Omnipresence of metaphors in God is a Woman music video: a filmic analysis

Abstract

Metaphors have always been considered linguistic devices (spoken or written). However, nowadays researchers claim that they can be examined from other perspectives because people use different means of expression to create meaning beyond language (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010). The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of metaphors in Ariana Grande’s (2018) music video God is a woman: firstly, with a general analysis of the lyrics and the clip, and secondly with a more detailed examination of a particular scene. The analysis is accomplished with the application of FILMIP (Filmic Metaphor Identification Procedure, Bort-Mir, 2019), which is a procedure with seven steps that serves to identify filmic metaphors. Thanks to this method, several metaphoric filmic elements are found within the clip, supporting the main metaphor GOD IS A WOMAN.