Friday 15 July 2011

Intertextuality in Afrika Shox

Chris Cunningham, the director of 'Afrika Shox' may have been specifically influenced by the film 'Blade Runner' and the silent masterpiece 'Metropolis'.


In 'Blade Runner' the replicant is portrayed as a slave and alien compared to other people. This is similar because in the black man in 'Afrika Shox' is seen to be alien to white people and someone they are not familiar with. This is also shown with the urban landscape, within both 'Blade Runner' and 'Afrika Shox' there is an urban surrounding which is unfamiliar to both the main characters in the music video and the film. It reinforces the idea that they are both alien to us. The noir lighting throughout 'Blade Runner' has also inspired Chris Cunningham and he has used it in 'Afrika Shox'. This creates unfamiliarity for the slaves and disorientates them along with the audience which makes it seem surreal and like it is a nightmare. There are many identical shots in 'Blade Runner' and 'Afrika Shox, especially the shot of the polive car sirens. This reinforces the electro genre. Along with this there are also many low angle shots in 'Blade Runner' that are also in 'Afrika shox' which shows that people who are different are looked down upon.


'Afrika Shox' also has intertextual references with 'Metropolis'. The workers are slave figures, just like the black man in 'Afrika Shox', they are zombie like which is also similiar to the man. Along with this representation, there is also urban surroundings which is also seen in 'Afrika Shox', disorientating the slave. The low angle shots are also taken from this film and used by Chris Cunningham in 'Afrika Shox' representing the slaves as lower class than everybody else.

Claude Levi Strauss's narrative theory of binary opposites
Within the music video 'Afrika Shox' there are many binary opposites. The black man is represented as a binary opposite to the white people. This is because of the slave reference of the video. Another binary opposite is that the black man is of low class and the white people are higher class. This is shown through the low angle shots of the black man on the floor and also by what he is wearing in the video. Whilst he wears rags, the other people wear upper class clothes that are associated with the higher class.

1 comment:

  1. A good description of how Cunningham has referenced two other text in order to represent the artist. State clearly that intertextuality is used to construct the representation in the music video.

    ReplyDelete