Scream - Michael Jackson

The video for Michael Jackson's “Scream” is the most expensive music video in history with costs for the making of it tipping $7,000,00. The song was released in 1995 and peaked at number 5 in the US charts although reaching number 1 in many countries. The video features the collaboration between Michael and his sister Janet, the first time the 2 had worked together in 13 years. For the first time in many years Jackson did not come up with the concept for this video, he instead left that job to the director Mark Romanek. Many of the instruments on the song were played by Michael Jackson and it mixes the typical Jackson genres of Pop and R&B and fuses them with Funk and Rock.

Throughout the video there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the words “stop pressuring me” being said a lot during the song, Michael is seen the make the action of pushing his hands in front of him as if to symbolise the action of pushing someone. Also there is a lot of visual screaming in the video which directly links to the song title “Scream”. As expected in the video when either Michael or Janet has a lead singing role, the other is in the background of the video leaving the spotlight to the lead singer at the time. The song is said to be written as a lash out at all the negative media coverage Michael got for the 1993 child abuse allegations he was on trial for.

Although there is no sexuality directed at each other through the video there is a lot of solo sexuality throughout it, mainly coming from Janet. Most of the outfits in the video worn by Janet and Michael are matching, they are seen to be wearing tight black and white latex outfits. In some scenes Janet Jackson is seen to be wearing not a lot of clothes as you can see her shoulder blades and a lot of bare flesh. There is another costume for her, she is wearing a fur coat and a bikini, while wearing this outfit she is seen to grab her breasts in an aggressive and provocative manner.

There is a constant theme of strength with the 2 characters in the video, the facial expressions tell a lot and are closely linked the the lyrics in the song. Both are also seen to be performing karate kicks and punches as well as leaps and stomps. The video is quite unusual as it represents both genders in the same way, as both strong and sexual. The clothing for the video is very representative of the sexuality that is being portrayed. The camera revolves around the movement of both Janet and Michael all the way through the music video for “Scream” and the fact that both are always shot either in worms eye view or level and never in birds eye angle means that they always look dominant and strong. Although they are seen as equal, Michael is seen as more the aggressor as through the course of the video he destroys various guitar's and vase's, incidentally the objects that he smashed for this video cost in access of a staggering $100,000. It is seen as one of Michael's most aggressive songs, and was also the first which included profanity in it, many fans saw this as a bad thing because of his wide appeal to a younger audience. Although the song containing profanity, the uncut version of the video was never available on a TV broadcast.