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MTV: advertising and production
It was the sometimes extraordinary and innovative avant-garde techniques that first drew the attention of the critical establishment to MTV. It was tempting to view these devices as serving similar functions to those they served in what is now “traditional” modernism; but as we’ll see in the next chapter, this is not so. In any case, the devices masked the promotional and commercial aspects of MTV that are evident in the contexts of production and exhibition.
But before I discuss the similarities between rock videos and ads, as specific texts, let me note how in its overall, 24-hour flow, MTV functions like one continuous ad in that nearly all of its short segments are indeed ads of one kind or another. If it is true that commercials constitute the real TV dramas in the case, say, of a series program like Soap,1 then how much more true is this of a channel like Music Television that contains little else but ads of various kinds. As I’ll show toward the end of this chapter, the various ad-segments, whether they be rock videos, a Levi or Cooler commercial, or promos for MTV itself, all have come to look more and more alike. It is for this reason that MTV, more than other television, may be said to be about consumption. It evokes a kind of hypnotic trance in which the spectator is suspended in a state of unsatisfied desire but forever under the illusion of imminent satisfaction through some kind of purchase. This desire is displaced onto the record that will embody the star’s magnetism and fascination.
The rock video idea was originally an advertising idea; in fact, a better name for rock videos is really “rock promos,” since they are widely seen as promotional tools for the record companies.2 The word “promo” is also appropriate because it indicates the videos’ links to advertising evident in their style and manner of production. Their short, four-minute span originally suited a promotional context, while the illogical image-change and generally “avant-garde” techniques mimicked those long customary in many ads. The reliance on freelance crews, the omission of production credits and the financial tie-in to the record companies all duplicate the production situation of ads.
Interestingly, the promotional videos, which have hitherto been provided free by the record companies on the model of companies giving radio stations free records, are now in competition with one another for space on the channel. In the near future, record companies may have to pay to have videos on MTV. Given the already considerable cost of producing a video (from $35,000 to $50,000 at least), which is usually shouldered by the record company, this would be taxing. Several directors in a Variety interview suggested that record companies would be happy to be rid of the need to produce videos, for which they have “no clear-cut recoupment.” Others, however, pointed out MTV’s function in promoting songs not on the radio charts and in keeping songs in circulation that would otherwise have died. All seemed to agree, however, that a good video could not make a smash out of a “mediocre” song.3 The huge success of Jackson’s “Thriller” evidently convinced record companies of what videos could do, and interested several of them in the longer format (but so far as I can see, only David Bowie has taken advantage of extra time).
Exactly how any particular video was produced (who financed it, what artists were involved) is unclear to the viewer, since no credits of any kind are given (the rock group, the title of the song, and the record it comes from are the only clues). Full credits are given only for each week’s video that is Top of the Countdown, and for those that make it to the MTV Awards ceremony. Directors differ greatly in the degree to which they demand or receive artistic freedom, though undoubtedly some see a tension between the record companies and themselves which is exacerbated by the fact that the companies are responsible for the financing.4
Rock videos differ from ads in the degree of concern for artistic elements. In this sense they are a hybrid form, in between the ad and the pop culture text. Directors themselves are a mixed bunch, drawn from a variety of backgrounds. Those coming from commercials think about a video very differently from those coming from independent filmmaking. Ken Walz is concerned that videos are becoming increasingly commercial, with record companies demanding “a more scientific approach to writing, producing and directing … videos.” He fears that the more commercial directors get into the scene, the more they will feel comfortable with such restrictions and the less creativity there will be.5 Other directors in the group interviewed have not yet felt the restrictions of commercials and apparently see themselves free to create what they want. All agree that there is often tension among the three main groups involved in production – the performers, the artists, and the record company. Directors believe they are the ones who know what has to be done and who can best come up with suitable ideas, but often performers or company people think they know best. Some directors find the record companies at a loss because the rock video is such a new form, and only too glad to leave things up to the person they have hired. The possibility for creativity in music video production is evident in the big name film directors (Brian de Palma and John Sayles have already made videos) now becoming interested in making videos just because of the greater freedom than Hollywood that videos offer.
An important problem mentioned by the directors interviewed is that usually the song is written first, and therefore takes priority over the visuals, limiting visual possibilities. The creativity of the film director has to be subordinated to that of the song-writer and performer. One director suggested that a rock star should begin working with a director at the point of conceptualizing the song but this is clearly impractical.6 Others are concerned that videos may begin to affect the music negatively. August Darnell, organizer and chief composer for a band (Kid Creole and the Coconuts), is quoted as saying that “The attention that used to be devoted to content and song form is now being given over to the videos.”7 How things are finally resolved in the current set-up varies from case to case.
