Kid Cudi – Pursuit of Happiness – Goodwin’s Theory analysis.

Kid Cudi – Pursuit of Happiness – Goodwin’s Theory analysis.

Links between lyrics and visuals

Goodwin's theory suggests that almost all music video directors will seek to create a link between the lyrics of the song and the visuals which appear on screen. This is usually through the form of the visuals reinforcing what is being said in the lyrics. This is expressed a few times in the music video for Pursuit of Happiness, as when the lyrics say “people told me slow my road”, everybody in the music video goes into slow motion, with the exception of the artist. It visually demonstrates what is being said in the lyrics, as it shows how the artist is distancing himself from what the "people" in the lyrics are telling him.


Genre Characteristics:

The theory suggests that certain videos across certain genres will display very similar traits to each other. In hip-hop videos, the star is usually seen as being dressed down in comparison to the people around him, in order to suggest that the artist has made it into a different society than the one he was born into. In addition to this, the artist in the video is shown as wearing lots of jewellery and is surrounded by women, both of which are also key characteristics of the genre of hip-hop.

Notions of looking:

Goodwin noticed that most music videos have been directed and edited in a way which plays on the idea of gaze, and to present certain characters differently to others. For example, he noticed that in many music videos, especially in the hip-hop and pop genres (which this video crosses over), women are presented as objects, namely through the male gaze theory. For example, when the characters in the video are uncorking the champagne and spraying it over a woman, it attracts the audience to her, representing her as somebody who the males in the video are able to dominate and use as they please. In addition to this, the female DJ is seen is slow-motion when she is removing the record from its sleeve - this shows that her role is also emphasised as she becomes the centre of the scene when it is in slow motion.

Demands of the record label

Goodwin wrote that the record label usually has a huge pull in how the video ends up looking. As Cudi was signed to independent hip-hop label GOOD music at this point, the company is likely to invest less money in the production, but give him more creative control. In addition to this, the record label has used the video in order to superluminally market Cudi's album, as the sleeve housing the record which the DJ removes in slow motion is actually the album on which Pursuit of Happiness appears. This is why the slow motion is effective when it comes to the theory about notions of looking, as the audience are attracted to the female, and thus should then want to pay more attention to the item she is holding.

Narrative, Performance or Concept based video?

It appears that the video is a mixture of being narrative and concept based, because it contains very little performance, with the lyrics mainly forming how the video has been planned.