Video Analysis Comments

Henry’s blog comment

 

I liked your analysis, I think it important that when we analyze these songs we get passed our bias of "this song is really annoying an pointless" and get to what the artists try to say.  I'd like to take your analysis a bit further and ask when she says "what you know bout me ..." that does imply that in the popular crowd they don't care about "her" as a person, my question is "Does she mind? does she care that people don't really know her? does this outweigh the joy of popularity?"

 

Rachel’s blog comment

 

Very short and concise, a good and simple interpretation, much like the video, very simple and concise.  I think your point in the end about costume changes and room changes isn't an artistic decision but a technological set back.  Keeping in mind this video is from the 70s their options in terms of visual effects are limited

 

Katherine’s blog comment

 

In the beginning you said that Lil' Mama wants to be popular so people will "hate" her out of jealousy, this is interesting because she's promoting  popularity with the prospect of jealousy, implying that no one can admire someone anymore, we live in such a self centered society that we can't have admiration for someone, we have to be jealous

Music Video Response

"Good Life" by Kanye West Featuring T. Pain

1- The basic idea of this video is that Kanye lives a good life, which he defines as owning material possetions and having sex

2-one main contradicting idea I see is when he says "the best things in life are free" when at the same he throws specks that turn into diamonds, which obviously aren't free.  Kanye is trying to visually express the importance of material items, throughout the video he's seen with expensive cars and money.  He's also seen with a woman who wears very little clothing implying that sex also defines a good life.

3-In the chorus Kanye says "I got for mine, I got to shine" which implies that fame is important, hence the "i got to shine" which refers to shining like a star.  The video which was done in a sort of marker/paint style expresses that this is a dream, much like a kid would draw out their dreams, and what he dreams of to have a good life is expensive cars, women, money and other expensive things

4-This video seems to build off of the common idea of Money+stuff+fame+women=happiness that we have in America, on his list of things that define the good life he doesn't have family, friendship or any sort of "free" source of happiness.  Kanye and by extension pop-culture defines happiness as status and the person who shows status in the best ways ie: things like solid gold cars and other ridiculous things, is the best and lives the better life.     

Is meaning Subjective?

                                                  

When I asked people what in their lives were meaningful, most people said that almost everything in their lives were meaningful.  My sources Granit, and Joe both said that everything in life is meaningful; this leads me to extend their point that you can potentially learn from any situation or make anything a meaningful experience.

On the other hand my brother Guido said that “anything you don’t learn from or don’t enjoy [is meaningless]” this adds the factor of enjoyment into the equation, he believes that something you enjoy gives your life meaning, he implies that meaning doesn’t always always come from self-improvement, he states that on some scale the person has to enjoy themselves to have meaning in their lives.  He also brings up the point that some things are meaningless, this differs from the more positive outlook of the majority of the people I’ve interviewed.

            When asked to rate their meaning on a scale of 1 to 10 the majority of the people I interviewed said that they were fairly meaningful, most saying that were between 7 and 9.  These people such as Granit and Joe say that everything is meaningful to an extent and that human life is especially important and meaningful based on their own criteria.

                                           

            When I interviewed my brother who again took the side of the minority said there’s a difference between meaning on a global scale and personal scale.  He said that on a personal scale he was between 8 and 9  because he was significant to those around him, but he said that on a world scale his meaning was 1 “because I don’t have that much of an impact on the world”

                                                                   

My sister Sandy disagreed with this saying that every small action can have big effects and she cited the “butterfly Effect”.  She demonstrates that everything has meaning because everything can have an effect on the world, this is reminiscent of the argument made before by Granit and Joe that everything is meaningful.