Textual Analysis of Music Video- Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart by Alicia Keyes

This music video is a performance and a narrative video as it tells us a story and also Alicia Keys is performing the story. It was produced by J Records which is a subsidiary owned by Sony. This tells us that she is a well known artist and that she is catering for a big mainstream audience. Their are typical conventions used, for example in the video their is a part where she wears skinny jeans, a vest, a leather jacket, sunglasses and a lot of jewellery.
Alicia Keys is represented as a superhero in this video. There is a birds eye shot showing Alicia keys touching the dog which has died. As she touches it, the dog becomes alive. There is another part where she flies up on top of a building, she is dressed in a purple suit which looks like a superhero's costume. This represents her as dominant as usually superhero's are male not female.
In the story she cannot be with the one she loves because she has to save other people and what they love, she is sending a message throughout the song and that message was written at the beginning of the song, "There are those among us who are blessed with the power to save what is loved by another. But powerless to use this blessing to love themselves".
Their is a shot showing a fence and behind the fence is the blocks and houses, this could represent that she is isolated from the world and the ordinary people, there is something (a fence) stopping her from getting to the other side. Also from the mise-en-scene there is a lot of run-down places used that have a lot graffiti and paint falling off. This makes it appeal to young people and also links to the story of her being heartbroken. She has sorrow and responsibility in her that isolates her from the guy she loves and the rest of the ordinary people.
She is also represented as dominant especially when she is riding the bike, usually guys are shown as riding a bike, but its her and it shows her having control and she dominant. She is also represented as strong as after she gets off the bike she can hear the guy coming from behind her, but she gets away from him by flying up on top of the building. This also links to the lyrics "I'll make it without you tonight".This means that she is trying to be strong and not fall apart.
There is also a part where the guy is facing her and she reaches out to touch his face but as her hand gets closer, his skin starts to get wrinkly as if its burning so she pulls away, gives a sympathetic smiles and walks away. She knows that staying with him will be dangerous for the guy, the only way to not harm him is by staying away from him, which seems hard for her but she keeps herself strong and walks away. Similarly at the end when she is back in her room she is holding the guys picture and when she cries a tear drop falls on the picture which makes the frame break and the picture to disappear, this again means that there is no way that they can be together.
She isn't wearing a lot of revealing clothes and she is represented as doiminant which is supporting post-feminism views as there is no male gaze and she is getting represented as the main person in the story who is dominant and strong and not with the idea that women are just used in videos to look at.
The target audience would be teenagers and middle-aged people so around the age of 15-30, this age group is the biggest and easiest age group to target at as they are interested in music the most, so aiming at the age she will be making a lot of profit as lots of people would be listening and watching her video and because she's also making mainstream music lots of people would listen to it as its the type of song most people want to listen to. Also the narrative is sad and upsetting and it can relate to some of the audiences life of them not being with their loved one so again more people will be interested in it.