. Another reference to the notion of looking is the scene of P!nk mimicking Paris Hiltons sex tape in the form of a video camera recording. Here, P!nk is portraying 'stupid girl' characteristics.
P!nk uses many intertextual references in this video. The first is Mary-Kate Olsen dressed in boho chic style walking into Fred Segal clothing store. Another is Lindsay Lohan driving whilst accidently hitting pedestrians as she is too focused on her image. The scene in which Pink washes a car in a bikini is a parody of similar scenes in the video for Jessica Simpson video 'These boots were made for walkin''. She has another parody of Gwen Stefani with similar scenes to her music video with Pharell. The man portraying 50 Cent she is dancing next to is 50 Cents cousin. The digital video shots showing P!nk in bed with a man parallel those in the Paris Hilton sex tape 'Night with Paris'. Towards the end in the video, a middle-aged woman with leathery skin appears next to a hot pink Honda S2000, which is the exact same car driven by Devon Aoki in the film 2 Fast 2 Furious. These celebrities are what P!nk must feel are not good role models for young girls and are used as the 'stupid girls' in the video.
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