Goodwin's Theory applied to a music video

Justin Timberlake: What Goes Around Comes Around


1. Institutional/ reference info
-Which video are you analysing, who is it by, and who directed it.
"What Goes Around Comes Around" by Justin timberlake, directed by Samuel Bayer.

-What genre does the music belong to and what broad characteristics of that genre does the video have?
The genre is pop.

2. What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?
The music video is shot as a film, and indeed a 9 minute version was filmed with a lot of narrative at the beginning, and for this reason the director chose to film performance and narrative in quite a separate way. Justing Timberlake in performing the song in the same setting with a lot of expression and emotion on a stage, but the narrative of the video is not based on specific lyrics but rather the idea of her tendency to do stupid things, cheat on him, and her warped mind that leads to him having to save her. For exaple, her jumping in the pool and causing a car crash is not mentioned in the lyrics, but "What goes around...comes all the way back around" implies her down-fall.

There are some specific lyrics-visual conenctions, however. During the chorus..."what goes around"... we see the dancers (during his peformance) spinning hoops around their waists. During the narrative, he does not lipsync (as, again, it is shot like a film) but at one point, during narrative, he calls her "baby" as the lyrics sing the line "baby".

3. What is the relationship between music and visuals
The video cuts on the beat, like most videos, switching between his performance singing the lyrics, and the narrative as it moves along and slowly becomes less positive and more tense (as she strays away from him etc). The beat is quite slow, and there are a lot of slowed down shots with a slowly moving camera, often blurry-to focused (or the other way round) to compliment the slow paced music. The song is a serious one and about a break up, which fits with a lot of shadowed close shots of the couple looking downwards, seriously, as if they know something bad going to happen, contrasting with their happy, smiling faces in the presence of friends (their public personas). Therefore I would say the visuals compliment and reinforce the music.

4. Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?
There are many close-ups of both stars: one a pop-star, one a movie-star, from odd angles, and these shots are usually slowed down to give a cinematic, glamorous effect, as if they are mysterious and have dark sides or secrets (fitting in with the meaning of the song). There is no real motif with these shots as they happen from every angle, but the fact that they keep re-appearing is a clear trend that structures the video.

5. Is there reference to the notion of looking?
The camera is definitly acting in a voyeuristic way with these slowed down shots, where the shadows and out-of-focus lens means we often only see hints of what is going on, but are encouraged to follow the action which is often sexual (ie. shots of the couple kissing, laughing into each-other's faces, touching each other, and the hoop-dancers). There is also a lot of hand movements when Justin Timberlake is performing, where we follow the slow movements of the dancers' hands in amystical way, and the artist often points and sweeps his hands so we are encourages to follow him.