Jessie j who’s laughing now- music video analysis

The song who’s laughing now is about all the people who were nasty to Jessie when she was at school, but who now want to be her friend because she is famous and successful. The video exhibits this by being set in a school opening with an establishing shot of the school to show the audience where the video is set. A young Jessie lookalike play’s her as a child. The other school children who bully Jessie are dressed in pink, this links to the 1978 film grease, referencing the pink ladies who are a close group of girls, whom are not very open to new people in their ‘gang’. The young Jessie is dressed in boyish black clothes to symbolise her as a black sheep of the school, all the other children and staff are dressed in bright colours, this makes Jessie stand out as being different.

There is a strong link between lyrics and visuals in the video to ‘who’s laughing now’ this shows that Goodwin’s theory has been followed. They have also followed his theory using the notion of looking, the camera is from Jessie’s class mates point of views. When the music slows the images follow suit, especially when Jessie is surrounded my falling exam papers, this part is in slow motion because the music is at its slowest moment  

When the young Jessie goes on a rampage demolishing the school, she goes into the school theatre and destroys the stage, this indicates that she is breaking boundaries, something that Jessie J is seen to do in her career.  She also sings into a fake camera, this is a foreshadow of her future because we, as an audience. Already know she grows up to be a successful singer performing in front of the camera a lot.  

The lead singer Jessie J also plays all the adult characters in the music video, from her class teacher who falls asleep, to the dinner lady who sits chewing her gum unenthusiastically. Jessie portrays these characters so we see that they didn’t have much time for her when she was young. She also illustrates that they are still stuck being unhappy with their jobs whilst Jessie is very successful and happy.

This music video would be aimed at a target audience of teenagers/students/young bullied children and to a certain extent parents because it sends out and anti-bullying message. The video appeals to its audience because they can relate to the overall themes of it, also most people and teenagers have been bullied so they can sympathise with Jessie making her a more ‘down to earth’ and ‘real’ artist. Jessie’s fans and audience like her because of her wackiness and this video has a lot of weird images which attract and appeal to them, also because the video is representing a child’s dream/vision the bizarre ending fits with this because children often think up strange situations.