Goodwin Essay

For this essay I am going to look at the music video for 'Princess of China,' the collaboration between Rihanna and Coldplay's Chris Martin. This video was directed by Adria Petty and Alan Bibby. 

This track is from the pop genre, the video doesn't show as obviously as some pop videos from artist's such as Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift that it is from the pop genre. The video does include characteristics to indicate it is from the pop genre. Rihanna wears revealing clothes and camera angles focus on this to encourage the viewer to look at her in a sexualised way (voyeurism.) This is shown in the screen shot above when she wears a tight black dress with the majority of her thigh showing.  

There is also a 'love story' part to the video where Rihanna and Chris Martin stand head to head and sing to each other and look into each others eyes. A music video with scenes like this which show clear feelings and emotions are the majority of the time from the pop genre as pop songs tell more of a story.

The title of the song is 'Princess of China' the whole of the video relates to China, with the mise-en-scene, locations it is filmed and the Chinese symbols shown on two occasions at the start of the video. 


Some parts, but not many in the video match the lyrics to the visuals. For example when the Rihanna says 'Burning Bright' in the first verse of the song she wears bright colourful clothes to match the lyric. 



Another example where this is present is during the chorus. The lyric is 'Let me go.' Rihanna and all the other dancers stood behind her wave their hands out to make them look almost like butterflies flying away.




Parts of the video co inside with the speed of the song. The start of the video is a good example of this because it is a slower pace and Chris Martin walks to the beat of the music. Then after this during more up beat parts of the song the video flashes between shots of different locations to keep up with the pace.

Chris Martin is an artist from a band who rarely collaborates with other artists. Rihanna does sometimes duet with other artists but these have only been R&B artists, where as Chris Martin is from a pop/indie band. The video is similar in ways to their normal work. Lots going on, different locations and things to look at. Rihanna normally relies more on dancers in her videos, which is also present in this video but not as heavily. Camera angles focus entirely on the two of them so that they are promoted as artists.

Rihanna's music video's normally show her in a very sexual way. To the right shows two screen shots from her videos 'Rude Boy' and 'Hard' through out these videos she dances and wears clothes to encourage people to look at her in a sexual way. The camera focuses on parts of her body like her chest and bum to also encourage this. However Princess of China is only one of her video's that doesn't really encourage voyeurism. It could be because of the male influence in the video, to make it seem like more of a subtle love story. This video is very different to Rihanna's normal work, it doesn't include any intertextual references to other work or other artists work.

During this video there isn't really a narrative story to follow, it is more of a performance based video between the two artists.

In conclusion, this video between Rihanna and Chris Martin is from the pop genre, it isn't like Rihanna's normal work and is also out of the ordinary from Chris Martin's normal work. The video doesn't follow a story line but is more performance based with emphasis on the settings and mise-en-scene during the video.