Controversy Article

Hello lovely bloggers, I wanted to talk about controversy today, in-particular controversy within music videos and the medias views on this subject. I'm basing this blog posts on this articles about Rihanna's song/music video 'Bitch better have my money'; in the seven minute clip. the pop star kidnaps and torments the wife of an accountant for bilked her, dismembers the accountant and then lounges, naked, covered in blood, in a box of money.

There are many different views on this video, the first one being that this is a so called 'phase' that all artists go through at some point in their career following a period where they lose publicity. This suggests Rihanna's aim is to be controversial as an act of attention seeking. Although Rihanna may have a lot of young viewers which is why there was so much up roar about the pornography, violence and racial hatred, there's no denying that airing a video like this which constitutes bad behaviour gets people to talk about her. Being sexy and violent does the same. She did not make this video to make the world a better place; she did it to project an image and get paid and judging by the response, she succeeded on both counts.

The article states that 'when a musician starts to use the phrase 'mini-movie' to describe a video, its time to quit'. This creates disputes as some may argue the artist has put more of their own money into creating a better music video which offers meaning and a story line. However, when it comes to Rihanna's 'Bitch better have my money' mini movie, a lot of viewers said 'Without the video, it wouldn't have succeeded as much' which then brings us back to the first point of the artists using a controversial mini movie to gain publicity.

Overall, I think whether the artist is attention seeking or not, if they deem their video controversial and state it includes explicit content, the audience can't get angry with the music to a certain extent. However, if they still create a scene about the music, they are actually helping towards the artists aim of creating a reaction and helping gain publicity so either way the artist will still be winning.