Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund is a Swedish music video director who mainly produces mainstream artists therefore suggesting that he is a rather famous director in high demand of mainstream stars. Most of his videos are in narrative form as a short film in a sort of mocking form, although some of his videos are jokey they are very stylistic.

Jonas tends to create a lot of controversy in his videos with inappropriate scenes e.g drugs, sex, abusive language e.g his highly controversial video 'Smack my bitch up' by The Prodigy which was actually banned on all music channels but despite all of this, it is now the known iconic work of Jonas Akerlund. Even though this video is of the negative talk it is very well done, Jonas puts the whole video in the point of view of the main character whilst he drinks, snorts, gropes, smokes, fights, has sex and drives. The angles of the video along with it all being in point of view is brilliant unfortunately this video was banned and has an age restriction of 18+ because of the scenes in it.

Even 'Hold it against me' by Britney Spears is highly controversial as half way through during the part dubstep section there's a very violent fight scene between the two Britneys, but this scenes involves punching, kicking, hair pulling, strangling, not a normal female fight scene. In this case the two Britney's are depicted as men in the way they are fighting each other.

Another controversial case involving Jonas is the Maroon 5 video he directed called 'moves like Jagger' as the video begins with an interview with Jagger, although this later became an issue as they never got permission to use to click or to involve Jagger in the song.

He has worked with mainstream artists like Lady gaga, Rihanna, Pink, U2, Robbie Williams, James blunt, Maroon 5, Madonna, David Guetta etc. But he also works with mainstream artists of other genres not just pop and chart but rock and metal too e.g Blink 182 and Metallica.

Above on the left 'beautiful' by Christina Aguilera another compelling and controversial video, which some viewers have found disturbing such as suicide, anorexia, transexuals, homosexuals, emo's, bullying (because of how one looks), insecurities and low self esteem. The scenes are very powerful and showcases Christina a lot.

On the left is 'American life' by Madonna, another banned music video by Jonas Akerlund that was controversial due to its strong use of sexual images (showing a bit too much skin in this one), violence, use of drugs, strong religious views and on top of that relating it all to the 'American way of life'.