EsSaY

Using the comparison of these two texts as your starting point, explore the media issues and debates which they raise

In your answer you will need to address:

Key concepts
Contextual factors
Media theory

Traditionally, rap music focused on a message promoting Black empowerment in society however in contemporary media, rap music is an ever-growing genre centred on money, cars, drink, sex and women. Gill Scott Heron’s ‘The revolution will not be televised’ from 1972 highlights the lack of black representation in the media and fights for equal rights. Sarah Jones feat. DJ Vadim, ‘Your revolution’ from 1998 fights for women’s rights and launches an attack on males and female representations as objects of the male gaze. Both artists use a direct style to shock and attract the attention of an audience

Heron’s ‘The revolution will not be televised’ indicates the lack of Black representation in the media in the 1970s. Whereas, Sarah Jones’s ‘Your Revolution’ identifies black representation in the media is evident however portray negative images especially women whom are degraded and degrade themselves creating a stereotyped image of black people in modern society. Heron highlights how the media was controlled by the white upper/middle class who imposed their hegemony on a passive audience, he argues effects theory and the hypodermic needle model, and how audiences are being presented with the wrong stereotypes and being brainwashed with no alternative viewpoints. Heron argues and challenges the theories and his song can be considered as a Black power version of Marxism, challenging the establishment whom give propaganda against black people, the Frankfurt school.

During the revolution ‘there will be no more pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run’, no more images of black people as animals and savage. Stuart Hall identified three ways in which black people have been represented in the media: as the victim, the entertainer or the savage and he indicated how racist ideologies where a result of colonialism which Heron alludes to and it's due to this that the white males hold a Marxist/capitalist view of society and discriminate against blacks. Heron tells the audience that it’s the anxieties of advertising that under-represent black people and says ‘The revolution will not go better with Coke’ and launches an attack, ‘the revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal’, a parody of advertising keeping one in control, the song links to Michael Moore’s ‘Bowling For Columbine’ and his portrayal of TV show ‘Cops’ where all suspects where Black, middle aged men. By the end of the song Heron offers hope and rallies for support, ‘The revolution will put you in the driving seat’, you can make the difference and by the end of the song he says ‘the revolution will be live’, suggesting it's time to start something new and challenge the Marxist, capitalist hegemony of white society and inject equal representation.

Sarah Jones feat DJ Vadim ‘Your Revolution’ from 1998 offers a more bitter tone, it’s a post-modern text offering an alternative voice, challenging black culture and fighting for a female revolution where women don’t need to use sex appeal in order to get somewhere. She makes direct reference to Gill Scott Heron highlighting how his song from 1972 had a direct impact on her influencing black culture as he had hoped, and she inevitably would be looking for the same response

Sarah Jones throughout the song is critiquing black media as they’re not representing themselves in the right way, she says ‘the revolution will not happen between these thighs’, how she will not sell herself in order to gain a few riches. It is this attitude that degrades women and portrays negative stereotypes of black culture in the media and society.

The text is a pastiche as it takes elements of other songs and mocks them. For example, she makes reference to LL Cool J ‘doing it and doing and doing it well’, in this way Jones is getting a powerful message across and she directly attacks icons of the rap genre who are typically associated with materialism, ‘money’, ‘cars’ and ‘bitches’. Furthermore, Jones challenges the misogynistic/patriarchal views of males whom fetishise women body parts. A key theorist whom would support Jones’s message is Laura Mulvey as women in rap are used as objects of the male gaze and desires.

To conclude, both texts raise topical issues about society and how the media in society is run and portrays different cultures. Gill Scott Heron challenges the hegemony of white society calling for black culture to unite and offer positive and equal representation. Sarah Jones launches an attack on black culture in rap as women are used as objects of males desires, she mocks black culture ‘think I’m gonna put it in my mouth just because you made a few bucks’ and fights for female empowerment and the female revolution because materialism isn’t happiness, equality or reality.