JH- Representation and ideological discourse - Metro station - shake it

The music video i looked at for this was extemely appropriate, both to our genre of music video and location and idea of performance, but also to the idea of representation and ideology.

In this video there is one main social group that is represented which is clearly the generation of youths. In this they are immediately shown to be rebellious by breaking an entry which sets the stage to the video. It is obvious from the costumes of the youths that they are being represented in a negative light and slightly rebelious from all the tattoos, piercings and strange clothing, however at the same time this is the unique style the band is trying to achieve. Already in the opening 30 seconds of the video the characters have been represented in this way and to mst people and ideology would have been formed, which would most likely be negative depending on who you were. For example middle age people watching this music video would associate a group of boys breaking an entry wearing extreme clothing with tattoos and piercings to be trouble and the ideology would most probably be formed around crime and ani social behaviour. However if you were of a similar age to the characters and watching this video, although you may see what their doing to be wrong, you may also find there extreme actions to be cool and exciting rather than just rebellious which is probably what the band have tried to achieve when appealing to that audience.

Within this overall socail group there are also smaller social groups of youths that have split up in to their own styles and beliefs which is interesting. This is mainly shown through costume in the video and how the different groups are weaqring their own outfit. It is also expressed through their style of dance in this case. For example the group of boys dressed inblue tracksuits that are breakdancing could be related to a more lower classed style and have a 'chav' like mannor about them.

There is also a representation of girls in the video which seems to challenge the dominant ideology of girls enjoying more feminine activites rather than illegal and antisocial behaviour. They are also shown to be dancing in the video, at times more so then the male characters, possibly reinforcing a imerging ideology that females are just as out going and extreme in terms of illegal and anti social behaviour as men are.

At the end of the video the police are shown to be chasing the characters out of the assembly hall reinforcing the fact that what they are doing is highly illegal. However at the same time the characters are still shown to be laughing and to get away with the crime which may show how youths are getting away with more and more petty crimes these days which could suggest the imerging ideology of all youths to be over the top, extreme and troublesome.