Textual Analysis on Geri Haliwell

For our second piece of work we decided to do Geri Halliwell - 'It's Raining Men'.
the video was considered the most successful song of Geri solo career. She gained the number one spot in the UK Singles chart at debut and stayed there for two weeks. The song is a cover of the original, sang by the weather girls, released in 1982. Geri did the cover in April 2001, as it was on the soundtrack for the hit movie Bridget Jones Diary.
The video was directed by Jim Canty and Jake - Sebastian Wynne.

The video displays clear characteristics of a POP anthem video because of several factors. Firstly, it has the big and over the top story line when there is a huge dance number which can be said to look camp. Secondly, there it a lot of costume changes in the video, all displaying her figure and tho re invent her image and create an ideology for the mass audience in the popular genre. Lastly, there is a lot of bright, loud, colours attracting the younger generation and abandoning the low dim lights of R'N'B and the darker palette of Rock.

The video references the films Flash dance, using the audience and turning at into a party/musical vibe. She later also used the film FAME with the dance scene and the last outfit, which get soaked in the rain.

The relationship between the lyrics and the video show only a slight correlation as the video take son the narrative of an audition before it goes horribly wrong before the audition has barely got started.
This has taken inspiration from Flash dance, when the lead flunks her audition at first and is given another chance. it is until she burst into song and there is the huge crowd joining in celebration when the lyrics seem to have some sort of reflection in the video. She continues to do some actions in correlation to lyrics.
"Humidity's risen."
when this lyrics were been said when there was a close up pan, moving upwards as the word rising as said. this was also used to show off her new body in her debut as a solo artist as she was labelled the 'fat one' in spice girls.


"For the first time in history, it's gonna start raining men."
as she says this she makes a hand rain droplets gesture then thrust her arms into the air before a musical style breaks out among her peers.
"I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna let myself get absolutely soaking wet."
as she says this she touches herself in a sexually suggestive way, while intimidating being in the rain.this was another indication of the introduction to a sexier image.


"Rough and Tough and Strong and Lean."
as she says this she does actions along with the visuals making hand and muscles gestures.
"God bless mother nature."
as she says this she looks up the the open window and the sky, with her arms raising in unison.
"Hear the thunder, don't you lose my head."
as she says this, she is transported to a thunder backdrop and she sways her head to the lyrics.



"It's raining men, amen."
when she says this the crowd breaks free and comes out of the school in joyful dance. they also add touches of the back drop by making it look like new York, hence the yellow taxi.

The music and visual have a close relationship as they decide to use the tempo of the music to control the songs. Firstly, they do this by making a chorus of dancers come out and do a dance number in the chorus of the song. secondly they decide to join the narrative along with the song but the concept of raining men is not actually used. However because the song is known as a gay anthem so it was appropriate to set the video in a camp setting with lots of boys in tight clothing.

This is also when they reveal her face for
the first time because they wanted to use  element
of surprise.

However, in the beginning they faded in the song with the old style disk player, which scratched when she fell to the ground in her first attempt. there was also diagetic sounds of her dancing in the first attempt which would allowed to play faded in the background to the intro.
in the choruses you could hear the cheers of the backing dancers, adding realism to the narrative portrayed.






within the song there was plenty of close ups and body shots of the artist. this was because of the new image that geri was trying to sell along with the new solo career. throughout the video they're was close ups of her abs, stomach, legs and bum.
she also added lots of close ups of her face, showing how happy she was and how much she has changed for the better since the spice girls. in addition the camera also prvillages the judges in the beginning and how they warmed to the song and her dance moves.

the notion of looking was often used in the video to show off her new body and how much better she looked now than when she was in the spice girls and was branded 'fat'. it was used to make the assumption that guys liked her and find her attractive  she also made it to look like she took her health seriously and that she was into fitness by wearing sports clothing throughout the entire video, showing her midriff constantly.











Because of this, it is her most successful song of her entire solo career, making number 1 in the UK as well as many Scandinavian countries.