A second source of conflict is that between the groups producing the video (usually the director and the performers) and MTV as an institution. Because videos are more than merely ads (they are, as it were, ads plus), artists and bands have already, in MTV’s short history, been in conflict with MTV management and with the record companies. There is a built-in contradiction, familiar from Hollywood, between the interests of the artists and performers and of those creating a profitable enterprise. In a predictable cycle, the more tapes were adapted to what would please the largest audience, the more successful the channel, and the greater the urge to censor material. Wary both of parental objections to the cable and of white audiences in racist parts of America, MTV at first censored black bands and explicit sex (e.g. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax).
The motivations for both kinds of censorship were probably mainly commercial, but Dr York, one of the American black artists who has had trouble getting videos shown on MTV, is convinced that it is the difficulty of finding sponsors for the channel when black artists are featured that has kept them off MTV. According to Dr York, advertising strategists find the market for blacks hard to predict and unreliable, and thus are wary of committing money for promoting the music of black artists.8
As a result of objections raised by well-known stars like David Bowie, who refused to have videos on MTV if the situation continued, things improved somewhat in 1984 – 5. Predictably, changes have been merely in line with what the establishment could tolerate; that is, videos by black artists like Prince and Michael Jackson who have obviously “made it” are played from time to time, but black bands are still by far in the minority in the regular MTV run.9 Prince is featured regularly only when he has a hit (like “Purple Rain” or “Raspberry Beret”), but was rarely represented until his recent, mildly scandalous “Kiss” video that (perhaps because of its explicit sexuality) did not remain long in circulation. Now that Michael Jackson is out of the news, his videos are also only rarely seen. Until the recent advent of Whitney Houston, Tina Turner was the only female black singer featured regularly, and even so, her videos are few and far between. Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love” was played frequently when it got into the top twenty, but we have mainly seen her since then co-starring with white artists (see below); the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance” was only their second video since “Jump” to be shown, and their newest video appeared only recently. Black artists who are not well known cannot get a video on MTV in the way that a similarly obscure white rock musician can, and rightly feel discriminated against by the channel; they have to content themselves with appearances on the weekly programs on other channels already mentioned, or on cable slots.
As of writing, one solution for black artists who want to get on MTV is to make videos jointly with white artists. Phil Collins and Phil Bailey paved the way with their successful “Easy Lover,” and the video perhaps still represents the most playful and thoroughly integrated of joint videos. Hall and Oates made a successful video with David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick, played constantly in September 1985. Most recently, Aretha Franklin has appeared with Simple Minds in their successful “Alive and Kicking” (top of the countdown for several weeks in 1986), and again in their “All The Things She Saw” (she is apparently becoming a staple of their act); Franklin is also given homage in Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know,” but appears most dramatically with Annie Lennox in their powerful “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves,” discussed in Chapter 5.
The other use of black artists – namely as back up choir and/or dancing figures (as in Young’s “Everytime You Go Away” or Sting’s successful “If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free”) still seems somewhat exploitative, but perhaps better than nothing. The September 1985 MTV Video Awards broke new ground in having Eddie Murphy as the host and including more black artists than ever before. Perhaps because of this, in combination with the space that Channel Three has been providing especially for black artists (in the Video Soul and Video Vibrations slots), in Summer 1986 lesser known black artists, often relying on rap and reggae music that MTV has hitherto claimed was not their province,10 appeared more frequently. A striking example of this is the recent success of the rap group Run – DMC’s “Walk This Way,” which has been in the countdown several times and has been frequently cycled on the channel. This success will no doubt pave the way for more rap groups, such as Whodini, to get on MTV. Janet and Jermaine Jackson, possibly because of their famous connection, and Jermaine Stewart, are currently paving the way for others.
Censorship of sex seems to be relaxing, but again this is a mixed blessing. Homosexuality is not addressed directly (I will be discussing bi-sexuality and androgyny in their constricted forms later on), and relaxing of sex censorship has merely permitted degrading images of the female body (not that dissimilar from some pornography) to emerge (see John Cougar’s “Hurts So Good,” etc. discussed in Chapter 5, Prince’s “1999,” or his recent “Kiss” video mentioned above). Some of the most sexist heavy metal bands, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, and Twisted Sister, have recently become popular and are now featured on MTV regularly (heavy metal bands were earlier censored), particularly in the weekly “Most Requested Videos” slot. (As of writing, there is a special “Heavy Metal” slot on the channel, presumably as a result of popular demand.) Twisted Sister’s extraordinary video “Leader of the Pack” details, in comic mode, the incredibly violent adventures of a proper middle-class girl en route to union with one of the awesomely endowed band members parading huge biceps, broad chest, and hair down to the waist. Ozzy Osbourne’s “Shot in the Dark” similarly shows the transformation of another middle-class girl into a zebra-like seductress through Osbourne’s initiation rites; while Alice Cooper’s “(He’s Back): He’s the Man Behind the Mask” this time has a middle-class young male terrifyingly inducted into the Alice Cooper nether world.
