Massive Attack- Unfinished Sympathy

What representations of society are created in this music video?
What representations of gender, ethnicity and social class are represented in this music video?
What representations of the artist are constructed in this music video?

This song was released on 11 February 1991, and the music video shows the singer, Shara Nelson, walking through the streets of Los Angeles ,in a continuous one shot, ignoring the environment around her. There are many characters in the background such as a paraplegic man, two people making out, people throwing vegetables, gangs etc and therefore this represents the area she is walking through, Los Angeles, as not a good area where people are struggling. As previously mentioned, the street she is walking through is very unique with lots of things happening in the background of the video and the lyrics often refer to how she is hurting over a significant other ,'really hurt me baby', and the hurt is that bad that she is just ignoring her environment.

The environment around her is not clean and in turn the fact she ignores her environment emphasises to the audience that the people in this area have got used to it. The first shot is of a gang member playing with Chinese stress balls which could represent the two people in the relationship she is talking about, this then zooms out to show a intimidating gang, could be a set of crips as some are wearing a blue bandana, showing the society of that area, where it looks to be that gang culture is prevalent in it. 20 seconds in ,there is a boy who is playing with a toy gun dressed in red which could be reference to the bloods showing the rivalry between the two gangs and how early of an age gangs recruit members, it creates a socking image to an audience if they aren't used to this however it seems the people in this area are as Nelson doesn't seem phased at all by any of this.The artist is then represented by the music video as coming from a similar area to this where this crime is common. 

When Shara Nelson is first being followed the audience can see many people loitering in the streets, possible referring to the lack of education and employability of people in this area. In America health care is not free and therefore the paraplegic man on the skateboard ,1:10, shows he can't afford a wheelchair showing the social status and the disregard that the government are not helping him. A homeless man is seen at 1:30 which again emphasises the low social class of the area and reinforces the idea in the audience that they are lacking employability. Straight after this Nelson is seen to ignore the person handing out leaflets.