How a star’s image develops over time through music video

I am going to analyse how Christina Aguilera’s image has changed over the years. Starting from her first son ‘Genie in a Bottle’ to one of her latest songs ‘You Lost Me’. Additionally I will be looking at how Christina Aguilera is represented in her other videos ‘Dirrty’ and ‘Candy Man’ in comparison to the first music video and the latest. Born on the December 18^th 1980 in Pennsylvania U.S. she had her first appearance on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search Program and went on to star in Disney Channel’s television series ‘The Mickey Mouse club’ from 1993 to 1994. Christina Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording ‘Reflection’, the theme song for the animated film ‘Mulan’. She is working in PoP, R&B, soul dance and adult contemporary music genre.

In Christina Aguilera's first music video which was 'Genie in a Bottle' she is represented as an innocent teenager. Taking into account her age during that time (19) this would be the most suitable representation. In that music video there are a lot of close up shots of Aguilera which suggests main focus on actually promoting her as a singer seeing as it's her first music video. Furthermore her clothing is not revealing in contrast to other female artists during that time, however the only body part on display most of the time is her stomach which makes her more appealing to the male audience. In this music video as well as all others Christina Aguilera is shown as the main character during the story. The singing is also always performed in her music videos. When 'Genie in a Bottle' was released in 1999 it became the biggest hit during that time. Also the year before Britney Spears released her first song 'Baby One More Time'. Which is almost the same style as 'Genie in a Bottle'. Both of these singers were only teenagers at that time. This would suggest that the audience was interested in young talented singers.

As Aguilera became an adult, her music videos have also became more mature. The best example of this would be 'Dirrty' where Aguilera is represented as the dominant female character surrounded by sweaty males. In addition to this she is fighting in a boxing ring while the men watch her. This emphasises 'girl power' and the fact that Aguilera has control over the situation by winning the fight. Furthermore Aguilera is wearing a lot more revealing clothes throughout the music video. Target audience of this music video would most likely be males due to this, seeing as females would most likely feel unpleasant about it. Four years later, Aguilera has released a new single 'Candyman'. In comparison to the 'Dirrty' music video, 'Candyman' is aimed more for the female audience. One could gather from the fact that Aguilera is not as sexualised as she was in her previous video and the style of the video would be appealing to a range of audience seeing as it also contains a lot of intertextualities. All of Aguilera's music videos are performance based with a possible story line in certain music videos. This means that the record companies promotes the star before the actual song. However this said, the songs I have chosen have been a big hit during their time.

Another four years have passed and Aguilera released a new single called 'You Lost Me'. The audience can see a big difference between her first song and this one. From a young teenage girl not knowing what to do with boys to a mature woman suffering a break up due to cheating. Over the eleven years Aguilera has changed a lot, this is mostly due to her growing up and gaining fame. Additionally her songs have became more aimed at the female audience rather than the male audience. This could be gathered from the 'You Lost Me' music video, as there is no male gaze present in that music video.