Artists and performers are naturally implicated in the contradictions because the increased success of the channel means their increased exposure and sales. They cannot help being involved because of their status as mediatory objects between a private and a public sphere. The artists’ subjectivity is constructed for them through their involvement in the public sphere, changing their relationship to society. Although personally they may object to racism, since their success depends on exposure on MTV they are brought to acquiesce.
Here the similarity between ads and videos is central, for, as Stephen Levy notes, “MTV’s greatest achievement has been to coax rock and roll into the video arena where you can’t distinguish between entertainment and the sales pitch.”11 The “sales pitch” has two objects, first that of selling the MTV station itself, second that of selling the band and their song/album. In both cases, videos function like advertising, in which the signifier that addresses desire is linked to a commodity. The signifiers used to sell the MTV station address the desire for (1) power and virility, and (2) nurturance and community, neatly combining appeals to both male and female spectators. Power and virility (and, one might suggest, patriotism) are signified by the huge rocket plunging into outer space, followed by images of men on the moon exploring new territory. (Interestingly, this logo has remained constant since MTV’s inception, attesting presumably to its expression of an appeal basic to the channel.) Another logo, now dropped, used to show a TV monitor, scrawled with the letters MTV, into which a globe dropped (MTV is the world!), but has been replaced with logos insisting that, with its 24-hour flow, MTV is LIFE!, and with an image of a gleaming, stream-lined subway train coming to a halt. The idea is clear: MTV equals the men exploring outer space in its breaking of new territory, and also equals new technologies, the future. MTV claims also to encompass all that the young adult needs – it is the World as well as Life. One logo references the Aztec culture, showing its monuments being toppled over. MTV is a “civilization” greater than the Aztec.
Interestingly enough, in 1986, an MTV logo began to reflect the various debates about MTV and rock videos generally (like, for instance, those started by the parents against rock (PMRC) organization). The logo cleverly seeks to co-opt objections by satirizing them: one logo shows a man watching MTV for 24-hours, taking its own ad literally; he becomes increasingly dishevelled and ill, until a voice-over says that MTV is bad for you. Another logo consists of interviews with people describing the evil things that go on on MTV; the appeal now is to the illicit, but it is in fact obvious that all is quite innocent.12
There used to be a vivid signifier for nurturance, namely the plaintive, child-like voice of Pete Townshend or Mick Jagger (both attentive early on to the possibilities of MTV) saying “I want my MTV!” (i.e. “I want my Mommy, my milk”), but this is no longer played. The station now relies on its trusty veejays (Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and J.J. Jackson) to create an appeal essential for the success of the station, that is the creation of a casual, intimate ambience. (In 1986, some new veejays (like Chuck Slick Kanter) were added, and older ones phased out or given less time.) After intensive marketing research, Robert Pittman hit upon the desire for a pseudo, rock and roll “family,” very much along the lines of that deliberately created in programs like Good Morning America to appeal to adults.13 But in this case, the “family” was to be a family of peers, very deliberately lacking adults. The supposedly informal, easy, and relaxed style of the veejays was intended to conjure up the natural ambience of teenagers gathered in a room to listen to music with their peers. (My sophisticated sources tell me that the ambience is far from being convincingly “natural,” seeming rather deliberately fake to these viewers, and indeed MTV is all pre-recorded.14 They resent the forced attempt to be one with the audience.15) The decision not to include any news except that relating to music further ensured the absence of adult authority figures. MTV thus constructs a false sense of addressing a unified teenage rock “community,” fulfilling young people’s desire to belong in a world without parents.
But in addition to selling itself, MTV also sells the music and the bands featured in videos. Here the signifiers that address desire (for sex, violence, freedom, love) are fastened onto the commodity that is, in this case, the band and their music contained in the purchasable album. The desire is displaced onto the album, which then promises to satisfy it, in the familiar manner of advertisements.
Videos differ in the degree to which they feature the rock star in performance and other members of the band playing their various instruments. But those that do clearly show traces of the tapes of live performances that preceded MTV, and of live transmissions. Performers and managers here rely on the star phenomenon, promoting an identification with band members that will bring teenagers out to live concerts and persuade them to buy not only albums but also all...
