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It’s safe to say that although Ed Sheeran’s “Give Me Love” video is rather depressing, it does end on a happy note. Just like the myth of Cupid and Psyche, our main character is brought back to life by love and our music video closes with the vision of our main character, we can assume, finally awakening to her love. (Cupid was thought to be able to sense when someone’s lover was near, which gave him a reason to shoot that person with his arrows. Did our main character shoot herself because she sensed that her true love was close enough to come to her rescue?) In Ed Sheeran’s “Give Me Love” music video, our main character is given all the power to give love away, but instead, grows unhappier with the fact that she still doesn’t have love of her own. According to Pavel Zemliansky of James Madison University, Ed Sheeran “treat(s) visual messages…as arguments.” The yearning for love is literally screamed in the lyrics. Sheeran forms his visual argument by partnering his emotional lyrics with the strong visual of the music video to remind the viewers that love may not always be like our culture’s ideology and “image” surrounding love.

In order to reinforce this other side to the ideology of love, Sheeran throws in another curve-ball: Cupid. The angel wings and bow and arrow? There’s no arguing that Sheeran wants the viewers to automatically associate the distressed girl with the God-baby of love. We think of Cupid as joyful, happy, and maybe even cute, but Sheeran dramatically contrasts the typical image of Cupid, starting with the main character’s clothing. Her white shirt overtop the black undershirt isn’t coincidence, but is representing all the people that put on an okay, innocent façade when in fact, underneath their smiles and physical appearance, there is loneliness and pain (not much of a surprise considering we don’t see our main character smile once throughout the whole video). This dark imagery not only clashes with the whole image of Cupid, but also with the imagery and psyche of angels. We associate hope and joy with angels, and according to some religions and myths, angels are even considered guardian spirits (“Angel”). So why is our Cupid angel so dark? It’s another way Sheeran is projecting the subtle false illusion of the ideology of love. Sheeran’s allusion to the Roman myth of Cupid leads way to the idea that love is not always easy to come by.

According to the Roman myth of Cupid, Cupid’s original name is Eros, an early being who originated from Chaos, the Underworld. With the idea that Cupid originated from Hell (Gill, N.S.), perhaps Sheeran is alluding to love, itself, stating that love sometimes must be destructive before it can be the perfect. The video’s main character goes through a lot of loneliness and hopelessness, and we can assume that she has been alone for a while, based off of the emptiness of her “home,” and even with the power of Cupid’s bow and arrows, she still does not ever seem to be content, never finding love for herself, until the very end of the video. According to the Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, Cupid falls in love with Psyche, a beautiful woman, and married her, but Psyche was not allowed to look at Cupid. Cupid only visited her at night, an allusion to how one dreams of love until a partner is actually found. One night, Psyche’s curiosity got the best of her and she looked at Cupid. Because Psyche disobeyed Cupid, Cupid left her. Psyche then sets out to find Venus to recieve help. Venus gives her a box to deliver to the Underworld, but she was not allowed to look in the box. Psyche’s curiosity overcomes her again, and when she looks in the box, a deadly slumber overcomes her. Cupid’s love for Psyche never died, and when he found the lifeless Psyche, he forgave her, gave her life back, and Psyche then became a goddess (“Cupid and Valentine’s Day from Holiday Insights”). For our main character, it wasn’t curiosity that killed her, but her deadly desire to be loved.

As we flashback to when our main character was alive, the pathos is immediately set. Here’s a lonely girl who clearly is searching for love, but cannot seem to find what she is looking for. Through her characterization, Sheeran taps into an underlying statement on the ideology of love. According to Psychology Today, love in today’s society can, at times, be overwhelming and upsetting. We’ve opened up many doors to finding love, even incorporating technology into dating to help individuals find their true love. Why? The truth is, we all yearn to feel and have that “Nicholas Sparks love” that we read about, see, or watch. According to Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, “to explore the meaning of images is to recognize that they are produced with dynamic power…” Sheeran goes off this statement by incorporating the social power of love into his music video. Our society raises love up on a pedestal, and studies show that if one were to surround themselves with love and others who have a significant other, it is sublimely enforced that the individual needs to find love for their selves (Ben-Zeev, Aaron). Some scientists say love is more of a cultural phenomenon from the arising social pressures and expectations. Biologically, love is seen as a human drive, but according to some scientists, if love weren’t a combination of both human drive and cultural influence, some cultures wouldn’t even have love (Cherry, Kendra). The female “angelic” character of Ed Sheeran’s video surrounds herself with love, hanging pictures of happy couples in her drab basement-like room, while watching couples in the alleyways of streets, pressuring herself to find a significant other. Ed Sheeran uses this ideology to point out the destruction of this “love-psyche,” and in doing so, even slips in his viewpoints on gay rights projecting his opinion that although love can be destructive, everyone deserves to love. By incorporating dark imagery, depressing scenes, and pull on pathos, Sheeran creates an emotional pity in the viewers for this yearning, heartbreaking character who truly only wants to have what seemingly everyone has but her.

In Hollywood’s typical love music video, it usually depicts a happy couple, maybe on the “first date,” with bright colors, smiling people, and a general mood of overall happiness, but Ed Sheeran takes on a whole new side to the ideology of love and happiness in his music video “Give Me Love,” in which he goes against the “typical love music video” and alludes to the myth of Cupid, the common symbol of love.

The music video opens up with a blonde girl, stabbed in the neck by an arrow, wearing large, white angel wings. What “romantic music video” opens up with a bloody, crime scene? We don’t need NCIS to figure this one out for us. The flashing lights and white lab coats of the forensics scientists already begin to establish the dark and gloom of music video. Sheeran clearly wants to go against the typical “romance music video” by showing the viewers the other side to love, the heartbreak, which if we were to personify, I’m sure wouldn’t be frolicking in pretty fields of green on a bright, summer's day.

Cupid's

Works Cited

"Angel." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

Ben-Zeev, Aaron. "Should We Believe in Romantic Ideology?" In the Name of Love. Psychology Today, 7 June 207. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Cherry, Kendra. "What Is Love?" About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

"The Color Black." Empowered By Color. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

"Cupid and Valentine's Day from Holiday Insights." Cupid and Valentine's Day from Holiday Insights. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

Gill, N.S. "Cupid and Psyche." About.com Ancient / Classical History. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

Sheales, Leath. "Cupid." , Cherub of Creation (Eli), Angel of Love. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

Sturken, Marita and Lisa Cartwright. “Excerpts from ‘Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.’” Everything’s a Text. Eds. Dan Melzer and Deborah Coxwell-Teague. Boston: Rearson Education, Inc., 2011. 244-51.

Zemliansky, Pavel. “Literacy Is Not Just Words Anymore.” Everything’s a Text. Eds. Dan Melzer and Deborah Coxwell-Teague. Boston: Rearson Education, Inc., 2011. 210-19.