Music Videos: Post-Colonial theory

 

Wider reading on race and Old Town Road

Read this W Magazine deep dive on the Yeehaw agenda and answer the following questions: 

1) What are the visual cues the article lists as linked to the western genre? 

• Cowboy Hats 
• Cow prints
• Rhinestones 
• Fringed sued jackets

2) How did the Yeehaw agenda come about? 

The trend of black pop-culture figures wearing cowboy garb

3) Why has it been suggested that the black cowboy has been 'erased from American culture'? 

The image associated with American cowboys are overwhelmingly white.

4) How has the black cowboy aesthetic been reflected by the fashion industry?

2019 New York Fashion week- performers dressed in their best cowboy attire.

Fall 2018 cowboy collaboration with REEBOK 

5) Read the section on Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. What does it suggest about race and the country music community?

It suggests that they probably don't consider "Old Town Road" as a western music genre because he is black and not because it doesn't sound country.

6) What elements of the song and music video are suggested to be authentically country and western?

The horses and scenery.

7) What genres of music does the article suggest have been shaped by black influences? 

• Rock and roll
• Punk
• Riot Grrrl
• Electronic Music

8) In your opinion, what do you think has been the driving force behind the Yeehaw movement? 

To make audiences not see it as 'out of the ordinary' for black artists to make music in a white dominated genre.

Applying postcolonial theory to Old Town Road

Revise the postcolonial theories we have studied and apply them to the Old Town Road music video: 

1) How does the Old Town Road music video both reinforce and challenge black stereotypes in the media?

He reinforces it through the location being in the hood which is a stereotypical place black people live in, especially in America.

He subverts them through their behaviour, showing them as gentle, kind and humorous which is a now common representation of them on the media according to Alvarado and Stuart Hall.

2) How could you argue that the Old Town Road video challenges Gilroy's theory of double consciousness?

Double Consciousness is the idea that people (black) feel stuck between two identities/cultures, in a state of limbo. However Gilroy's theory is subverted in Lil Nas's music video, through his mixing of black cowboy and black American culture; he conveys a sense of comfort.

3) How does Lil Nas X and Old Town Road provide an example of Hall's theory of race representations? Alternatively, you could argue against this if you prefer.  

• Clown/ Comedic figure: Chris Rock, Conversation after horse and car race.
• Native: Living in the hood, dancing on the horse shows ghetto like behaviour.

4) Are there any examples of Alvarado's theory of black stereotypes in the Old Town Road video? Why/why not?

• Exotic: Lil Nas X's costumes
• Humorous: Chris Rock prologue and epilogue

5) How does Lil Nas X provide a compelling case study for bell hooks's theory of intersectionality?

He is both black and gay which is a convergence of the the social categories sexuality and race. This means Lil Nas X is a victim of both racism and homophobia.

A/A* extension task: 

Media Magazine - This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest
Read This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest in MM65 (p14). You can find this in our Media Magazine archive. This is a great article on the power of music video in American culture. 

okay

This excellent Berkeley Political Review article on the Yeehaw Agenda is worth a read, expanding on the issues discussed in the W deep dive above.