The song “Where is the Love,” has our English course theme right in the title; therefore, there was an immediate connection for us. Using rap and hip-hop in this song, the band Black Eyed Peas uses a pop culture medium to ask the question, “Where is the Love?” This choice was a group decision because of all of the elements it includes is cohesive with our class theme.
A question mark appears very frequently in the video, symbolizing the title and the question, “Where is the Love?” The colors of the question mark vary throughout the video, and carry a deep meaning. The black question mark symbolizes death and killing, and the white symbolizes its opposite, life. The color red symbolizes love while the colors of black and white make up important parts of our lives. Happiness and a full life only come when we remember that we need more than just black and white. We need the red, or the love, to feel complete. The love adds color to life and unifies us all as one.
About half way through, the video takes an upward turn. The van drives up a hill while children are raising their arms and smiling. A man is raising his arms to the sky and people are looking upwards. Even aliens, from up above, are asking the same question, as seen by the crop formation of a question mark. People who find love have changed the path of their life into an upward direction, which symbolizes happiness and something better; a step in the direction of unity. This could also be enhanced by people raising their arms in the air towards the end of the video. More smiles are seen in the second half of the video, which leads to the love they see in the sky as universal, since everyone is looking in the same direction.
Children’s attitudes about love and hate have an important place in this video. Children’s faces and their emotions are often the main focus. Their sadness is evident in their faces in the beginning, along with some of the learned behaviors that instill hate in their hearts, such as violent video games. The message of hate has trickled down into the lives of these children. They are the first to remember the importance of love because of their direct relationship with the disconnected “grown ups” they use as role models.
This song/video proposes that love has been overshadowed by hate, a lack of unity, and societies allowance for an unnatural state. Racial discrimination also plays an important role in the video. Almost all of the people in the video are minorities. At one point, a white police officer is chasing a black man who tried to spread the message of love. This symbolizes a division in the races, and a lack of understanding of love between races. The minorities are seen engaged in various stereotypical situations that include negative connotations such as drug dealing and stealing. One black man, while being watched by a store security camera, seems to be trying to steal from a convenience store. However, the black man turns out to be spreading the message of love as opposed to stealing and dividing the races.
While watching this video we want the class to keep in mind a variety of thoughts and questions. First, how do the lyrics and the music video evoke a sense of wrongdoing by the population as a whole? Secondly, if you were the director of this music video, how would you have directed it to deliver the question, “Where is the Love?” Lastly, to you, what was the most memorable aspect of the video? Was it the expressions on the people’s faces? The heavy atmosphere? You decide.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc
The lasting image i had was the part at the end where a large amount of people gather in the street and show their unity. Also, the children mouthing the lyrics of the song was also a good touch to relate it to more people. If I was the director I would have made it more obvious what the question mark stood for. maybe a heart followed by a question mark.
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ReplyDeleteThe most memorable part of the video for me was when they looked up at the end of the video. The lyrics, specifically "where is the love?", evoke a sense of wrongdoing by implying that people really aren't loving each other as they should be. Focusing on different races helps to convey this message.
ReplyDeleteI like the consistency of the message this video brings. The question marks all over the city bring attention to me that it wants the message of love to be all around us and to be universal.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you guys described the question mark and broke down what each color could mean. I thought that the final scene of this music video offered a very lasting impression...everyone looking up into the sky showed unity. It also showed that there is hope for the world and someday people will find love. If I was a director, I would take this music video to different places around the world. I think that they could show a lot more diverse point of views. Overall, I liked the concept that they were trying to express to their audience
ReplyDeleteTo show wrongdoing, I thought it was a good start to begin with some of the most famous hate groups in our society like the KKK and various gangs. If I were the director of this video, I probably would not have taken the question mark approach and putting them everywhere but just scenes directed to either hate or neglection of loved ones. The most memorable aspect of the video to me was the faces of the little kids singing in the chorus because anyone viewing this video can see the pain in the eyes of these children and be able to see that they are in need of love.
ReplyDeleteThe most memorable aspect of the video for me was the crop circle theme. Although this is a relatively small part of the actual video, it poses a really good point. If there are such beings watching over us, what would they think of us? They must see all the horrible things we do to each other and how our nations can never get along. From their outside unbiased point of view, as a whole we must look like really violent civilization. It's actually ironic really because our race holds the theme of love and brotherhood so highly yet we act like this. They would probably see us as jsut a bunch of hypocrytes.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this video was a great choice for our topic in class. The video was very emotional and the way they chose to show things happening in the world was interesting. I felt that they capitolized well with the message that the world is falling apart and that we all need to pull together to live. I loved how the man holding up what i assumed were bibles had the question on it too. I felt it showed that the world is forgetting about religion and religion brings so much love to a person's life.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a good video that represents the message that the black eyed peas are trying to send. My interpretation of the video is that the there are people out there trying to spread the message of love, but they are frustrated because their message isn't being received by a majority of the people. This is shown in their frustrated and desperate facial expressions. The Black Eyed Peas are also probably trying to say that there is stuff like discrimination going on and this is represented by the police thinking that there is wrongdoing when they see an african american trying to spread the message of love. Where is the love? People need to make a collective effort to stop wars, genocides, discrimination, and violence. The question marks in the video are posted everywhere, which is trying to send the reminder that everyone in every situation should choose love, not hate.
