Media Theory Revision Guide
My Revision
Essential Film!
Unfinished Symphony
Intersectionality
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Massive Attack’s one-take docurealist music video is deliberately intersectional in nature. It provides a critique of American race/class based wealth inequalities whilst also celebrating a range of identities that are largely invisible in mainstream American culture.
The background cast of the video articulates a diversity of participants: disabled whites, Latino women, black fathers and mixed-ethnicty partnerships are fronted by the ever present presence of the black female lead singer. The effect is to produce an intersectional analysis of American wealth inequality; a one-take analysis that presents the disparate experiences of those presented as somehow connected.
Perhaps the conspicuous lack of white-male privilege in the video points to the controlling yet absent presence of a white-male elite. Certainly there is beauty in the video - shot during the golden hour moments of tenderness (the loving black father start the start) are juxtaposed against the brutal meanness of the streets represented. As such, we are subtly asked to critique what we see, and, moreover, to celebrate the range of diversities presented.
Intersectionality
A branch of feminism that links the oppression of women and racial prejudice. Intersectionalists argue that women & people of colour are collectively oppressed by white male privilege.
Media terminology used
White male privilege
The idea that white males occupy a position of social power, an elite status that is ingrained within society as a result of longstanding historical and economic forces.
Golden hour
The period just before sunset. Extensively used by cinematographers for the warm lighting tone it produces in filmed sequences.