The video begins of a close up of a moth which symbolises the soul and also relates to the whole concept of the song being a journey of progression of strength, and Christina becoming a butterfly. The song is based upon Christina’s father abandoning her so the location is set in an old derelict warehouse creating a dark atmosphere. Having the location being dark links to the genre of it being a rock song as the rock genre is known for being darker in videos. Christina is trapped in a glass box resembling a doll like image which relates to the idea of the lyrics ‘ after all you put me through you’d think id despise you’ proving that the person who hurt Aguilera maybe treated her like a doll by not caring for her feelings. When the lyrics turn to ‘makes me that much stronger makes me work a little bit harder’ Aguilera punches down the glass windows to show her anger and how she wants to escape and she isn’t weak anymore. This links well to the lyrics of saying she wasn’t treated right but it made her stronger and the strength is portrayed by her punching down the glass windows. Aguilera is then shown dressed wearing a black outfit with a huge black cape which is blowing up behind her like a balloon she resembles a huge spider or a bug with a big back part of its body. She has huge pins in her back with she throws out in anger when the lyrics reach ‘I’ll never back down’ showing she is becoming stronger. She throws one of the pins directly at the screen and it creates a black crack instead of a usual white crack when glass breaks. The obstacles of previously being trapped in a box which she broke down and now she has pins in her back and she is throwing them out as if to show she can tackle anything. Near the end when Aguilera has developed into a ‘stronger person’ through the narrative of the video she punches the wall and uses her fists a lot to match with the chorus ‘Makes me that much stronger, makes me work a little bit harder. It makes me that much wiser, so thanks for making me a fighter’. Right at the end of the video Aguilera punches the screen with her foot and it cracks the screen and this time it cracks normally into a white to show her transformation, from the previous crack of black to white. The use of colours symbolizes the colour of black with dark and depression and white a heavenly innocent colour.
To begin with the music is piano based with a feel of classical music and two gothic ballerinas try and dance to the music although they are portrayed to be broken and robotic like as hold themselves up by walking sticks to dance. This shows the weakness of Aguilera and links with the lyrics of the song meaning of how she is becoming stronger. The beat doesn’t kick in until 25 seconds and shows a long shot of Aguilera trapped inside a glass box. The dance moves become faster to fit to the beat and Aguilera’s movements become stronger by punching instead of soft and gentle hand actions. As the music becomes faster and more upbeat as the chorus approaches faster cuts are used to build tension. At approximately two and a half seconds into the song the music pace slows down for the bridge and Christina is transformed in to a white ‘butterfly’ and is placed on the wall surrounded by moth to show she has now become stronger and she has fought through. This matches with the lyrics and the visuals as her outfit is white and she looks pure to match the pace of the music. At the end when the music becomes faster again and Christina’s voice becomes stronger with longer powerful notes, the camera bounces a little to show how powerful she is when she walks to resemble her strength to match with the powerful notes.
The company is looking to sell this record by showing Christina to be a strong powerful woman like the ‘girl power’ image. They are changing her appearance by having the video to be very dark and unique by having the ‘gothic’ look with a pale complexion and black long hair. This video is extremely different from anything Christina has done before from her teenage ‘genie in a bottle’ typical pop girl innocent teen image. Her latest singles released before fighter from her album ‘Stripped’ was ‘Beautiful’ which was a slow song about inner beauty making woman feel beautiful and confident. ‘Fighter’ was released and definitely had more attitude and Aguilera showed she was a versatile artist and showed her talent. The song is very original and unexpected from a ‘pop princess’ and the video matched the song well showing she had grown up and wanted to be taken seriously and was a real artist with a lot of talent showing she had a change of image. It is Christina’s darkest and most unusual video, however it relates to the song and overall narrative and visuals. The video itself was very dark and deep and almost disturbing for younger fans therefore it didn’t match any previous videos.
The video is not sexual at all compared to the other previous single ‘dirty’ which showed a huge change in image. ‘Fighter’ is more of an artist video which doesn’t display anything sexual. This video doesn’t relate to the aspect of Christina’s previous image.
The video is performance based as Christina is the star and fans will want to she her in the video so therefore she is pictured singing throughout. Along side of her are three dancers so the video isn’t all focused on her as straight cuts are sued between the two. There is some degree of narrative as its showing her transformation and journey to becoming stronger which links with the lyrics. It shows her becoming trapped and pulling pins out an fighting and becoming more confident then she turns into a ‘butterfly’ to show she has transformed and has couldn’t over the pain and turns it into a positive. There is also a degree of conceptual based ideas as the dancers are pictured to be robotic like and un-human, Christina is also turned into an unusual gothic like person with a huge cape and then turned into a ‘butterfly’. Her costumes throughout the video are every unique and almost Halloween like. Overall the concept is narrative as it matches the lyrics and music well.
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