Themed Music Video Deconstruction(s)

Shakira, “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)”

Toto, “Africa”

Toni Basil, “Mickey”

The Music Videos

Shakira, “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)” www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpeEdMmmQ0

Toto, “Africa”www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY

Toni Basil, “Mickey”www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E-Zrg9CB_Q

Context

Shakira is a 37 year old singer-songwriter originally from Columbia, and has been in the business since the early nineteen nineties. She’s had several incredibly popular hits all around the world including one of the best selling songs of the 21st Century, “Hips Don’t Lie” and “She Wolf”. “Waka Waka” interestingly – due to it being the 2010 FIFA World Cup official song – is the sixth most watched video on YouTube with over 796’000’000 views, and is the best selling World Cup song.

Toto are an American Pop/Soft-Rock group formed in the nineteen seventies, and stayed active until 2008, when they took a two year gap out, and are now touring again, in honour of on of their previous members who was diagnosed with ALS, performing some of their most famous hits – such as their top 5 singles, “Hold The Line”, “Rosanna” and of course “Africa”.

Antonia Christina Basilotta (better known as Toni Basil) – now 71 – is a singer-songwriter and actress from Pennsylvania. Best known for her multi-million selling number 1 single, “Mickey”, Basil rose to fame during the 1960s as a dancer and choreographer, and branched into all forms of performing during her career.

Goodwin’s Theory

All three music videos in this Deconstruction have a set theme on which they are all based, however interestingly, only the two African themed videos actually relate to the lyrics. “Mickey” doesn’t actually have any direct visual clues to the lyrics – other than the lip syncing of course. The performance based video does however match the music with the visuals, as all the cuts and special effects (such as the heart appearing on screen with Basil lip syncing in it). Adding to this though, as the audience would expect, the majority of the time throughout the music video, Basil is central to the shot and the viewer is forced to focus on her – particularly when the camera zooms into her in between the group of her cheerleading dancers – which is subsequently the theme of the video.

Goodwin’s Theory

The other two videos – by Shakira and Toto – are based on the theme of Africa (with “Waka Waka” also being

influenced by Football), and their various Mise-en-Scene and locations clearly show this. For example, in both videos, the costumes used heavily connote the country, due to their popularity of there and it’s style (something which the audience would immediately relate to a more exotic, hotter country like Africa) as

seen in the screenshot below.

However the screenshot above from Toto’s video is just as good at showing the video’s link to theme.

Here you can see the drummer wearing a very plain coloured shirt, similar to that of what a stereotypical

African gamekeeper would wear, thus giving the audience that idea. Although the more obvious clue

would be the fact that the drum kit in which the drummer is using is not a conventional one, and

instead is made up of African drums and instruments.

Production Values

It’s hard to directly compare the three videos in terms of their production values due to the fact that before the 21st Century (when “Waka Waka” was created), music videos weren’t as widely seen as they are now – due to the lack of social media websites etc. back then. However, it can still be argued that the Toto video would have had a relatively high budget due to the various location shots, exotic instruments, costumes and props. “Mickey” on the other hand is likely to have had a slightly lower budget, as there is only on set of costumes, one location, the same dancers throughout and very basic editing techniques.

Shakira’s video on the other hand – largely down to the fact that FIFA were backing the single and because the video would be going worldwide incredibly quickly due to the songs popularity – it can be presumed that the video would have a large budget. However, Shakira is only seen to be wearing one costume throughout, with just one location; although there is a huge amount of extras in the video, as well as various clips from the World Cup (which would have taken some time to get hold of).