Textual analysis - Kiss Kiss (Chris Brown)

Chris Brown introduced him self to the ever more popular R&B scene in 2007 and his number one single ‘Kiss Kiss’ put his rivals in the shade. Featuring rapper T-Pain, ‘Kiss Kiss’ took a playful approach within a school setting which shows the youth and slight immaturity of Chris Brown. From the beginning, the target audience of the video is clearly aimed at a teenage audience, mainly males as it uses a narrative of two characters, a cool Chris Brown and a nerdy one both after this one girl. This story follows many conventions of American teen comedies using intertextuality with films such as ‘Superbad’ in which the ‘geeks’ get the girls. As well as this, the video uses various means of intertextuality to appeal to the audience such as the dancing in the basketball court which can be compared to the film ‘High School Musical’.

It opens with a fun atmosphere with dancing, riding on skateboards and throwing away papers which shows rebellion. However the teacher also joins in with the dancing which adds to the comical effect. It portrays a message to the audience that they should enjoy life and have a laugh instead of worrying about school which most teenage boys would agree with. Despite the school scene, there are many iconic symbols to anchor the R&B genre such as girls, cars and jewellery.

The artist also uses a number of choreographed dance routines in time with the beat from the music in which he expresses his emotions through, for example, there is one dance routine on top of a school bus which shows a sense of just having fun as well as being rebellious and breaking rules. Being looked up to, there are mainly low camera angles looking up to the artist.
Music videos of this genre often tell a story relating to the lyrics, in ‘Kiss Kiss’ the artist is showing how he will do whatever it takes to get the attention of a girl. The first character that the artist creates is one with full confidence who is fun, rebellious and obnoxious as he is the leader of the pack and all other school kids have respect for him, this is shown with his two little sidekicks who are always following him and dancing with Chris Brown. He shows off this dominant male role through the use of violence.

Robert Bly is a useful critical framework as his theory of masculinity being shown though violence can still be applied today. This is all inflicted on the second character who comes across as the ‘geeky’ kid with no friends and no confidence, this violence though comes across as comical because of the way the character looks. The artist puts across the message that you have to be kind and caring to get the girl as she walks off with the geek character in the end and this makes the particular character get what he deserves as the representation of him is nice and friendly despite being uncool.

The video is a Commercial one used to advertise the fun, childish discourse of the video. The artist hasn't aimed to make the video look like a work of art as it is simply a video which looked fun to make and what it does is help to show off his personality. The video reinforces gender stereotypes of young males having a laugh and messing around with eachother. Linking on to this, the video is mainly for ambient viewing which you would have on in the background.

Chris Brown is predominantly an R&B artist therefore his videos will be mainly viewed on an R&B niche channel such as 'Kiss'. Despite this, many of his hits are chart toppers and a wide audience will like his music therefore his videos may be shown on such mainstream channels as 'The Box' and 'MTV'.