CSP - Music Video - OLD TOWN ROAD

Background and cultural contexts

Read this Vox feature and podcast transcript on Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. Make sure you read the whole thing - including the podcast transcript - then answer the following questions: 

1) What is the big debate regarding Old Town Road and genre?
Whether its regarded as a country song or not

2) What do you learn about the background of Lil Nas X and Old Town Road from the podcast transcript?
Hes a rapper from Atlanta, USA and he has been calling himself Lil Nas X for years

3) What is the Yeehaw agenda?
Representing black people in the country music genre

4) How did the story become a debate about race in America?
After billboard removed the song from their list it became a race argument, despite them admitting it is not about the race and everything about the music their reasoning prevents black people in the genre to ever make it big from their definition.

5) How does Charlie Harding sum up the whole thing in the final part of the podcast transcript?
He says that the song does not represent past country music rural community, but instead the internet generation.

Now read this Salon feature on Lil Nas X and LGBTQ+ identity. Answer the following questions:

1) How did Lil Nas X announce his sexuality on social media?
He did this through his song called Closure which he opened about being gay

2) Why does the article describe Old Town Road as 'genre-blurring'? 
Because its quite a hybrid genre and reflects both country music and the lgbtq community

3) How has country music demonstrated the social change taking place in American culture and society? 
It shows what doing something out of the norms or out of the ordinary can do. When Lil Nas came out as gay, many others did the same.

Old Town Road textual analysis

Watch the video again and answer the following questions. Use your notes from our in-class analysis to help you:

1) How are narrative features used in the music video? Apply narrative theory here.

• Levi Strauss (Binary opposition): Country vs Hip Hop
• Todorov (Equilibrium): Media res action equilibrium which is a genre convention
• Propp (Character Types): Hero is Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus is the side kick
• Barthes (enigma and action codes): Kicking door down in the bingo game, Horse riding into the neighbourhood- genre convention

2) What examples of genre conventions and intertextuality can you find in the video?

• Intertextual references: Social media dances, Miley Cyrus 'Ho down' dance scene in Hannah Montana movie
• Music and film genres: Hybrid mix of genres (Sci-Fi, Country, hip hop)
• Country and western tropes: Riding into the neighbourhood on a horse
• Celebrity Cameos: Chris Rock & Billy Ray Cyrus

3) How are technical codes used to create meanings in the video? Analyse camerawork, editing and mise-en-scene and make specific reference to moments in the video.

• Camera Work: It gives it a cinematic feel, like a narrative
• Mise-en-scene: The costumes fit the country genre, Setting is old and deserted until it showed the hip hop aspect and it became the "hood".
• Editing: Typical for country genre, High production value

4) How are representations of race and ethnicity constructed in the video?

• Black in country - (Yeehaw agenda)
• LGBTQ - Lil Nas x
• Place and time - (America) 

5) What other representations can you find in the video? You may wish to comment on gender, sexuality or America/American culture. 

• Old and young getting along with one another
• Both black and white communities
• Pink and Cow print cow boys and girls (shows subversion)
• Pink could represent how Lil Nas X is gay.

Old Town Road Media Factsheet

Finally, read Media Factsheet #262 - Old Town Road. You'll need to log in to Google using your Greenford Google account to access this. Read the factsheet and answer the following questions: 

1) Who are the celebrities that appear in cameos in the video? 

Billy Ray Cyrus, Chris Rock  and other low rank celebrities/ rappers.

2) Choose three of the key terms defined on the first page of the factsheet and write the definitions here. Focus on terms you are unfamiliar with.

• Archetypal: A representation that is very typical of a person place or thing.
• Cultural Myth: Deeper ideologies that has been shaped through cultural coding through connotations over time.
• Mytheme: Small units of a narrative in cultural products: Theme, character and action, the studies of which that can reveal the dominant ideas of culture. 

3) How did Lil Nas X use social media to boost his own popularity and the success of the video?

• Used reddit users/ audiences to think of a name for the song
• The release of the original track created memes
• He listed the songs on Itunes and referred to it as "country-trapp"
• He was clout chasing using Nicki Minaj and her fans (with an anonymous Nicki Minaj fan account) 

4) Look at the video analysis on page 3. What conventions of the western can be found in the video? 

• Hoe down and horse show down
• Stranger riding into town
• Riding in a country side
• Bank robberies

5) How does the video begin? 

With a chase scene after him and Billy Ray Cyrus just robbed someone

6) What does the factsheet suggest regarding the modern-day part of the video? 

He created a comic juxtaposition for the audience

7) How can the video be read as a reinforcement of capitalism and the American dream? 

 Wanting to be rich and living in a well built area.

8) How does the factsheet suggest the video creates a hyperreality? 

Lil Nas X hugging an old white lady subverts the negative stereotypes so it constructs and hyperreality or inclusivity and community.

9) How is masculinity represented in the video? 

It is depicted as self-reliant, macho and tough, often self-sacrificing and shun romantic relationships with women.

10) Look at the final page. What theories are suggested for this CSP and which do you think are the most useful? 

• Schatz genres of order and integration
• Judith Butler
• David Gauntlett
• Paul Gilroy (double consciousness) 
• Stuart Hall (Transcoding)