How are representations created in the music video ‘Too
Good At Goodbyes’ by Sam Smith?
Jimmy Napes’ music
video for Sam Smith’s ‘Too Good At Goodbyes’ challenged the traditional
representation of sexuality through the lead characters identifying as homosexual.
Although LGBTQ+ representations has grown immensely in the media, perhaps one
of the first music videos representing the LGBTQ+ community was Carly Rae
Jepsen with her 2012 ‘Call Me Maybe’, heterosexual relationships still dominate
our screens and are deemed the most normal to feature in popular artist’s music
videos. Unfortunately, in music video’s today LGTBQ+ are either featured for a
short amount of time whilst the main focus belongs to a heterosexual character
or couple or certain ‘camp’ attributes are extremely highlighted to add a
comedic effect. (see Pink’s Raise Your Glass and Kelly Clarkson’s Heartbeat
Song). However, Jimmy Napes has challenged this stereotyped representation of
sexuality by focusing the music videos lime light on a homosexual relationship
narrative. Sam Smith has said in recent interviews with Fearne cotton and Ellen
DeGeneres that is ‘very proud to be gay’ and is said to be an upstanding
representative of the LGTBQ+ community so it comes to as no surprise that his
number one single music video narrative is based around a homosexual couple. In
a recent article from ‘mtv.co.uk’ they said ‘Not only
that but it is a racially diverse video that puts LGBTQIA+ love front and
centre. Not only is Sam's lover in the video a man but the visual also
stars a lesbian couple.’ This music video is actively being recognised
as
challenging the stereotypical representations of sexuality in music videos and
the media. The fact that in the music video we see an incredibly emotional side
to the relationships as we see what we can infer as the audience to be the end
of these relationships highlights to the audience that homosexual relationships
are just as human and difficult as any other heterosexual relationship. This is
further heightened by the positioning of the heterosexual couple being place in
the exact same place as the homosexual couple. Thus, we are forced to reflect
on the fact that the gender of the couple does not make a relationship to what
society deems as more normal, either way, homosexual or not, it is still a
loving relationship. The fact that the stereotypes of the homosexual couples are extremely underplayed resonates that they are still people, the same as any heterosexual couple. We can also see this, again, shown by the way the lesbian couple are portrayed to be quite feminine. The stereotype of a lesbian relationship is that there is one ‘butch’ women that replicates the role of a male and the other female fills the role of the more stereo typically though feminine female. This representation is being challenged in this music video by both women being shown to be feminine, thus highlighting the message Jimmy Napes seems to be wanting to show through the video; showing the opposites to overplayed stereotypes of homosexual people in relationships.
