[Article] "HAMASAKI EXPOSES INDUSTRY!" Ayu reveals the truth behind entertainment's curtain

[Zeke.]

^ No, I completely understand your point of view. I had to omit A LOT of further explanation and analysis because the message needed to be concise and portrayed in poster format without allowing the text to get small. Originally I had further analysis of the scenes where Ayu is white (in the grey room), but those scenes are have enough visual cues and codes in them to do a separate analysis on (Gestalt's Perspective theories of Social and Common Fate, etc.)!

Of course a lot of this isn't anything "revolutionary," but the argument wasn't that it was. A lot of the symbolism and codes used were regarding practices that have become culturally known and accepted within the media/entertainment/music industry, but it's about the WAY they communicated this to the audience and WHY the audience is able to receive, decode, and interpret those messages.

Regarding the clowns: Clowns, in their very basic form, "perform tricks for entertainment" - they perform 'tricks' to entertain people (balloon making, etc.). Clowns are used to portray executives/the media in the video because THEY TOO "perform tricks for entertainment," however, whereas the performance of tricks IS the entertainment for clowns, the media is performing "tricks" behind-the-scenes for the benefit of the entertainment industry. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? It is a play on words. Ayu uses this same metaphor in her video for 1LOVE, where once again, a CLOWN is used to represent the media. To re-iterate, clowns (as icons) symbolize "the performance of tricks for entertainment purposes" - this symbolization is then projected onto the media through the use of analogic codes in the video.

Ayu becomes a robot, a machine, upon making her first public debut. "The minute an individual becomes a form of income for another individual is the minute all humanity is lost." She forfeits her identity - her identity is no longer hers, it is the companies, it is the publics, it is the medias, and it shall forever remain as such because her identity will constantly continue to be sold to the public, even after she is "disposed" of, even after she dies and leaves this Earth, her name will still be used to sell products; her songs will still live on to sell records; her name will continue to sell tabloids and articles. Essentially, her name and her identity will FOREVER be used to garner profits.

Notice in the end scene, she is still singing. Despite the fact that she can still perform her duty (she was hailed as BEST HIT SINGING MACHINE - if she can still sing, why is she in trash?), she is viewed as garbage. She still retains all the "talent" she had when proclaimed a star; the difference is that her talent no longer sells and therefore she is viewed as talentless in the eyes of the media. Notice that her arms have been removed - this signifies a problem with her "body" - she is still able to perform her duty of singing despite this (which can relay meanings of the importance placed on body image in the media and talent truly is not enough - the ENTIRE product needs to be polished in order to be viewed as successful).

Of course, the strings on all the characters (as puppets) are also representative of the fact that the industry is a mastermind game; they people within the industry are all "played" to some extent - they all have someone telling them to do this or that and basically trying to control their actions. Etc.

I also thought the analogy of a popstar's life (not the popstar but the popstar's LIFE, their story) being akin to musical theatre was something that had never dawned on me until inspecting the video further. Literally, is not a popstar's life one giant drawn out musical theatre performance? The "songs" are the musical releases, the "song performances/numbers" are commercialized performances, and the acting, the dialogue, the "story" between the performance numbers is her truth; this is conveyed to the public through tabloids, through social media, through the news, etc. Until the day she dies her musical continues to move forward. This applies for all popstars. If you view their lifestory as one drawn out theatre performance it is quite interesting.

Regarding the white scenes, I was confused by the fan but things that I noticed about the white room is that: everything in the room is used for making music; they are musical instruments. Even the desk and chair which can be used to "sit and write music" at. There is also a dresser/cabinet. Essentially, dressers and cabinets are used to store things. The fan I was thinking, quite literally, could be representatives of "fans" of a music artist. The fans start out small, then GROW (Ayu's peak), and then revert back to being small (no longer at peak, selling less, less fans than at peak, etc.).
Ayu's dichotomy in size compared to the clowns and this interplay represents the growth of the artist within the industry and within the company to the point that the artist has more power and importance than the label itself (this is literally what happened in ayu's case during her peak when avex relied so heavily on her for profits).

With the analysis of the eye in her mouth, I began to think that... well, an eye is used to SEE (the truth) and a mouth is used to SPEAK (the truth). As an artist, a musician's voice is what they use to speak the truth. They see and visual their truth, their real self behind the product, through their lyrics (not all, but Ayu certainly has as she has written all her lyrics her entire life).

As you can see, I have done a thorough analysis and thought many of these scenes through (it all begins with, 'well what does this do/what is this used for? and HOW is it being used in this video?' and then bridging the gap between those two is where the analysis lies) but given my chosen medium, there simply was not enough space to do a "DEEP" analysis. I would have loved to, but it just wasn't plausible. I tried to boil it down to concise imagery. Basic, yes, but believe me when I say there is a lot more behind it. The main objective is to develop a thesis, and the thesis cannot simply be "I will analyze every symbol in the video and explain the meaning"; my thesis chose to focus on the use of the three codes and how those messages were conveyed to the audience through the use of signs (icons, indexes, symbols etc.).