ReplyDeleteI like how you put a different spin on the idea of love in this class. Lately we have been learning about the typical 'love' between two people and I think by putting love into a different environment made this post memorable. I like how they were showing the 'bad neighborhoods' and how the kids living there are all wondering "Where is the Love?"
ReplyDeleteIf I was a director I probably would have done the same thing but I might have incorporated different views of children wondering where is the love. Although we think of the hood as being bad and living there may be sad for children, children in good neighborhoods with parents that are never home could also be wondering where is the love as well.
My favorite part of the entire video was in the end where everyone in the neighborhood was looking up into the sky. It was showing that although there may be sadness there will always be happiness in the end you just have to achieve it.
Good Job!
I liked the fact that the music video wasn't focused on love just for one minority but for them all. Black Eyed Peas took a summary of the feelings from minorities and incorporated it into not only a music video, but into something that everyone can understand or relate to. I feel that the ending is uplifting and almost spiritual. To me it represents the final goal of unity that has been achieved and that love finally showed up in the division of races. As for the way that I would have directed the video myself, I can't say that I would have done things much differently. I mean obviously I haven't had long to think about it, but if I were given this task a head of time and given the time to sit and think this through, I might have come up with something different. I'm just not sure.
ReplyDeleteThese music video does a very good job of purtraying a sense of wrongdoing by the enitre population by continously putting their question mark sticker up in different areas. If they had only concentrated on putting it up in one setting it would have seemed more like they were blaming one group or one type of living style for causing these problems. I felt the director did a very good job asking the question "where is the Love?", he did not focus on one area and was continously givig the viewer new things to think about like bad video games and crime on the streets.
ReplyDeleteI've never watched the whole music video through and I have definitely never thought deeply about this song, but a lot of interesting points were brought up.
ReplyDeleteI read this post before watching the music video, and it was very helpful in analyzing.
Like I said in class, the director did a good job in my opinion of making the topic seem universal. There was a wide range of people of different ethnicites (even aliens like you said) which made the whole video seem very unified. The lyrics themself could stand alone as a strong statement (even if the people singing them are cheesy)and the visuals reinforce the message of "Where is the Love?".
All in all I think this was a very good source to analyze. It is something that is most likely familiar to all of us in class, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who never saw this song in a philosophical light.
I think the video did a great job of showing the differences and how we have to find love within our selves before we can find love within the world. It focused a lot on the minorities and I personally liked that because the members of the Black Eyed Peas are all very different and they kind of put themselves into the video in a way. The question marks showed a deep meaning and I really liked your opinion on what the colors mean and that it shows that we need more than just black and white, we need red too. You did a really great job with analyzing the meaning of the video. I'm nopt sure i could do much better than this with expressing the deep meaning ifm I was the director but I really liked Nick's point of view of maybe filming and incorporating the war into it because that is a major controversey in society today. Sometimes I'm not quite sure where the love really is in the world but I know that it's there.
ReplyDeleteAfter i watched this video, I realized that video and lyric goes together. I like how you guys connect BEP songs to love in pop culture. Racial issue is one of the important fact in pop culture, and BEP tried to express love colored people. Also, I agree the point that when kids playing violent game represents what adults are doing now.
ReplyDeleteI think the meaning of 'Love' in this video & music is peace. If I were a director of this video, I will collect clips about wars and civil-activities and connect them as one video. It was a great song and video.
The lyrics definitely show a sense of wrongdoing in the world. In the song, they talk about things that are wrong with the world, such as terrorism, and many other things. Along with the lyrics, the first part of the video shows peoples faces, and they are sad. They seem down because there seems there is no love in the world, it seems hopeless. However, at the end of the video, things begin to look up. The people are happier, the music is more upbeat, and everyone is looking up. The scene at the end when everyone is looking up was the most memorable to me. It symbolizes that there is something better. With the love, the world can be a better place. It also shows how the how population is unified in this hope for something better.
ReplyDeleteThe Black Eyed Peas are an interesting group that have always written song lyrics that have some significant meaning in our world. Here their lyrics and even the music video in the song "Where is the Love" really appeals to the listeners emotions and feelings. It interesting to note that there is a transition form evil and dark to love and sunshine in the end. I think this really signifies or is a metaphore for the devil vs. God in that the video starts off by portraying lost, saddeded, and disturbed people. The video tranistions (not literally) to a sense of freedom and love when it may be implied that everyone is findnig the love of God as they look up into the sky and see His beauty. If I was the director of this video I would shoot the video over seas in Iraq or Afganastan where many soldiers are really asking the question "where is the love?". The scene of war really appeals the viewers eyes and can effectivly translate the message to everyone. The most memorable aspect of the video is at the end when everyone looks up into the sky and finds what the director wants everyone to think is love. I thought this was a great ending to the video and I know I leave wondering where exactly is the love.
ReplyDeletewhile BEP are trying to spread the word around about wanting love in the world, i feel like they used just one stereotypical aspect of the community. they could have used politicians arguing with each other in other countries when they could have been working together to make the country a better place. but in all, video had a positive impact on the viewers and that is all that matters.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great song that really makes you take a step back and evaluate yourself. Life is short and it would really make the world a better place if everyone showed a little more love towards one another. This theme has carried throughout music for generations so the message is really timeless. The Black Eyed Peas are trying to get you to think about this because it really is an important message.
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