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Analysis Of Janelle Monae's Music Video Many Moons

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The social construction of race and ethnicity takes place around the world. Many people define their position according to race. Michael Omi and Howard Winant define race through the theory of racial formation, which is socially constructed not biology. In Janelle Monae’s music video Many Moons, racial discourse in the US is presented gradually in Omi and Winant’s racial formation theoretical framework. The use of montage images as well as radical lyrics as a voice by Monae provides her performance on race as a social concept which is not essential to human existence; instead, her conception of oppression of racism from the past to nowadays is a process being transformed by political struggle. The montage effect which composes the image of Black actors and White …show more content…

A group of men in neat black suit gives the most impressive at the beginning of the film. They are all wearing masks or in full coverage raincoat which creates mysterious of their identification. But from the some of their skin tone partly being exposed, according to Omi and Winant, the race is debatably defined by biology; the one can use preliminary define that they are the Black. The content of the music video is telling a story of Android Auction, Monae’s alter-ego Cindi Mayweather leading a group of black people performing and selling themselves on the stage. The audience for the show can be identified the White physically. In searching the question of “What is race?” Omi and Winant state that, “Europeans wondered if the natives of the New World were indeed human beings with redeemable souls. At stake were not only the prospects for conversion, but the types of treatment to be accorded them” (10). Historically, Black and White identification has been defined regarding the difference

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