Music Video: Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Goodwin’s music video theory

Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos states that music videos contain some or all of the following elements:

• A link between the visuals & lyrics (compliment, contradict or amplify)
• Genre characteristics (heavy metal in industrialised settings; rap music in urban street contexts etc.)
• Contain intertextual references (references to popular culture)
• Contain notions of looking (e.g. screens within screens)
• Include objectification of females (e.g. male gaze)
• Include demands of the record label (close ups of lead singer, symbols or motifs associated with the band / performer etc.)
• Video will be performance, narrative or concept based.

Neale’s genre theory of Repetition and Difference

Steve Neale states that though all genres are structured along the identical conventions of plot, narrative and mise-en-scene, success lies in their ability to manipulate and re-shape these elements.

In this sense, all genres all contain instances of repetition and difference – and difference is essential to the economy of the genre.

Neale’s model holds that a product’s genre is defined by:

• How much it conforms to its genre’s individual conventions and stereotypes. A product must match the genre’s conventions to be identified as part of that genre if it is to attract that audience.
• How much a product subverts the genre’s conventions and stereotypes. The product must subvert convention enough to be considered unique and not just a clone of another product.

Michael Jackson: defining genre

Michael Jackson largely defined the modern music video with Billie Jean. He followed it with two bigger-budget videos: Bad (directed by Martin Scorcese) and Thriller (directed by John Landis) – pushing the boundaries of the music video genre.

Both of these later videos were effectively short films that leaned heavily on film genres – using well established film directors. This reinforced the intertextual element of his music videos and helped to create the Michael Jackson identity of the 1980s and 1990s.
 


Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

 

Billie Jean changed the music industry by introducing the idea that a single must be accompanied by a high-production video - thereby transforming a song release into an “event”.

In doing so, Billie Jean transformed MTV from a small niche TV channel for young people into a cultural institution that wider society paid increasing attention to. It also changed MTV itself – persuading MTV executives that a white rock orientated audience would respond enthusiastically to videos featuring a black performer, something they had not previously believed.

 


Billie Jean and postmodernism

Postmodernists claim that we live in a media-saturated world – immersed in media products 24/7. So much so, that the distinction between the real world and the media representation of the real world has become blurred.

Media producers are copying copies: we no longer have any distinction between the real world and real things and media images of these things. Everything original has been made, all we now have is finding originality in mixing old ideas.

This idea of ‘copying copies’ and finding originality in old ideas is a strong theme of Billie Jean – which uses polaroid photos and intertextual references to old movie genres.

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean blog tasks
Media Magazine reading: Billie Jean, birth of an icon

Go to our Media Magazine archive and read the case study on Billie Jean - birth of an icon (MM62 - page 20). Answer the following questions:

1) What was the budget for Billie Jean? How did this compare with later Michael Jackson videos?

The budget for the video was $50,000, not small, but as it turned out not big enough to accommodate Jackson’s idea that mannequins in a shop window would come to life and dance behind him. The record company wouldn’t pay an extra cent for backing dancers so Jackson dances alone. 'Beat it' - £300,000 ; 'Thriller' - £2million. 

2) Why was the video rejected by MTV?

MTV refused to air the video, arguing that it didn’t suit their ‘middle America’ audience. Mercifully for Jackson, the president of his record
label, Walter Yetnikoff, threatened MTV saying: "I’m pulling everything we have off the air, all our product... And I’m going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don’t want to play music by a black guy". The threat paid off: MTV rolled over and ‘Billie Jean’ became the first music video by a
black artist to be aired in heavy rotation on the channel, making it a ground-breaking moment for the representation of ethnic minorities.

3) Applying Goodwin's theory of music video, how does Billie Jean reflect the genre characteristics of pop music video?

The video contains many conventions of the pop genre: lip- synching, performance interwoven with narrative, dance routines, high-fashion costume. Regarding Goodwin's theory of music video, Billie Jean includes many of this theories conventions such as: relationship between lyrics and visuals ; links between audio and visuals ; star construction ; performance ; the notion of looking.

