How is Representation Created in Sia's Music video for The Greatest-EDITED AS OF 18/03/17

Sia is an Australian singer song writer who has been in the industry since 1993. Since her early days in the industry she has since produced no 1 hits such as Chandelier, The Greatest and Elastic Heart. Although Sia has been in the industry since 1993, she has only recently become more mainstream in the past couple of years due to collaborations with other artists such as Sean Paul and David Guetta who are predominantly known to be mainstream artists.
Sia's recent album This is Acting has sold over 68,000 copies worldwide which includes her recent single The Greatest and Cheap Thrills featuring Sean Paul. Her song The Greatest was written in aid of the Orlando shootings in the Gay nightclub Pulse which is now being turned into a memorial site  for the victims of that fatal night. The music video for the song was also made in mind of those shootings that night so has inferences to different things from that night. Representation is created through camera angles and mise en scene throughout the video. 

The music video for 'The Greatest' has several inferences to the shootings in Orlando within the mise en scene but also the actions that the dancers take in the music video as well as the lyrics which somewhat relate to each other. An example of the mise en scene inferring the shootings is by having the dancers wearing pride flag make up on their faces which refers to the sexuality of the main demographic who were killed in the nightclub. Although sexuality isn't externally presented in the actual music video, the music video is focused on the sexuality of the victims therefore presenting the element of sexuality and making it a popular topic to talk about with her fans. The lyrics relate to this part of the mise en scene due to them talking about not giving up in which the majority of Homosexual people in America were being forced to do due to people struggling with change and their religion forbidding any type of relationship other than heterosexual. There could be two interpretations of the lyrics of  'The greatest' in which they were about the victims of the shootings or it could also be direct address to them and the survivors of the shootings. By having the gay Pride flags featured in the music video it shows how the song is aimed towards an open audience who share the common interest of raising awareness about this event but it also allows for Sia's fans to learn about something that she is passionate about and this brings the fans and her closer but it could perhaps make this a topic for them to talk about and raise the awareness to them. This also creates the representation that the victims were strong people who had fought hard for their rights.

The Music video for 'The Greatest' shows predominantly all able children who are seen to be dancing around an abandoned house but the song is about people who may have suffered a disability or even worst died from the event, this is two contrasting things that although disability isn't actually present in the video the event that the song was inspired by caused many people to have disabilities even of it is mental disability like post traumatic disorder. The ability is shown by having children act as the victims of the shootings which represents how able they mentally and physically are. This creates a representation of ability and it connotes that everyone is able to have freedom of speech and expression. This is shown in the video but has a wider context in that the people who were shot lost their freedom or speech and expression.

The greatest video  has the greatest representation of age within the music video. Although the main age within  the music video is 12-13  years old if not younger it does feature some older teenagers to represent how freedom has no age limitations but also fully represent childhood and it makes the audience see the victims as children in which to the victim's parents they were. This allows for the audience to view the song in a different way by knowing the context  behind it but also by viewing the children as adults. This is a similar concept to Bugsy Malone in which the children act as adults and provide an alternative, more comedic version of a fictional reality in the 20's. The age is represented by having them as a collective group such as at 0:14 which emphasises their youth but it is also shown by having the young dancer isolated at 0:45 as well as showing copious amounts of emotion such as crying like a child. Their age is also represented through the gay pride flags and the dirt that they are covered in. The dirt has connotations of childhood but also childish mannerisms such as playing in the mud which is viewed as a childish game /action to take part in. As well as this, the way that they apply the pride flag could be seen as a childish mannerism due to the flag being paint which is normally associated with young children but they just wipe it down their face to produce the flag which has connotations of younger children playing with paint in primary school. This represents children as being careless and complacent with them selves as well as the items that they play with. This also creates the representation that children have Just as much to live for as adults and that they are equal which is shown by the children playing adults. At the beginning of the music video there is the hashtag #Weareyourchildren which shows how Sia wanted the actual children to represent adults and reiterate how the people who died in Orlando were somebody's child. This also shows how children are flexible in the roles that they play but also how they can be seen as the equivalent to an adult and how adults and children aren't so different apart from the age difference. The video doesn't show adults at all  in the whole video as it is based on children but it does make the adults the minority this could show how children are rebellious when young but adult are seen to conform in daily life.