'Let Me Love You' by Ariana Grande Music Video Analysis

At the beginning of the music video, the audience see a medium shot of what looks like a bath full of water. This could be to show the audience that the song is about the artist reflecting on her feelings. In a lot of media products, when a scene is set by an ocean or you see the actor in the bath, you usually see them reflecting on an issue or the way they feel. This is probably down to the fact that water is quite calming. Therefore sends people into a mood, whereby they think about things that are happening in their lives.

This theme is then followed as the audience see a medium shot of the artist (Ariana Grande) staring at her reflection in the mirror. The producer may have chosen to instantly introduce this theme of reflection to encourage the audience to think more like how Ariana Grande is thinking in the video.

Almost as soon as the music video starts, certain elements begin to support Laura Mulvey's feminist theory. She believed that media products represent women as though they are objects. After the shot of the artist gazing at herself in the mirror, there are some medium/handheld shots of her in extremely low-key lighting. The lighting is so dark that all that is visible to the audience is the outline of her body. It encourages all members of the audience to observe much like a heterosexual male would. Due to the fact that there is nothing else to look at in that particular shot, her body is the only thing that the audience can see. It removes any emotional attachment that some of the other shots in the video may hold because the audience cannot see the artist's facial expressions. Therefore, they do not know any way to interpret the lyrics or what is happening in that particular shot.

There are some extreme close-ups of the artist's body throughout. In these close-ups here costume is very minimal. In the close up above, the artist is wearing a black bra with jeans and a black jacket. However, she is letting the jacket hang off her shoulders, revealing her chest and her stomach to the audience. Yet again, forcing the audience to see these sexualised shots of her.

McRobbie is another feminist who also believes that women are manipulated in the media. She feels that females are shown to act and think in a certain way, therefore encouraging the female audiences that they should be the same. She argued that one way women are shown is that they are always searching for a boyfriend and as if they are lost without them. There are a couple of elements in the video that support this idea. The most obvious being the lyrics. The artist included lyrics in the song such as; "I just broke up with my ex" and "I don't really know whats next." It is like she is suggesting that she is incapable of living her life without a male partner by her side. After this, she then goes on to sing: "just let me love you." The audience would assume that she is now talking about another boy, after she has just broken up with her boyfriend. Therefore, she is begging another boy to let her love them because she does not want to be alone.

The excessive use of handheld shots could be signifying the fact that she is emotionally unstable without someone to love, due to the fact that the placement of the camera is unsettled and is constantly moving around the artist.

There are also a lot of wide shots showing the artist on her own with hardly anything around her. Wide shots are often used to represent the character in the shot as lonely, therefore it is suggesting that she feels lonely without a man in her life.

When the artist is in shots alone, she is mostly quite sad and serious. This is  to connote that she is feeling lost and sad on her own. The seriousness shows the dedication she has for finding someone to love.

However, at the end of the music video when the male artist (Lil' Wayne) is in the shots with her; she is smiling and shown with happy facial expressions. It again supports the idea that she needs a man to make her happy and is incapable of finding happiness alone.

Throughout the video the audience see close-ups of Ariana. It is clear that before she is in any shots with Lil' Wayne, she has pink lipstick on. Choosing to have her wear this pink colour on her lips could be used to help represent her as innocent and delicate, to keep up this idea that she is vulnerable on her own.

In the medium shot above, the audience can now see that the pink has been replaced with the red. Not only will this signify her love for the boy to the audience, due to the fact that red is commonly associated with love, but it also represents Ariana as more sensual. The change from a delicate colour to the bold deep colour is highlighting to the audience the fact that now she is with the boy, she has changed. The lyrics of the song support this idea as the male raps : "Good bye to the good girl!"

Lil'Wayne's costume is completely white. People associate white with goodness and purity, due to the fact that things like angels and God are shown dressed in all white. The audience, they may feel that the male will just be another boy who hurts her and leaves her alone. However, the white costume could be used to represent how Ariana Grande's character may see the male: he is good for her. The male is also wearing lots of gold chains and jewellery. Lil'Wayne is a Hip-Hop artist. It is a common convention in Hip-Hop music videos for the artist to have expensive looking jewellery. This is usually to show off the fact that they have money and want to highlight all the materialistic things in their life. It represents the artist as rich and that automatically makes them seem powerful, as people who have a lot of money must hold quite a lot of power in their job.