Textual Analysis of Firework by Katy Perry

I have watched a lot of music videos for the east week and have decided that the music video that I'm going to analyze will be "Fireworks" by Katy Perry.

"Firework" is a song by American recording artist Katy Perry. The song is 3-47 min and was written by Katy Perry, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen,Sandy Wilhelm, Ester Dean, and produced by Stargate and Sandy Vee for Perry's third studio album, Teenage Dream. The song is aself-empowerment anthem with inspirational lyrics, and was considered by Perry as the most important song for her on Teenage Dream. The song is believed to be one of the most covered songs on the Internet, particularly on the video website YouTube. It is also Perry's single through her third album which is not written or produced by her main collaborators Max Martin & Dr. Luke.

The video las for 3:55 min and it’s narrative is interlaced with sub-stories of youth struggling with complicated issues of domestic violence, body shame, and sexual orientation. Throughout the course of the narrative, several elements of mise-en-scène suggest that, although Katy appears to be a part of the world in which she sings, she is simultaneously apart from it.

The first interlacing story represented in the video shows a boy cradling his younger sister who is upset by her fighting parents.  The young boy turns to look over his shoulder at the adults slapping and screaming at each other, while his younger sister clasps her hands over her ears and shakes her head “Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?” Katy sings, as a cut back to her reveals the look of worry in her eyes while she stares deep into the camera, and ostensibly, into us, identifying our personal connection.

Another young girl sits in a chair near the edge of a pool cloaked in a heavy coat, while her friends strip and jump into the water, splashing one another and encouraging her to come in.  She shakes her head timidly. Embarrassed of her overweight body and afraid to show whom she is under her clothes.  Returning to a tighter shot of Katy’s face reveals a more encouraging countenance just before she sings, “Do you know that there’s still a chance for you?”  This sends us into the hospital room of a bald young girl with leukemia who looks longingly at the beautiful hair of the dancing woman on her television screen.  On her wall is the massive image of a butterfly, which itself represents the hope of transition, from the sheltered confines of a cocoon to a limitless world where it can fly as the wind blows.

Firework sparks begin to burst forth from her chest as she stretches out her arms, illuminating her once blue-washed face in a beautiful prism of colors.  In the first, most directly referential moment of  American ideology, she sings,  “Just own the night like the 4th of July.”  Here, Katy is mobilizing the image of the American firework that is, literally, bursting forth from her heart to demonstrate her own empowerment. For Katy and the teens, the firework becomes the necessary symbol of their imagined unity. The firework is colorful, unique, and can light up the darkened sky devoid of color.  Encouraging the teens, and by extension the audience, to “own the night” suggests that, no matter how much it is surrounded, the bursting firework will defeat the darkness of the night, illuminating the sky as it explodes with brilliant, individual colors. Also the firework is powerful and dangerous to anything in its path.

Shortly after Katy’s firework erupts, the boy, looking over his shoulder once again, takes on a new kind of motivation, as his firework itself begins to spark empowering him with the strength to protect his sister. He rushes over to his parents and pushes them apart, as the chorus continues, “Baby you’re a firework.  Come on let your colors bust.  Make ‘em go, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’”  In a darkened dance club, bathed in red light, a wallflower sits alone watching sadly as the people around him dance and celebrate.  While Katy’s fireworks shoot across the night sky, the girl at the pool, still with a nervous, uncomfortable look in her eyes, stands and begins to remove her jacket.

In the club, the wallflower turns to look at a straight couple sitting next to him, kissing and comfortable with the public display of their sexuality.  He looks forward, stands up and starts walking toward the bar.  The girl at the pool now removes her pants and shirt so that she stands dressed only in her bra and underwear, for the first time displaying her overweight body.  Another teen walking down an alleyway is thrown against a brick wall while a group of “thugs” attempt to mug him.  When one of them reaches into his pocket, he starts pulling out mutli-colored handkerchiefs tied unendingly together, and when another opens his coat, two white doves fly out, startling them and revealing him as a street magician.

The cancer patient walks through the corridors of the hospital, looking into a room where a woman is giving birth, screaming as her chest shimmers with the vigor of her firework. The camera cuts to a shot of the patient through the colorful sparks, showing the change on her face as she realizes the beauty and power of what happens before her.  Just then, the wallflower reaches the bar where another boy turns to look at him.  The two gazes into each other’s eyes and, after a moment of brief intensity, lean into to kiss whiles a dance of colorful embers explode around them.

The patient steps outside the doors of the hospital still dressed in her hospital gown and looks up into the night sky.  The teen magician continues to impress the “thugs” on the street with tricks as his firework brightens the darkened alley.  Breathing out a sigh, the girl at the pool runs and cannonballs, jumping up from the water and reaching toward the sky as her firework ignites.  And finally, with her eyes closed, and a smile on her face, the cancer patient throws back her bald head and shoots her fireworks high into the evening sky as the wind whips her hospital gown and Katy sings, “You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe awe awe.”


Source:
taylorcolemiller.com
wikipedia