In the music video for her song “Sorry,” Beyoncé is mostly shown sitting down with confidence in a party bus or lounging with a load of confidence on a throne inside of a mansion.  This music video depicts her being perfectly independent and stable on her own.  Beyoncé has spent a lot of her life focusing on female empowerment and she does a great job of showing that in this video that clearly shows Beyoncé and Serena Williams as strong, independent women.  A portion of this video is filmed in a grandiose Southern style mansion, where Beyoncé is sprawled out on a large chair that can be seen as a throne.  As Beyoncé is lounging on a throne, Serena Williams, the best and very powerful black woman athlete, dances around her.  The director’s choice of Serena shows that this video’s purpose is to show the confidence and power that African American women now hold and embody.  The other portion of this music video is filmed in a party bus where Beyoncé is surrounded by dancing black women with cultural face paint on.  Beyoncé’s music video for her song “Sorry” shows her confidence by going back and forth between two main scenes: a party bus setting and a southern style mansion scene, while also including quick glimpses in between the two main scenes.  

The first, and also most repeated scene, in this music video is a group of black women doing a choreographed dance in an old party bus.  In these scenes, Beyoncé is the only one that is not wearing the same outfit and face paint as the other women.  The difference in her outfit and makeup shows that she is confident in her own skin and body and that she is okay with standing out and being different than those around her.  Her huge fur coat and high seat on this bus makes her stand out and set her apart from all the other similar looking women on the bus.  She does not feel the need to conform and follow the trends of others because she is a confident, unique, leader.  The group of dancers are all seated in a line next to each other on the bus, while Beyoncé is seated in a higher, lifted chair.  The placement of Beyoncé and the dancers sets her apart from all the other women and lets her dance more openly and freely.  It is the perfect spot for the head of this music video.  Many parts of this scene are filmed at a low angle, making it so that watchers are looking up to Beyoncé.  The mix of slow swaying dance moves and quick head flipping dance moves in this scene show that Beyoncé is having a fun and enjoyable life and that she doesn’t care about anything but her own happiness and life.  Just like how the bus scene showcases Beyoncé’s confidence through her clothing, placement, camera angles, and dancing, the mansion scenes shows her confidence in similar ways. 

The other dominate scene in this video is based in a grandiose Southern-style mansion.  In the mansion scenes, Beyoncé is shown lounging on a throne while Serena Williams dances in front of her.  As Beyoncé sits in her throne, swinging her arms singing “I ain’t sorry,” she presents a great deal of confidence and assurance.  She shakes her head and moves her body in such a confident way showing that she does not need a man in her life, especially a man who does not stay true to her.  Having Serena Williams, a very fierce, empowered woman, dancing with Beyoncé fills the room with women empowerment confidence.  These two women are the best images of confident women with backbone; they are the two women that outwardly lead the movement of confident females.  There are no men in this scene, or throughout the video, which is important to the message of this song and video.  Beyoncé’s confidence is overwhelming in this scene because she looks perfect and like nothing that anyone does or says will hurt or affect her at all.  She looks so sure of herself and looks like she is in her own bubble that no one can pop or enter.  The cameras move to get all different angles of Beyoncé, making it so she does not have to move anywhere besides the throne.  This gives off a paparazzi vibe, presenting that everyone is watching Beyoncé as she is just being herself, not putting a show on for anyone, but people are still interested in her. 

In the beginning of this music video when Beyoncé is telling a story, before she starts to sing, the music video is showing nature shots of trees, that can be seen as symbols that represent Beyoncé’s growth.  First, the video shows many weeping willows and then after a few seconds it switches to show orange trees.  These two back to back images show how quickly Beyoncé grew and got over being cheated on by her husband.  The camera angle only shows the weeping willow trees for seven seconds before switching to an orange tree.  Using a weeping willow is important because those tree’s branches slump and look the saddest of all trees, hence the name weeping willow.  Orange trees show growth and new life because they grow new oranges all the time.  They are also seen as a happier and a more positive energy type of tree compared to weeping willows.  Showing only seven seconds of the weeping willows before moving on to the orange tree shows that Beyoncé did not waste much time feeling sad and bad for herself after her husband cheated on her.  She grew as a person and used her confidence to quickly move on.  

In conclusion, the overlying theme of the music video “Sorry” is confidence and the motifs are the repeated visual elements of dancing on the bus and inside a mansion.  These motifs are related to the theme of confidence because the motifs are how the director chose to visualize the theme.  There are two main scenes that portray confidence: the bus scene and the scene inside the southern mansion with Serena Williams, as well as the opening scene that shows the weeping willow and orange trees.  The way Beyoncé stands out in the way she is dressed, the way she dances freely, and composes herself with an amount of swagger makes her look very confident and sure of herself.  There were many motifs, many repeating images, but confidence clearly is the main idea that easily and strongly stands out to the watchers of this video. 