Goodwin's Theory Applied To Miley Cyrus

I am analysing the Fly On The Wall video by Miley Cyrus applying Goodwin's theory.



1. The music belongs to the pop genre as Miley Cyrus is a huge pop sensation appealing to young teenagers everywhere. The video represents this genre by lots of beauty shots of the singer, lots of dance routines and jumping around, sparkly clothing, a cheesy storyline, singing the lyrics into the camera and directly addressing and flirting with the camera.
2. The song is about knowing all of her secrets and knowing about her personal life. The lyrics are amplified by the video as she is talking about a boyfriend through the lyrics, saying that he wishes he knew everything she did when she was not with him. However this is amplified by the use of paparazzi in her video instead of a boyfriend. The paparazzi are known to be intrusive and at the beginning of the video when her boyfriend turns into a photographer, it is saying that her boyfriends can also be intrusive and rather suffocating at times and never letting her get her own space. The lyrics 'Don't you wish that you could be a fly on the wall' are amplified by the use of a shot with paprazzi chasing her as she is trying to hide. It is showing that they want to follow her around finding out everything about her without her knowing, therefore being like a fly on the wall camera which records peoples every move without them taking notice of it. It is a way of spying on somebody without them knowing which is basically saying that her boyfriend does not trust her when she is not with him.
3. The visuals are always cut to the main beat, cutting two and from the narrative shots to the beauty shots of Miley singing to the camera. As the song is a pop video and the main focus is the singer, Miley, the instrumental section is not used to illustrate the use of the different instruments in the video, instead it is made to stand out by creating a dance routine by male dancers dressed as the paparazzi. It breaks up the video and makes the instrumental section of the song more relevant to the theme of the video. The music is a quick pace the whole way through therefore keeping the video at pretty much the same pace throughout which is fairly up beat and fast. The only sections where the music changes pace is at the beginning and the end where it is all relatively slow moving, shown by the introduction and ending of the video which is slow moving too in comparison to the other sections of the music video. Also the verses are slightly slower than the chorus which is shown by less cutting between shots and more shots of the beauty shots of Miley Cyrus rather than the fast moving narrative.
4. There are lots of CU's of Miley Cyrus herself, therefore the music label is using her to sell the single. As she is already a huge popstar with millions of fans they use her as their selling point because as soon as people see the song is by her then they will listen to it if they are her fan. Instead of emphasising her tween star image from Hannah Montana, they are trying to give off a more grown up impression of her by giving her sophisticated, fashionable, rock chick clothing and making the videoe revolve around her and her boyfriend showing she has male attention and is into guys. She is wearing lots of makeup and her hair is done nicely, showing she is a typical teenager and not keeping up with her squeaky clean image. The video is like other videos she has as there are lots of beauty shots of Miley Cyrus herself and they are trying to portray a more roc chick image rather than a squeaky clean popstar image that she had previously, showing that she is growing up. Motifs that keep reoccurring during her music videos are the use of boyfriends to drive the song.
5. There is a huge sense of being watched in this video, as it is about being watched. The theme of the video is the aspect of being watched when she does not want to be. They emphasize this by the use of cameras and when there are beauty shots of her we see flashes from cameras in the background, showing that there are people watching her. Also right at the very end of the video where we see the scene through a computer webcam gives the sense of people spying on her without her giving her permission. The costume is very grown up, and although not very revealing, is rather sexy. She flirts with the camera rather a lot by twirling her hair and pouting at it which emphasizes the underlying sexual nature of the video which is rather subtle due to her meant to be very innocent.
6. There are intertextual references to the use of paparazzi in the media and the use of various websites and magazines as a way of telling the world about celebrity gossip. It is showing people how the paparazzi get involved with the lives of celebrities when they really are not wanted and is showing it from the celebrities point of view rather than how the audience see it as pictures and videos in the paper and on the internet.
7. The music video is mainly performance and narrative based with cross cutting between the two. However there is the overall concept running through the video of being spied on by the use of camera flashes in the performance scene and paparazzi and cameras in the narrative scene.