4) How do the visuals reflect the lyrics in Billie Jean?

Relationship between lyrics and visuals: The song is apparently based on Jackson’s experience of fan-girls claiming he or his brothers were the parents of their babies, mixed in with a missing persons story that Jackson had purportedly read in the news at the time. Key lyrics are amplified through the visuals: the song is about a girl, Billie Jean. Although we never see her as a character in the video, we are presented instead with other images suggestive of females in general with whom he never comes into contact – the billboard/ screen with a woman’s face displayed on it, the figure on one side of the double bed at the end. There are more literal links: when Jackson sings the stand out line, ‘Then showed a photo of a baby crying, his eyes were like mine,’ the screen freezes
and a frame appears around the artist’s eyes. Elsewhere he does a spin as he sings ‘in the round.’

5) Why does the video feature fewer close-up shots than in most pop videos?

Michael Jackson's main performance element is his dancing which would not be completely captured in close up shots.

6) What intertextual references can be found in the video?
The setting in ‘Billie Jean’ is urban, it is night time, litter blows down dark alleys and fire-escapes. This is the first in a sequence of videos that explored gangs, crime, danger and the supernatural. Although Jackson’s childhood home in Gary, Indiana was more suburban than urban, there’s no denying he grew up in poverty. The notion of looking can be seen through the
use of the private detective, also an intertextual reference to Noir film and detective fiction.

7) How does the video use the notion of looking as a recurring motif?
The notion of looking can be seen through the use of the private detective (also an intertextual reference to Noir film and detective fiction). Jackson is being watched and followed; a polaroid camera attempts to capture his image but he’s elusive, mystical. The audience sees his image multiplied using split-screen editing, he is frozen or isolated in a frame-within-a-frame. Towards the end he is spied through a window by an old woman in hair-rollers as he ascends a fire escape to stand, somewhat creepily, at the bedside of a sleeping figure, where he then becomes the voyeur. It is a recurring motif because MJ is continuously being searched for in the video.

8) What representations can be found in the video?

Close-textual analysis of the music video

1) How is mise-en-scene used to create intertextuality - reference to other media products or genres? E.g. colour/black and white; light/lighting.
Mise en scene is used to create intertextuality to the noir genre - this is created through the use of black and white and loads of lowkey lighting. The crime/mystery genre is created through the use of the music video's narrative including a detective and Michael who is being searched but manages to escape each time. 

2) How does the video use narrative theory of equilibrium?

3) How are characters used to create narrative through binary opposition?

Theory which Strauss advocated, involving the use of binary oppositions, i.e. complete contrasts, in order to construct a narrative within a text. This music video uses the binary oppositions of the idea of a criminal vs detective/authority to create the initial narrative of Michael being hunted down for something (the motive behind this is not made clear). The binary opposition of dark vs light is also used to communicate person's presence in the narration. 

4) What is the significance of the freeze-frames and split-screen visual effects?

5) What meanings could the recurring motif of 'pictures-within-pictures' create for the audience?

6) Does the video reinforce or subvert theories of race and ethnicity - such as Gilroy's diaspora or Hall's black characteristics in American media?

It can be argued that the video in a way reinforces these theories 

7) Does this video reflect Steve Neale's genre theory of 'repetition and difference'? Does it reflect other music videos or does it innovate?

8) Analyse the video using postmodern theory (e.g. Baudrillard's hyper-reality; Strinati's five definitions of postmodernism). How does the 'picture-in-picture' recurring motif create a postmodern reading?
The 'picture in picture' recurring motif can be interpreted as a postmodern reading as it can be seen as reinforcing the idea that the distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we now live in a 'reality' defined by images and representations. Images refer to each other and represent each other as reality rather than some 'pure' reality that exists before the image represents it - this is the state of hyper reality. 

Extension reading: Michael Jackson

Read this fascinating Guardian feature on Michael Jackson and race - building on our recent work on music video, genre, theory and representations of race and ethnicity.

Another Guardian feature - How Billie Jean changed the world - explores the cultural influence of the song and video.