Call Me Maybe

Carly Rae Jepson:

Genre Characteristics

Carly Rae Jepson is of the pop genre and her song call me maybe

includes many generic conventions which agree to this genre. The

pop genre is usually associated with love and heartbreak, up beat,

positive music which often has colourful and bright music videos

which also include some humour. Call me maybe conforms to this as

it about getting someone’s attention. This is done in creative way

with non realistic day dreams and ‘wacky’ behaviour.

The background here is of a sunset which includes colours such as pink and purples which are usually associated with the pop genre. The blurred background and mise en scene choices to have costumes from different time period make it non- realistic which emphasises that this is a dream.

Promote/Sell Artist

The narrative of this video portrays the artist as a typical teenager who is love

struck as soon as she looks at a good looking guy. As this is a stereotype of a

teenage girl, it’s clear that they are the target audience.

This video also consists of many comical

elements due to the behaviour of the artist

which allows teenage girls to recognise

certain traits which they, or someone else may

posses which makes it appealing to them. This

is also similar to they use of costume, in the

narrative we see the artist looking quite

casual/relaxed and also dressed up which

many teenage girls can relate to.

Lyrics and Visuals

“Skin was showing” “wind was blowing”

The lyrics in this song are quite quirky

and are meant to be comical hence

why she’s acting slightly crazy in it. In

terms of the relationship between the

lyrics and visuals- there are not many

shots with a direct link to the words. This

may have been because much the

chorus is repeated a few times and it

would’ve been unnecessary and almost

impossible to link all the words as well as

keeping the context of the narrative.

‘Call me maybe’

The title of the song, whole aim of the

song is to get his number and call him,

however when the number is revealed

at the end, the twist is the guy is

actually gay which makes it humorous.

This is one of the

only examples of a

direct link however

this is slightly

metaphorical and

yet again comical

as the ‘wind’ is from

fanning herself.

Music and Visuals

The relationship of the actual song with the visuals is quite far apart as

she’s not really doing anything she’s singing about however, this music

video seems to match the quirkiness of the song itself as the visuals make

create an element of humour into it for it to be quite fun and exciting.

Frequent Looking

In many of the scenes in which the artist is singing she is

directly facing the looking at the camera which establishes

the relationship between the artist and the audience. This

allows us to see the clear division between the narrative and

the artist singing directly. However, In order to be more

creative, this music video combines the two locations with her

facing the audience as well as looking at the man as if she

remembers the audience throughout the video. For example, in this

picture, the artist is

looking at the man first,

however then she looks

back directly to her

audience to make it

clear this is not real.

Intertextuality

In this video, Acting is used to intertextualise to

many iconic scenes in comedy movies in order

to add an element of humour in it. This shot

shows her trying to attract the man’s attention

by washing the car in a provocative manner. This

is a very popular scene in many movies including

‘Grown ups.’ The pose is also seen as a typical

‘sexy’ pose which was used in the movie ‘Bad

Teacher’ as well as in Pink’s Stupid Girls music

video.