Johnny cash hurt

The video to the song hurt by Johnny Cash shows all important aspects of Cash's life throughout the music video. the first scene is of him in his room which is filled with luxuries, these are things that he has gained and managed to buy over his years of fame, with that he has gained fortune and is well known. these items symbolise his wealth and fame because he is surrounded by all of these items, yet he still looks sad. Then there is a close up of his face which shows that he looks sad and solemn, but the audience do not know why he is sad yet. A Johnny Cash museum can be seen in the next scene which is closed and it says, "closed to the public" which is maybe a hint to his mental state, because at the minute he is depressed and he does not want to act happy or see anyone.

As the song progresses into the pre chorus, the video shows scenes of him in the past all well and fit, not looking gloomy. This contrast we see shows to the audience that he is looking back on the past as much better than the future he is experiencing nostalgia. Then the audience is showed a picture of his wife, so now we know why he is looking depressed, when this picture is shown we hear him sing, "everyone I know, goes away in the end". so it is obvious to the audience that his wife has recently died and he is experiencing grief and loss of his loved one. This could be a hint to the representation of gender saying that man and woman cannot survive without one another. This links to Van Zoonen's theory of the representation of women and you could say that this is the opposite of how women are represented within media. because we see that Cash is hurt that she left, not because of her appeal to him, but because he loved her.

Then this leads into a lyric that says, "you could have it all, my empire of dirt" here he is saying that she could have everything he ever had, all the money he ever had, to get her back. Which shows that men actually depend on women, and this music video, unlike a lot, women are represented positively instead of negatively. The video used is a narrative, because it runs through his life and shows what he has went through and how he is coping with the loss of his wife, which we can see that he is not coping very well.

This music video really focuses on the loss of loved ones, in this case Johnny Cash has lost his wife who he loved and is finding it hard to cope with her death. The main theme is death which compared to other themes, is a deep one. For him to make a music video almost devoted to his wife then that shows how much he loves her. And then there are scenes within his video that show his wife, and it also shows him wishing that she was still there with him, and a potent line within the song is, " everyone I know goes away in the end". This suggests that he has lost everyone he cared about, such as his wife and his friends. This also links to the main theme of the song, which is death.