OK: Analysis of a promo package

Star Image and Metanarrative

• Kaytranada's star image is diverted in his music video 'At All', which helps to conforms his star image and sexuality. After revealing his was gay in an interview with a New York-based magazine called 'The Fader' in April 2016, his music video which came out in 2013, helps to conform the sexual references and styling

• The inclusion of adult themes particularly the use of sex appeal and male gaze, serves the right to reveal Kaytra's provocative fashion towards the electronic genre. This is constructed through the use of female body builders in the video, who are primarily dressed in underwear performing male orientated actions

• This scenes in which Kaytra is seen to performing the male orientated actions with the female actors connotes a sense of disjuncture as the progressive visuals juxtapose with Kaytra's male character, resulting in a disjunctive perception of what the scene intends to conform

• On the other hand, the 'male gaze' is reinforced and the audiences ideological discourse recovers as we see Kaytra watching the female characters as they begin to remove their clothes. This can be seen when intercutting is used, as we are presented with Kaytra in his chair sipping on a drink looking very amused whilst the female characters are removing their clothes in the water

• Applying Dyer's theory to 'At All' enables us to study paradox 2 (present and absent). Using this, we are able to see that Kaytranada features in the majority of the music video whilst the female characters anchor the narrative. The presence of the artist helps the audience as if they are completing the consumption his media texts as well as identifying Kaytra's star image

• The use of costume further helps to develop the hip-hop style Kaytranada adopts. We see Kaytranada wearing a baggy NBA jersey with baggy shorts and hi-top trainers which further develops his image and how audiences perceive him to be. On the other hand, we also see Kaytranada  dressed smartly; redirecting the audiences hip-hop perception of the artist. 

• As a result of the female characters dominating the narrative of the music video, on the one hand, this reinforces the idea of a 'male gaze' as the women are sexually exploited through the music video in the way that they are positioned within the camera using long and mid shots to capture their full figure. On the other hand, as a result of their muscular build and actions in the gym at the beginning of the video, this helps to degrade the idea of a patriarchal society and challenges the 'male gaze'. This is further done so as the female characters are seen to flex their muscles and show prevalence throughout the shots whilst Kaytranada is a supporting character

Barthes and Bisto - Semiotics

After watching the music video a few times, it began to be clear that the video is polysemic. The video is open to more than one meaning and so therefore the audience are able to interpret their own representation. As a result of this, the audience may question why Kaytranda has challenged his original hip-hop style videos which features original hip-hop themes including street dancing, suburban locations and neighbourhood settings as well as male characters. An example of this is from his more recent music video 'Lite Spots' 

• As a result of this, an enigma code is created as the audience tend to ask why the artist has decided to transition this music video into a more defining, polysemic media text. This further encourages the audience to consume his media texts as they wish to fulfil their knowledge of the artist

• This idea of a 'star image' is constantly changing and is never stable. As a result of Kaytranada revealing his sexuality earlier this year, audiences have continued to consume his media texts and have even interpreted his media texts much differently with further goes back to my point about this music video being polysemic. The video is open to discussion and can be interpreted in a number of different ways

• The use of semiotics not only helps to develop the audiences relationship with the media text but it also links to the metanarrative of the artist. It is clear the audiences may go back and review media texts in order to reconstruct the image they had of Kaytranada after publishing this video in 2013 but revealing his sexuality earlier this year

• This may be revoked by considering his more recent songs and music videos which revert back his more well-known hip-hop - electric genre

Kaytradgipak from ollieknott1