"Where is the love?"- Black Eyed Peas

Music-Video Based QUESTIONS

• Identify the themes of the song. What differences / similarities are there with TKAM?    

Themes: Discrimination, terrorism, governing, mockingbirds

Differences

• “Where is the love” is about terrorism caused by racial or religion discrimination and many innocent people died and children hurt both physically and mentally. It also talks about how it’s our leaders that were leading nations astray in the war and the people were the victims and just followed along, with no say. While “To Kill A Mockingbird” is about discrimination of whites against blacks and the ‘war’ they were fighting, which resulted in unspoken courage shown and unfair trials for the blacks.
•  “Where is the love” is a song and video while “TKAM” is a novel.
• The song happened during these few years while TKAM happened around 1930s.
• The former happened in USA while the latter occurred in North America.

Similarities

• Both are written about discriminations, how they were caused and what they resulted in.

                                                                                                              (5)

• Make a list of the singer’s allegations / concerns. What is your personal response to this song?          (5)

1) Concerns

• Concerns on discrimination that it should be stopped as many people are suffering
• Looking for a change, to be showered with love

2) Allegations (An assertion made by a party that must be proved or supported with evidence.)

• War and terrorism are affecting our world.
• Types of values that we as nation are not showing the youth of today.
• The world is getting complicated and crazy.
• People are telling lies, to betray and survive.
• There is a lack of respect between groups of people.

I find this song very inspiring. Just through the raps and images of the MTV, it expresses very clearly to me the above allegations and concerns. It has also raised my awareness of terrorism due to discriminations. It also succeeded in the fact that it managed to make me believe that world peace should be restored as it gives me a clear picture to the suffering of people affected by terrorism. It makes me think about love, that we should focus upon love, and forget to hate, we all have so much love to give, and it’s just a matter of time. Love doesn’t seem to exist in this world full of people trying to gain as much as they can, not caring about others, and more willing to hurt others than to ease their pain. This is the main reason why discrimination takes place and lead to terrorism.

• Mention 3 images / sounds made a great impression on you in the music video? Explain why you choices.                                                                         (6)

• The ‘?’ in black rectangular which is surrounded by a white border. It is actually the tool used to represent the question ‘Where is the love?’ in the song. It is repeatedly pasted everywhere throughout the video, for more emphasis. This ‘?’ brings out the cries from children and other people who are discriminated. They want to be love but where is it? It shows me how desperate they are to find the answer to the question. It is also because of this mystifying question that many of the discriminated work to find out and get into trouble. Thus, it made a great impression on me as a small punctuation mark means a lot more than it seems.
• The background of the image when the singer is rapping states “We are not a minority” made a great impression on me. It goes to show that the people that are discriminated dislike the idea and wanted to rise up. The face in the big background is firm and serious and has his finger, pointing at me. This action tells me that this message is not to be taken lightly and that they are really keen on standing up to the other group of people that discriminated them. Thus, I felt a momentary surge of power through me at the look at these words, as if able to feel their determination and strength despite them being the weaker group of the two.
• Last of all, I saw many faces looking up. It was not just one person, but groups and groups of them. They are of different races and religions from the colour of their skin and all of them seem to have a twitch on the tip of their mouth. It gives me a feeling that they had achieved what they want and they are looking into the sky to thank god for his help.

• Describe the tone of the song and how it affects mood of the song.                 (4)

• The tone of the song is serious and sincere as it is sung from the bottom of their heart. It affected the mood of the song and set us thinking, making us to take to it seriously.
• The song is fast at the raps and slower at the chorus. Faster at the raps as to bring out the haste in the first stanza of the lyrics, the inability to comprehend a baffling mystery of the third stanza and the disagreement to the governing ways in the last. The speed confuses us, shooting us all the information and questions they want to find out, making us think deeply. The chorus is slower as it illustrates the sad consequences of the discrimination and people praying to god for help. The slow speed is to emphasize on the graveness of the situation of discrimination. All these are to be taken seriously.