Analysis of Justice Video

Justice’s music video for ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ begins with black-and-white footage of a man sat on a desk, head just out of shot, adjusting an old-fashioned radio. Although this is live action, there are elements of animation played over it, such as the wavelengths coming from the radio; however then the narrative takes a different turn and the entire video becomes animated. The virtual camera tracks forward through different animations, including beneath the open legs of animated women wearing short skirts and small underwear, which conforms to the idea of voyeurism and the act of looking – as outlined in Goodwin’s theory on music videos. From a feminist perspective, it could be said that this encourages the objectification of women by inviting the viewer to take pleasure in watching the female body parts. The last image in this animated sequence before the video cuts back to live action is a sign reading, “as seen on TV”, arguably making the video postmodern as it is a pop culture reference. The remaining narrative is relentlessly linear, as two (again headless) men – one of them being the man with the radio from the beginning – walk down various corridors and through doors, the only real change being in the colourful animation on their t-shirts, where many more pop cultural references are made. This endless sequence, which rejects the structure of traditional narratives, reflects the repetitive nature of the dance music. The video then ends by tracking backwards through the original animated sequence, with the female legs, and finishes on the opening radio, resulting in a circular narrative where the two headless protagonists never reached a destination.