The song “Where is the Love,” has our English course theme right in the title; therefore, there was an immediate connection for us. Using rap and hip-hop in this song, the band Black Eyed Peas uses a pop culture medium to ask the question, “Where is the Love?” This choice was a group decision because of all of the elements it includes is cohesive with our class theme.
A question mark appears very frequently in the video, symbolizing the title and the question, “Where is the Love?” The colors of the question mark vary throughout the video, and carry a deep meaning. The black question mark symbolizes death and killing, and the white symbolizes its opposite, life. The color red symbolizes love while the colors of black and white make up important parts of our lives. Happiness and a full life only come when we remember that we need more than just black and white. We need the red, or the love, to feel complete. The love adds color to life and unifies us all as one.
About half way through, the video takes an upward turn. The van drives up a hill while children are raising their arms and smiling. A man is raising his arms to the sky and people are looking upwards. Even aliens, from up above, are asking the same question, as seen by the crop formation of a question mark. People who find love have changed the path of their life into an upward direction, which symbolizes happiness and something better; a step in the direction of unity. This could also be enhanced by people raising their arms in the air towards the end of the video. More smiles are seen in the second half of the video, which leads to the love they see in the sky as universal, since everyone is looking in the same direction.
Children’s attitudes about love and hate have an important place in this video. Children’s faces and their emotions are often the main focus. Their sadness is evident in their faces in the beginning, along with some of the learned behaviors that instill hate in their hearts, such as violent video games. The message of hate has trickled down into the lives of these children. They are the first to remember the importance of love because of their direct relationship with the disconnected “grown ups” they use as role models.
This song/video proposes that love has been overshadowed by hate, a lack of unity, and societies allowance for an unnatural state. Racial discrimination also plays an important role in the video. Almost all of the people in the video are minorities. At one point, a white police officer is chasing a black man who tried to spread the message of love. This symbolizes a division in the races, and a lack of understanding of love between races. The minorities are seen engaged in various stereotypical situations that include negative connotations such as drug dealing and stealing. One black man, while being watched by a store security camera, seems to be trying to steal from a convenience store. However, the black man turns out to be spreading the message of love as opposed to stealing and dividing the races.
While watching this video we want the class to keep in mind a variety of thoughts and questions. First, how do the lyrics and the music video evoke a sense of wrongdoing by the population as a whole? Secondly, if you were the director of this music video, how would you have directed it to deliver the question, “Where is the Love?” Lastly, to you, what was the most memorable aspect of the video? Was it the expressions on the people’s faces? The heavy atmosphere? You decide.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc
