Sir Paul McCartney is a British musician/singer who is regarded as one of the most influential and successful musicians to ever date due to his revolutionary years with The Beatles, later transitioning as a solo artist and also forming the band Wings who were only around from the early 70s to the beginning of the 80s. With all this fame, the musician has been represented across the media an abundance of times due to the height of his fame. Whilst he is mostly represented positively because of how beloved and treasured he is, it still hasn't stopped him from entering into some controversies that represented him more negatively.
Representation 1:
The first representation of Paul McCartney comes from the music video Yesterday by The Beatles. Throughout the video there is a continuous positive representation of the musician, showing he is charming, this can be seen with the still close-ups of McCartney's ''baby-face.'' The song McCartney is singing is soft-spoken and very angelic, he is performing solo with the visual codes of the medium shot of the musician singing alone. All of these help contribute to the overall understanding here that Paul McCartney was represented as someone to be admired and fond off because of his clean-shaven and pure looks. The overall representation also shows us a significant focus of Paul McCartney here was for his glamorised looks with his music coming afterward. Despite this, it can be argued there is still some sort of positive representation of the musician being admired for his music and not just for his looks. This can be seen with the medium shots showing the musician performing all by himself and the shots of the crowd he is performing too. This contributes to the overall positive representation of McCartney in his younger years as a musician as it shows he is confident and strong-willed to perform without no contribution to an entire crowd.
Representation 2:
On April 10th, 1970, the latest (daily) edition of the Daily Mirror came out with the news stating Paul McCartney 'quits The Beatles.' This paints a significantly negative representation of him because the news came out of nowhere and was a shock for many to witness "the end of Britain's most famous pop group,' as the article states. The article begins to talk about the stifling tensions within the past couple of months between him and his song-writing partner John Lennon. This also builds further to the negative representation of Paul McCartney due to the duo always being represented not just as musicians, but also as close friends. Therefore, McCartney coming out with this shifts the focus on him being the person to break up The Beatles which will upset and anger many fans. However, there is a slight positive representation in the article. The copy towards the end tells us about his very first solo album is to be released soon. This represents Paul McCartney as a talented musician, showing he is competent to adapt and develop his music.
Representation 3:
The final representation comes from the 300th issue of Uncut, a monthly music magazine that specialises primarily on the world of music, that released in March of 2022. The positive representation comes from the front cover, which uses centre image of a young Paul McCartney in his twenties, who is standing upright. His arms are crossed as he looks towards us, symbolising that the music he recorded and released in the 1960s continues to have an important impact on the mainstream media/music nowadays. The use of the image of his younger self also shows even if the musician is now old, he can still be admired and looked up to seriously (just like his body language suggests) and that his music is still revolutionary, even in a world that continues to adapt technologically and socially.
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