ill Manors – Plan B

The use of genre in a chosen music video

Track: ill ManorsArtist: Plan B (Ben Drew)Genre: Hip-hop, protest Date released: 25 March 2012Origin: Lead single from the ‘ill Manors’ film soundtrack, also directed by Plan BAwards: Q Award for Best Track (October 2012)

Aspects of

mise-en-

scene

Location

Action

Gender

Race

Costume

Lighting

Props

Actors

LocationThroughout the music video, the focus never changes from this thoroughly urban setting. Features such as tower blocks, pictured here, car parks and council estates form the backdrop of Plan B’s protest song. The run-down areas and grey landscape add to the bleak nature of the song and help Plan B to develop the genre of hip-hop beyond an urban genre concerned with social commentary, and more as a harsh depiction and criticism of modern life. Also, the urban setting adds to the idea of modernity as Plan B’s particular style is very original. The location of London is also key in conveying the genre of Plan B’s ‘ill Manors’ for many different reasons. Firstly, ‘ill Manors’ is largely described as a reaction to the 2011 London riots, and the references in Plan B’s lyrics to looting, and the anger of the rioters at the government: “What needs fixing is the system / Not shop windows down in Brixton / Riots on the television / You can’t put us all in prison!” There are also other references to modern issues in London such as the vast amount of money being spent on the 2012 Olympics while little help is being given to resolve the city’s poverty.

LocationBeing the centre of Britain’s politics, London appears the perfect place for the genre of protest music to take place as it’s the heart of political decisions and action. Frequent images of politicians such as David Cameron and Nick Clegg reinforce this political message and harness the emotions of the targeted audience. In 2013, findings were published that stated that ¼ of households in London received council tax benefit, and furthermore that London’s benefits bill reached £36 billion in 2013 – a higher amount than the total defence budget. With these huge problems facing the population of London, there is no doubt a lot of anger and resentment felt towards the government. Setting this genre of music against the backdrop of these political issues and appealing to this alienated audience through lyrics such as “We’ve had it with you politicians / You bloody rich kids never listen / There’s no such thing as broken Britain / We’re just bloody broke in Britain”. Psychoanalyst Lacan stated that audiences relate to texts where they can identify the representations with aspects of themselves and the location helps to add to this as much of Plan B’s audience may live in London, and therefore be directly affected by the issues he raps about, or are living in a similar setting.

CostumePlan B relies on the stereotypical costume of youth throughout the video of hoodies, tracksuits and caps. A Guardian article after the 2011 London riots described the hoodie as “the ultimate symbol of exclusion and menace” that is now a “criminal cloak for London's looting youth”. By dressing his actors in this universally recognisable symbol of deviant youth, Plan B clearly roots his genre as a genre for the young people of today, and possibly has an idealised audience in mind of other young people with similar ideals and opinions as him. This idea is in keeping with Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model, whereby Plan B has maximised on the stereotypes of youth and recognisable imagery, such as clothing, so that audiences are more likely to identify with the performers and to give a preferred reading of the text as opposed to an aberrant reading. Much of the costume in the video is also used as a form of obscuring the performers’ identity, as a direct link to the 2011 riots, through the use of hoodies, caps and bandanas across the performers’ faces. The use of this costume helps to create a collective identity for deviant youth, representing them as a faceless mob.

CostumeThis largely negative portrayals of youth help Plan B to reinforce the genre of protest hip-hop that he appears to be developing. By frequently relying on stereotypes of youth throughout the video, Plan B is able to satirise this common perception of youth, which he states himself in an interview. By taking the protest genre further than simply social commentary, he seeks to satirise and question the current social situation in Britain, through exaggerating the ways in which the general public views young people. Furthermore, Theorist Cohen suggested that society goes through periods of moral panics and that it needs someone to blame. To support this, Giroux described youth as an ‘empty category’, through which the media reflects adult needs, desires and anxieties. In playing with these concepts, Plan B is able to capture the zeitgeist of society’s fear of its own youth, while questioning the validity of this fear. Plan B also reflects the conventions of the hip-hop genre through his choice of costume for his performers. Tracksuits, caps, hoodies and bandanas are frequently used in music videos in this genre, as it can be seen in the two examples below taken from Nas’ ‘Nas Is Like’ and Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Love This Town’. Nas, an American artist, and Dizzee, a British one, illustrate the fact that this dress is a universally recognisable symbol of the hip-hop genre.

