Analysing a music video- ‘California Gurls’- Katy Perry

By Nicole Oliver

LYRICS‘California girls, were unforgettableDaisy dukes, bikinis on top,Sun- kissed skin, so hot we’ll melt your popsicle’

The lyrics for this song and the title show that Katy Perry is singing about California, and gives the impression that all girls from this state are what people would see as an ideal woman, what men would see as attractive. Some lyrics from this song are sexual and it uses a lot of sexual innuendos, and from this you can tell that this song targets teenagers and young adults. This song features snoop dog, a well known hip- hop artist, his lyrics from this song are also sexual, here are a few examples of this:

‘kiss her, touch her, squeeze her buns’ ‘all that ass hangin’ out’

MUSIC

This song is a pop song, the conventions of a pop song is that the music is normally upbeat and portrays a happy image, this videos matches with this due to the bright colours and the dancing contained in this video and the beat to go along with it. The lively atmosphere makes the video enjoyable to watch and appealing to the target audience.

GENRE/ MISE EN SCENE

As a pop video, this video involves a lot of dancing and movement. It also involves the artist and the extras in this music video to wear revealing outfits, this video also involves some nude scenes of Katy Perry on a cloud, this shows the video has a sex appeal that its target audience are looking for. The video was influenced by the films ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ and ‘Alice in wonderland’ as the video is very unrealistic due to the whole setting being made out of sweets and chocolate and other edible things that most people would find appetising e.g. the candy floss clouds. The video is very creative and imaginative due to this. The dances performed in this video also follows men’s sexual desire when Katy Perry is seen squirting cream from cans attached to her bra.

CAMERAWORK

This video has many close up shots of Katy Perry showing the audience how good she looks which appeals to them. There is a camera shot of her laying on a cloud without any clothes on, which gives the audience a false idea that that is what all California girls are like. Voyeurism is used here as this image is the type that men would appreciate and enjoy to see. There are also shots used frequently such as mid- shots, and wide shots.

EDITING

This video has a lot of editing in it, mainly to do with the animation as they would have to make the video look real, as the artist chose to use a fantasy like theme for the video. The setting is very dream like and surreal. This includes animated objects such as ginger bread men and gummy bears that come to life. At the beginning Katy Perry is seen as an inanimate object which is also produced in editing.

NARRATIVE/ PERFORMANCE

There is not really a story behind this music video, it involves a very dream- like atmosphere. At the start of this video Snoop Dogg is seen playing a board game which is shown as him to be the controller of the rest of the video and Katy Perry’s actions. This come across to the audience as women are seen as objects and that they can be taken control of by men.

VOYEURISM/ LOOKING

A lot of voyeurism is used in this video, for example the naked scenes of Katy Perry on a cloud, the artist and dancers are seen in outfits which could be seen as attractive as it exposes their bodies. the voyeurism used makes this music video appealing to men and teenage boys and it meets their sexual desire.