1. Genre characteristics
The genre of this music video is pop. The pop genre is normally aimed at a youth market, which is true for this video as it consists of a American-teen house party. Almost all the people in the video are teenagers (except Katy's mum and dad and uncle.) The video centres on young people partying and having fun. The colour theme in the video also follows the conventions of a pop genre video, as the colours used are bright and happy colours. Stereotyping is also used, to emphasize the different roles of characters, for example the 'Jock' squeezes Katy's bum, and the 'nerds' have braces and glasses. The video is made to look like a movie as, credits are used to introduce and end the video.
The costumes worn in the video are also typical for a video of a pop genre and of the stereotypical character. For example, the 'jock' is wearing a typical 'cool' jacket and baggy jeans, whilst the 'nerd' is wearing a shirt, trousers and suspenders. Katy's costume after being transformed, consists of a bright green, short skirt and a bright pink top that shows her belly. The video also, includes the element of 'fantasy' when the 'nerd' is fantasising about being him being a hero and Katy being his princess.
2. Lyrics and Visuals
The lyrics start with "There's a stranger in my bed" as Katy is singing this, she looks at the man laying next to her. She later sings "is this a hickey or a bruise" Whilst showing the mark on her neck. As she says "pictures up last night" voyeurism is used, as we see what Katy is seeing as she looks at the pictures on her laptop.
3. Musics and Visuals
Throughout the first verse of the song Katy is in her bedroom singing on her bed, but as the first chorus starts the tempo rises, and visuals of people dancing are shown. Katy sings "Do it all again" in a slow, dreamy way. During this time there is an image of the 'nerd' dreaming about Katy. As the second chorus comes in; the tempo increases as does the video whilst Katy is transforming from a 'nerd' to someone 'cool'. There is an instrumental in the song played by a saxophone. Katy's 'uncle' is shown playing the saxophone in the video.
4. Demands of the record label
There are a lot of close ups of Katy as both a geek and cool. Katy is already thought to be a 'sexy' artist, and all though the video presents her as a geek, she still looks the 'hot' playing the part. This would appeal to both females and males; as men would be drawn in by her looks, while women would aspire to be like her in the sense that she can pull any look off. A close up of her is shown as the lyrics say "theres a pounding in my head", during this she is holding her head, showing she is in a lot of pain causing the viewers to feel sympathy towards her. The video is very performance and concept based.
5. Notion of looking
In the video, the audience is shown pictures from the night before; on Katy's laptop. This gives the audience an insight of the events that occurred the previous night. We see what the 'nerd' is day dreaming about. this is also a reference to the notion of looking, as we are seeing inside his mind at is private thoughts.
Voyeurism is also used in the video, when the 'jock' shows his six pack, as this would appeal to the female audience. Also, as Katy is climbing up the stairs, her bum and legs are the main image of the shot and as she is climbing down the stairs we see her legs first. This could connote her transition as we see the back of her in the first shot and the front after her transformation.
6. Intertextual references
The video is made to look like a movie, consisting of opening and closing credits. At the beginning of the video, a boy on a bike is shown delivering newspapers while the movie like credits are shown, to typical movie like music. All this shows intertextual references to a typical American-teen film opening.
The video features many faces, who would be familiar to the teenage audience. Kevin McHale and Darren Criss, are cast members from 'Glee'; a popular American-teen show. Rebecca Black would also, be very familiar to teenagers, because of her recent song 'Friday'; which was highly criticized, but heard and viewed by the majority of teenagers. Also, 'TGIF' was a trait of Rebecca Black's song, which was used by Katy Perry in this song, which would make it an intertextual reference to Rebecca Black's song.
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