Lighting, action and props

The lighting that Plan B uses through the majority of the video is bright, with a muting of colours to sustain the greyness of the cinematography. This exposure helps to add to the bleak, gritty realism approach that Plan B takes to this genre – emphasising the issues that he is examining. Furthermore, this bright exposure works with the idea that Plan B is attempting to expose the deep issues that modern British society is facing. This lighting also works in good contrast with the darker lighting in the car park, where some youths are assaulting some people. Plan B stated himself that his music video to ‘ill Manors’ was concerned with “dark, true reality” and he attempts to show the darker side of British youth with the depiction of violence and gang culture. The action within the music video is very much in keeping with Plan B’s development of the hip-hop/social commentary genre in its adherence to realism. The video shows a range of action on the part of the youth from dancing to looting to violent assault. The realist approach can be seen in the combination of both of these representations as Plan B is not denying the violent, destructive side of youth culture but simultaneously highlights the individuality and creativeness of young people through their expressiveness in dance.

Lighting, action and props

Plan B plays with the use of props throughout the video to reinforce the genre of his music video. The modernity of the genre is represented through the use of technologies such as mobile phones, clearly rooting the audience of the genre as a young, modern audience. Furthermore, the girl pictured below with the mobile phone is videoing someone being assaulted by a group of youths, possibly as a reference to the awful social phenomenon of ‘happy slapping’. By referencing key issues that young people are discussing today and the use of social media, Plan B keeps the genre very up-to-date and relevant for his audience. However, there are some props used within the video to depict more negative representations of youth. Props such as baseball bats and pit-bulls add to the violent, threatening image of young people that is so often pioneered by the media. However, this fits with the darker elements of the genre and Plan B isn’t hiding the more brutal sides of the issues that he’s exploring. In addition, the use of props such as cigarettes adds to the idea of deviant youth, who Plan B is targeting.

Representation of gender and raceAlthough Plan B himself is a white artist, a large proportion of his performers in the video for ‘ill Manors’ are black. In relation to the 2011 London riots, race was a key issue that is largely attributed as the cause of the riots. The shooting of unarmed black teenager Mark Duggan by police in 2011 sparked indignation as many believed that institutional racism was the cause of his death. This was heightened by the poor handling of the case by the police concerning contradictory witness statements and the fact that Duggan was unarmed – drawing into question the legitimacy of the police’s decision to shoot him. Perhaps consequently, 39% of arrested rioters in London were black, holding a majority over white involvement, possibly because they were more angered by the causes of the 2011 riots. Dizzee Rascal, a UK rap and grime artist, also explores the concept of youths rioting in his video for ‘Love This Town’, pictured below, by using black performers as rioters in his video. Furthermore, Plan B highlights the roots of hip-hop in black culture through the dance element of his video. Break dancing which emerged in the 1980s stemmed from African American culture and the black performers in the video cement this link to hip-hop’s origins.

Representation of gender and racePlan B’s liberal attitude towards gender in his music video can be seen through the inclusion of both male and females in his group of performers. This challenges the convention of gender roles in the hip-hop genre, as trophies or objects to surround the male artist. Images of hyper-sexualised women are often used to glorify the ‘gangster’ lifestyle associated with this genre. Unlike Laura Mulvey’s study of the male gaze in mainstream genres, Plan B avoids the objectification of women completely in his video by including them in this collective.Despite this, the roles that women play in the video do seem to conform to other stereotypes of women in the media. Pictured below is a girl videoing a fight on her phone, rather than being involved in the action herself, and the theme of active men and passive women is continued throughout the video. This reinforces the stereotype of women as bystanders, who are too weak to be included in the action or are simply excluded. This contradicts Plan B’s progressive style that he brings to the genre through his stance on social issues, yet his perhaps less progressive attitude towards women becomes apparent in this video.The focus on male youth in the video is not wholly inaccurate though, as 89% of arrested rioters in the 2011 riots were male which is shown through the clips of rioting in the video.

References to other texts

Plan B uses references to the media throughout the video to reinforce the protest genre as he is able to directly criticise and reference key social issues and debates such as Cameron’s alleged ‘hug a hoodie’ campaign and the image, pictured here, of a youth making a sign of shooting Cameron. By including these current social debates it helps to retain audience interest and engages them directly in the protest genre as they form their own opinions as they watch the music video. This idea is also in keeping with hip-hop’s long history with social commentary – as can be seen in examples such as Nas and Tupac – which cements the genres simultaneously within the video.

The scene in the car park where there is a choreographed fight scene is very similar to the break dancing scene in Leftfield’s ‘Afrika Shox’. This track is also a development of the hip-hop genre with the element of social criticism. However, both videos ensure to reference the roots of their niche genre in hip-hop culture, and appeal largely to a younger audience.