Last Friday Night English Essay
How is gender represented in ‘Last Friday Night’ by Katy Perry.
The genre of Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’ is pop. The video includes lots of dancing, singing, partying and a general up beat vibe, especially the girls with shots of them dancing. This shows how younger people, especially girls who like to go out partying, showing off their looks etc..
I think the target audience for this video is teenagers + young adults as they typically go out partying + drinking. It also could be targeted at more unpopular, nerdy girls to show that they can go to parties, have fun and be more liked.
The characters in the video are represented as a particular gender stereotype. For example, Katy is shown as one of the ‘nerdy’ girls dressed in stereotypical geeky clothes. The fact that Rebecca transforms Katy into a popular, beautiful girl shows Katy is no different. It’s almost like the story of ‘Cinderella’ linking to propp’s theory. It’s seems as if Rebecca acts as ‘the fairy godmother and Katy acts as ‘Cinderella’, and Katy’s transformed into a beautiful princess, Then wakes up in her rags (nerdy clothes) again. The setting of the video is a big, clearly expensive house. Were shown this as the opening pans down the street. Also when Rebecca enters the party we see the big party, everyone dancing + having fun. Especially when girls are dressed up very revealingly. It shows us how high school kids love to go out partying, get dressed up etc. and how girls like to dress up impressing boys.
The lyrics in the video suggest many things about gender. For example “yeah we danced on table tops, and we took to many shots, think we kissed but I forgot”. This represents girls as revealing + flirty as ‘dancing on table tops’ is usually seen as a sexual thing, another stereotypical thing.
There is evidence of narrative. For example, in the video we are shown Kathy (as the hero), the nerdy boy (as the princess/prize), Steve or ‘the hot guy’ (as the villain). Through the video were
The genre of Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’ is pop. The video includes lots of dancing, singing, partying and a general up beat vibe, especially the girls with shots of them dancing. This shows how younger people, especially girls who like to go out partying, showing off their looks etc..
I think the target audience for this video is teenagers + young adults as they typically go out partying + drinking. It also could be targeted at more unpopular, nerdy girls to show that they can go to parties, have fun and be more liked.
The characters in the video are represented as a particular gender stereotype. For example, Katy is shown as one of the ‘nerdy’ girls dressed in stereotypical geeky clothes. The fact that Rebecca transforms Katy into a popular, beautiful girl shows Katy is no different. It’s almost like the story of ‘Cinderella’ linking to propp’s theory. It’s seems as if Rebecca acts as ‘the fairy godmother and Katy acts as ‘Cinderella’, and Katy’s transformed into a beautiful princess, Then wakes up in her rags (nerdy clothes) again. The setting of the video is a big, clearly expensive house. Were shown this as the opening pans down the street. Also when Rebecca enters the party we see the big party, everyone dancing + having fun. Especially when girls are dressed up very revealingly. It shows us how high school kids love to go out partying, get dressed up etc. and how girls like to dress up impressing boys.
The lyrics in the video suggest many things about gender. For example “yeah we danced on table tops, and we took to many shots, think we kissed but I forgot”. This represents girls as revealing + flirty as ‘dancing on table tops’ is usually seen as a sexual thing, another stereotypical thing.
There is evidence of narrative. For example, in the video we are shown Kathy (as the hero), the nerdy boy (as the princess/prize), Steve or ‘the hot guy’ (as the villain). Through the video were