Diversity & Music Videos

Diversity & Music Videos by John Lenox Cope

The image to the right is from Devendra Banhart's "Carmensita" music video. The music video is a great example of diversity because although Banhart is an American singer-songwriter, the video is shot in a Bollywood style, the lyrics are sung in Spanish, and the actors are diverse in gender and race.

My graduate project revolves around directing a music video and analyzing the subsequent distribution of the video on various social media websites. I will be comparing the distribution statistics (number of plays/downloads) on the sites to see which are the most effective. Diversity will most likely play a minor role in the distribution aspect of the project. The reason for this is because I will be choosing the most popular social networking sites and the artist/record label site as the platforms for distribution. The production of the music video will provide a much greater opportunity for me to explore diversity.

Diversity can be defined in many different ways. Keith Woods discusses what diversity at work looks like in this article. In the music video industry, diversity most likely brings to mind ideas of multicultural aspects of the visual content rather than the song itself. Some bands are more diverse than others in terms of the people who make up the group. Bands like Black Kids, No Doubt, and The Thermals consist of members of different races and different sexes. This fact alone does not mean their videos are diverse in comparison to other artists who may have a more homogenous membership. Music videos provide an opportunity for artists to express themselves and their songs in diverse ways.

There are several articles and sites that are dedicated to diversity in the music industry. Much of what is written focuses on racial and gender diversity within the industry as a whole. One such example is a video of Alison Wenham, CEO of Association of Independent Music discussing the lack of diversity in the music industry. A documentary called Money For Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop Music explores how diversity has declined in the music industry because only a few record labels control most of the market. An excerpt of this documentary can be found here.

It is important for those involved in the music industry to consider diversity when creating and distributing music videos. We live in a very diverse society and it is important for artforms such as music videos to represent this diversity.