In her controversial “Window Seat” video, Erykah Badu strips
down and gets shot in the head to spark discussion about “groupthink”. Using Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model, we can
understand how Badu creates discrepancy over the meaning of her video. Badu uses a previous video, (“Lesson Learned”)
by Matt & Kim as her inspiration, and shot the video guerilla style,
meaning that the street she strips down on was public and functioning at the
time she chose to bare it all. This
tactic is particularly useful here, as being nude in public is obviously not
legal, but Badu and her crew manage to film the video in two minutes without
being stopped by police. Badu encodes a message of “groupthink”, in an effort
to launch a discussion of non-conformity and self-expression without
scrutiny. Badu stripping her clothes and
walking nude down a busy Elm Street in Texas symbolizes something out of the
norm, her creative and artistic expression.
Badu being assassinated almost exactly where President Kennedy was shot
symbolizes people being too ignorant and narrow-minded to accept something out
of the ordinary or unconventional.
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| Matt & Kim's video "Lesson Learned", in which Matt and Kim strip nude in the middle of Times Square, was a source of inspiration for Badu's "Window Seat" video. |
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| "EVOLVING" is spelled across Badu's back in her music video. |
Responses
to Badu’s video were mixed. Some people
derived the same message that Badu intended, and praised her for her
originality and strong moral message.
Others decoded different meaning from the video. People on the street shouted criticisms at
Badu, while others expressed their opinions online in response to the
video. People claim that Badu’s nudity
and mock assassination was inappropriate and distasteful, also noting that
children were present when the video was shot.
One source also brings up a very good point, in that women’s nudity in
the media often times is exploitative and objectifying. Badu may be trying to emphasize that even
when a woman is nude in public, for purposes other than exploitation of her
body, people still receive this as going against social norms and even view it
as so wrong that she actually deserves to be killed for it, or metaphorically,
the idea deserves to be violently shot in the head. Some view Badu’s video as a contradiction in
itself, in that it is perpetuating the objectification of women in the media,
and also that Badu herself is conforming to the masses of other women who use
nudity.
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| Alanis Morissette's video "Thank You" similarly features her completely naked on a busy city street. |
In decoding
Badu’s message, it is also worthwhile to note what Hall calls “frameworks of
knowledge”. Based on reactions to the
video, it seems that not all people were aware of the greater meaning that Badu
sought to encode. Some individuals,
including myself, have never heard of “groupthink”, and while the video may
have been using nudity to encourage people not to conform to the masses, I
think it became more of a distraction from the message. People opposed to the video argue that the
video is deliberately sexualizing Badu, and thus contradicting the overall
theme.
William’s
idea of social inheritance plays a big part in understanding both Badu’s
intentions with her video and public reaction to it. The previous cultures that have created the
foundation for our culture today view a woman nude in public as a strong
violation of a social norm.
Historically, this has always been true, and while we may be
increasingly more liberal as time goes on, a woman stripping her clothes on a
busy public street is still deviant from the meanings and values embedded in
our culture.
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| Badu is shot dead near the end of her video, near the sight JFK was assassinated. |
The context
surrounding Badu and her video is insightful for understanding its cultural
implications. Some audience members
claimed that being shot in her video where JFK was shot in 1963 was
disrespectful and created a mockery of the assassination. Being that the video was shot in Texas, one
might also assume that bystanders to the video are more likely conservative in
their beliefs. That immediate Texan
audience also feels the effects of the relations of production and technical
infrastructure in their decoding of the event.
While guerilla style filming was the most effective way, and perhaps the
only way, that immediate audience very likely was unable to grasp the intended
message. With some brief research, I found that Badu is notorious for going
against the status quo of the music industry.
Badu challenges all of the behavioral codes within the industry by
fighting against conformity in general.
William’s describes “selective tradition” as consisting of general human
culture, historical record of a particular society, and rejection of
considerable areas. He also notes that
our traditional culture will always correspond to our contemporary culture,
which is continually selecting and interpreting values. Badu uses nudity to represent a nonconformity
that our traditional, historical, human culture rejects as normative. Badu subscribes to what Williams calls
“contemporary change”, in which she shatters tradition and draws new cultural
lines through her radical, unconventional act.
Overall,
Erykah Badu should be praised for her innovation and strong moral message. In her video she illustrates how doing
something that may not be widely accepted by society is often times “shot down”
and scorned for its deviance. The video
makes the point that because most of the world is part of a “groupthink”,
people bury what they really wish to express to fit in with the group. Badu makes a powerful example of leaving that
comfort zone of conformity and facing scrutiny for not following the norm. While some people may oversee her message,
Badu’s artistic campaign against conformity is ever present. Her courage and determination to change
perceptions of what is acceptable is both inspiring and admirable.
