Textual Analysis- God is a Woman (music video)- Ariana Grande 2018- The Use of Female Empowerment and Religious Relations.
Directed by- Dave Meyers
Although this media product is not movie, it does not take away from the fact that Ariana Grande and her creative team created a music video with many hidden meanings in addition to being bold with their film by using certain imagery/ visuals to convey a message, taking experimental filmmaking and using it to a whole new level.
There is a lot to analyse throughout this video with the first factor being female empowerment and representation. From the title of the song God is a Woman, it can already guessed that this song will have some strong links to feminism and empowerment. Not only is this a factor, but she also makes some very strong historical and religious links.
In the first shot of the of the video we see Ariana in the middle of a Milky Way galaxy, suggesting that the power of her feminine energy is at the centre of everything as she dances her way through it. Therefore, we know from the first seen that she has decided to create a bold statement, getting the audience ready for further scenes to come, which is how to get the audiences’s interest within literally the first second of this video.
In another scene of the music video, she is seen sitting on a pedestal, in a thinking position, much like the Thinking Man statue, however she has now become the Thinking Woman. Also in this scene, we see that the background scenery is all made from newspaper, indicating the press and daily battering that Grande gets from it everyday and once again she is quite literally in the middle of it during this scene. However, this scene also includes very small men, much smaller than Grande, who appear to be very angry and are literally “throwing” insults at her, quite sexist ones at that. But these insults are not affecting her, just simply, bouncing right off of her as she remains unbothered. This shows that this is not only a problem that Grande herself has to deal with, but woman all of the world get called these names too, but remain to ignore it and power through.
Onto the more religious side of things, Ariana changes the scenery around as we see her standing in front of three dog heads, however this is not all there is to it. This is a reference to Cerberus, also known as the “hound of Hades”, who is a figure in Greek mythology, known for guarding the gates of Hell. The particular meaning of this scene isn’t clarified but this particular scene hint to Ariana giving Cerberus an extra head as she states “when you try to come for me, I keep ok flourishing”.
In a following up scene, Ariana is now seen standing with a large group of women, however while all of their backs are turned away, Ariana is facing the front while singing her lyrics. This particular scene conveys protection and unity. In this scenario, Ariana is the one standing guard of them, but not only is she doing this, she is standing united with them, implying to the audience that women have to stick together.
Once again, there is a scene with Ariana in the universe, but this time she is on top of the world, controlling it. Implying that she is god and that she literally has the world “in her hands”.
This scene is presented in an animation style as Ariana approaches the camera and turns to side, as a pregnant belly begins to grow on her, with flowers inside of it. This implies the literal life that woman grow inside of them. Without women, we would not exist.
Moving on from the previous scene, Ariana is remaking Greek mythology again by recreating the “she-wolf” who kept Romulus and Remus alive. But instead she is keeping the men beneath her alive, by literally supplying them with the source of life, which once again portrays great female empowerment.
Here, Ariana is in the middle of a triangle surrounded by planets; once again she is in the middle of something, portraying to be a very godlike figure. However, the etchings behind her indicate that she is recreating Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, except she has changed him to a woman.
In this scene, Ariana is reciting a line from Pulp Fiction, which is originally from Ezekiel 25:17, however, instead Madonna has recited these lines, which she changed to “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my [sisters]. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” After this she proceeds to throw her hammer through a glass ceiling, quite literally recreating the metaphor to “break through the glass ceiling”, the glass ceiling that was always a barrier for so many women and people of colour, preventing them from ever getting higher on the corporate ladder.
In the very last scene of this bold, amazing detailed music video is a direct recreation of Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam, replacing the men in the picture to women of all sizes and skin colours, with herself being portrayed as God. This proves to be extremely impactful because after all of the small possibly “hidden” meanings, Ariana wanted to end off on a very straight forward note, keeping the audience captivated just like she did at the beginning of the video.
The reason that this video is so useful to my own personal project is due to the fact that this is very much experimental filmmaking, by throwing in hidden meanings, religious and feminist references without anything being fully explained, leaving the audience wondering and speculating afterwards. And this is definitely something I am aiming to do.
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