Beyonce Run the world and Dizzee Rascal

In this music video for Beyonce's run the world a binary opposite is created between the men and women. The men stand around with riot shields, chains and batons. They have a very anarchistic semiotics. Comparatively the women all look authoritarian with police hats and black leather. This creates the effect of making the women seem calm and collected while the men seem wild but intimidated by the women. Conversely in Dream where representations of gender is not the focus of the video the representation is far more standard. There is puppet girls, representing the working class, as objects of desire in the beginning and mothers towards the end, the mother especially is treated respectfully and is not seen as less for being a young mother. This is a positive representation of gender. However the more interesting representation is the older woman, who represents the establishment and 'ruling classes' who is quietly disapproving or supportive of the things he does and choices he makes throughout, this representation of establishment as a woman could imply that like the establishment older women are inflexible and controlling, which is a negative and stereotypical representation of gender.

The ways that the women are dressed in each music video is also indicative of how they are being portrayed. The women in Beyonce's run the world are dressed provocatively, in black leather and showing a lot of skin. However, rather than this being a negative representation of gender, it is shown as a good thing, implying that they are fashionably and sexually liberated from oppressive patriarchal standards, rather than they being objects of the male gaze. Inversely both the puppet girls and the older woman are dressed extremely modestly in long dresses with plain, muted colours. Both the colours and the style of dress imply control from the woman, who represents the oppressive establishment, 'protecting their modesty' and holding them to backwards patriarchal standards. The shots in which the first girls are shown are also in the closer shots implying the male gaze of the camera, which makes sense in the narrative as the time that happens is when Dizzee is talking about getting girls.

Both the music videos in some way inverse the way that male and female identity expression is portrayed. Gauntlett's identity theory is the idea that the media provide us with 'tools' or resources that we use to construct our identities. The idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey symbolism, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities, the media today offer us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters. In Dream there's a representation of a young black father pushing a pram, a very unstereeotypical portrayal for a young black man. However, this portrayal simultaneously conforms to the more traditional idea of the nuclear family which could be said to be reductive. Like wise in Run the world's video and lyrics women are portrayed as explicitly dominant over men, breaking the past media expectation. 

Gilroy believes that colonial discourses continue inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the post colonial era. Civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness to races other than white. As both these songs are by black artists this theory applies to both of their work. The more clear example of this theory is in Dizzee Rascal's video which features mostly black characters in the video's autobiographical narrative. Images of stereotypes like loitering and graffiti surround the black characters as well as the heavily stereotypical scotsman drinking. The most explicit scene of racial bias from this theory would be the police brutality scene with the puppets, showing the racial profiling the artist or people of his race may have experienced. This colonialism is shown to have held him back previously. However later in the video all of them are in a studio away from the policeman outside showing that through their success they overcame racism and colonialism. 

Dizzy Rascal - Dream

The iconography of this video mimics the 50's show muffin the mule, down to the woman playing the piano. The woman in the video represents classic conservative, white, middle class England. She representing the white middle class England, controls the puppets in the video. This creates the binary opposition of the white woman singing and the stereotypical actions of black puppets on the piano.

At the beginning of the video Dizzee Rascal himself comes out of the box as soon as the woman begins to play the music.  This shows that he is self aware that he is being controlled by the woman, who represents the white middle class society, and showing him getting back in the box at the end shows that he is content with it. This could be a point about black artists having to give up on some of the aggression that is drawn from grime and replace it with pop to gain mainstream appeal and that in this way he has sacrificed to get where he is.

The puppets themselves all show representations of people from the street level of England, the young, mostly black, men all being stereotypical acting puppets shows how people from the woman's perspective of society view young working class black men, as well as the fact that they are on strings showing that they are being controlled by the society.

Later in the video the representation increases as the police come in with helicopters and cars, making the woman recoil and cringe at it, with a police officer puppet beginning to beat up the two black guy puppets from the beginning. Although despite being in a position of power over those being victims of police brutality, the officer is still on the same strings as all the other puppets, showing the opinion that even in real life who have more powers over others are still at street level and being controlled by the society.

The change of scenery to a recording studio as the lyrics explain how he got there. The policeman puppet is shown banging on the window trying to get in to continue fighting with them but is unable to. This showing how Dizzee's music career has allowed him to surpass the everyday struggles on the street, of police brutality to relative comfort. The woman's face changes to polite concern as the scene changes to one of his performances, it represents the society questioning whether or not he has been given too much power and influence for where he came from. He however is also shown to be taking advantage of the system by having the woman hold up his album, this could also represent how he is now appealing to a mainstream audience.

The song itself then goes into his advice for people aspiring to get where he is, there is two notable instances in this section, the first being the woman nodding to his message of "keep school in your plans" showing how he has to put messages approved by society in his music now. This must be significant to him as he would not be used to feeling pressured to include positive messages in his work as he would have before becoming popular. There is also the subversion of stereotypes in the form of the black man pushing a pram and being shown as a responsible father. This is a clear subversion of the stereotype of absent black father and portrays a very positive message.