Textual Analysis of Ashanti's 'Foolish' Video

In this essay i will be analyzing Ashanti's 'Foolish' video. 'Foolish' was Ashanti's debut single and video and was released in 2002. it was directed by Irv Goti of INC Records and starred Oscar nominated actor Terrence Howard's. I chose it this video because i find aspects very fascinating such as the editing and camera work, and think it was a very effective and successful RnB video.

The video is predominately narrative based with 1 or 2 scenes of performance. the director of this video decided to take a movie-style approach to the music video (an idea premiered by Michael Jackson's thriller)and the video has intertextuality from the movie 'goodfellers' (1990). the video gives us an insight into a relationship, where the male, Terrence Howard is involved in criminal acts and is caught cheating on girlfriend Ashanti, a storyline borrowed from the movie.A narrative style is popular convention of an RnB music video.

In this video the relationship between sound and images is very important. this is because; as the video is a narrative it has to effectively portray the storyline of the song. i think this is done successfully when Ashanti;s character is lying in bed and sings "so sad, so sad, what love will make you do.." and as she sings this there is a flashback of her very angry and acting aggressively as she gets ready to confront her cheating boyfriend, this shows us that being love has made her act that way and this effect is used throughout the video to show the link between the lyrics of the song and the images.

the video begins with a tracking shot of Ashanti and Terrence as they walk into what appears to be a very exclusive restaurant /club, we can straight away assume that Terrence Howard's character is a very wealthy and connected guy; this is suggested again by a close-up of him tipping a waiter . the remainder of the video consists of mid-2-shots of Howard and Ashanti and medium long shots and close-ups of Ashanti's face after we see the Howard leave the house frequently which looks disappointed, there are also close-ups of the keys as it is thrown out the window and then the next shot is of the window and the camera zooms out into mid-2-shot of Howard and Ashanti arguing. we then see a series of close-up, shot-reverse-shots of them arguing, this is followed then by a series of medium shots and then the only other close-ups we see are of Ashanti singing the lyrics to the sing and right at the end where she decides to leave her partner and then opens the front door to see him there; we see a close-up of her face as she changes her mind and then the camera switches to show her drop the bag in a slow-motion effect, the video then ends with a close-up of Howard's face, which could symbolizes his victory to get her to stay.

What i find most interesting about this video is that it is edited into alot of very quick shots that fade intoeach other throughout the video we hardly see a take lasting longer than a coouple of seconds, which gives it a fast-paced feel, which isnt really a convention of a typical RnB 'slow jam' video, this could of been used to show a whirlwind romance and to portay a mini love story in a few minutes. Another effect used is the stills, where there would be a shot and then the frame would freeze and fade into black and then to the next shot. there arent many effects used in this video apart from the fades and the flashback mentioned earlier.

the mise-en-scene of this video consists of a lot of settings, clubs/restaurants which is a typical convention of a music video along with at home and in the bedroom. we also see scenes set in cars , such as the into of the video and when ashanti spies on her boyfriend (Howard).this gives the video a realistic feel. the costumes are your typical RnB chick look, dresses, trendy denims and stylish tops which are fashioned by ashanti and othr females in the video, however for themost part Ashantis wardrobe is kept simple yet stylish which again empaszes the realistic feel of the video as the video is suppose to be an insight into their relationship. the lighting is motly high-key and there aren't any themed colours or styles used.

to summarise i think this is a very good RnB video as it follws some of the generic codes and conventions of a RnB video but also creates its own styles, especially with editing. in my opinion it was a succesful start to Ashanti's career.