Unfinished Sympathy - Representations

Representations

Events: The artist performs in an inner-city setting. She walks along the LA streets

Issues: Social prejudice, discrimination, urbanisation, individualism, multiculturalism

Social Groups: Working-class; adults/ youth; men/ women; white American/ Ethnic minorities; able bodied and disabled

Individuals: Shara Nelson

These are the groups that are often underrepresented in the media:

 

Class

Age

Gender

Ethnicity

Disability

• Class
• normal, working class people throughout the video - wearing casual street clothing (jeans, jackets) 
• poverty shown through the location of low-income Los Angeles, with littered streets, graffiti and cheap shops.
• Age
• youth are represented as stereo-typically aggressive, free-spirited - left alone to play in the streets 
• older people are included in a range of roles - drinkers, listening to a ghetto blaster
• middle-aged people make up many of the characters - pair kissing
• Gender
• women and men of all ages, body shapes, and both able-bodied and with disability
• singer is not sexualised and male members of the band follow behind, out of focus (she has agency in the narrative)
• women are as active as men
• Ethnicity
• wide representation of diversity in the deprived streets of Los Angeles (a widely white- American based location)
• Latino gang, mixed-race boy with a toy, black British singer, a White couple, and an African-American man with his son.
• Disability
• man on a wheely board - deprived and lacking (visual disabilities)

The deliberate celebration of often maligned groups of people - the urban poor - represents the issue of social inequality. The choice of location in the USA for a band based in Bristol suggests that the inequality is an international issue.

Viewpoints and Ideology

The video reflects a viewpoint that social inequality is unjust, and supports a social, liberal view with the idea that we have a social duty to include a wide spectrum of society. 

Feminism is also communicated through the music video. As a media form, music videos often construct negative sexualised representations of women that objectify them for the male gaze, even if the artist is female. U.S focuses on the powerful representation of an often underrepresented segment of society.   

Some ideas around individualism are reinforced through the range of strong characters presented throughout the video.  

The ideas of capitalism and consumerism are also reinforced. The music video form is a promotional product intended to sell the artist as a commodity in order to make profit. Its success relies on the consumption of messages and values, to create empathy and position the audience to accept the artist and the meaning behind the song.  

Audience Response and Interpretation

What is the preferred meaning?

• The suggestion that we should feel empathy for social groups who experience discrimination and that we should accept a more vibrant and diverse community. 

What might affect this preferred meaning?

• This will depend on the demographic and experience of the audience. It may depend on the view of the artist and the social group the audience belong to.