Textual Analysis of 'U Can't Touch This' By MC Hammer

Stanley Kirk Burrell formally known as 'MC Hammer' is an American hip-hop recording artist. He received the most commercial success in the late 1980's and the 1990's. He is widely remembered for his infamous  'U Can't Touch This' and '2 Legit 2 Quit'. His music videos included flashy dancing, full choreographed dances and the recognisable Hammer pants. He has become a hip-hop icon, selling more than 50 million records worldwide.



'U Can't Touch This' was released in 1990, at the time that the dance genre began to become popular in the music charts. The mise-en-scene of a 1990's dance film is stereotypically, bright clothing with pops of colour, big hair and jewellery. Throughout the music video there is full reference to these music video characteristics.

John Hartley's theory is the first that I will apply to this music video. He states that 'genres are agents of ideological closure- they limit the meaning-potential of a given text'. He suggests that genre acts as a straightjacket, limiting creative potential. MC Hammer can apply to this theory as it includes what you would associate with dance pop music video, which is the genre that you would say the artist uses. Hammer never strays from what is typical of the genre he is recognised with, this limits the potential of Hammer as he sticks to his area of the music industry.

John Fiske's theory says that 'generic conventions embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular'. It suggests that the genre tells us something about the 'way of the world' in the time in which they are popular (the zeitgeist). Applying this to MC Hammer's music video, and the time that it was popular in the music industry, shows that MC Hammer created videos to suit the dance mania phase, music lovers were going through during the 90's. Showing that, the world was seen as care free during that time and the evolution of new music genre was emerging.

Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress's theory argues genre 'controls the behaviour of producers of such texts, and the expectations of potential consumers'. This again, suggest that genres can limit creativity and often merely conform to the audiences expectations. This is similar to Hartley's theory, by saying that genre can influence artists to conform to audience expectations, which limits creativity. MC Hammer's video conforms to the tradition 'dance' record and I am sure that it was expected from him, as it was the specific genre he has decided to go with. The video includes, dancers, bright clothing, lots of jewellery. Many artists 'lack creativity' as they conform to what is expected by them by the audience, however, you could argue that controversial artists, such as Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, do not conform to these rules and completely create music videos that are not what you would normally see in society.

There is a lot of different camera angles and editing techniques that make this video stand out. The quick jump from shot to shot throughout makes the video flow and what you would expect to see from a dance video. It doesn't drag out over one long clip.