My Lip Gloss:

1. What is the song basically saying about how to live a good life? Paraphrase the main idea.
The "good life" that the protagonist pursues in the "My Lip Gloss" video is to be cool. Being cool is associated with a number of specific items - using expensive products, getting a lot of sexual attention from the other sex, being resented by people of the same sex, the authorities praising you and wanting to imitate you. The video also shows a couple other themes - being famous (on the computers), using your powers to invigorate your chosen followers with amazing powers, running for class president, sparking a unified dance scene from the masses, commanding everyone's attention.

2. What lyrics particularly speak to that perspective? Use quotes as evidence.
"I just want to be a part of the cool crowd." That's Lil Mama's sole spoken ambition to set up the video and it is shared by everyone we see in the video. The skinny boy wearing blue is being pushed around by the mean kids in the hall but Lil Mama blows her magic lip gloss breath at him and he flips the script and drops his glasses and starts dancing the dance. He is now cool. Towards the end of the song ("8th period") the dean calls her to the office and asks Lil Mama to write down "where you get yours [lip gloss] from." Even the dean wants to be cool - dramatized in the video by letting her hair go free.

3. How do the video images support, re-orient, or challenge the dominant theme of the lyrics? Analyze.
The video extends the song in several ways. Each "becoming cool" moment is symbolized by a physical transformation - dropping the glasses, freeing the hair, dunking, being on the computers. But it is still all about being cool - being extraordinary - being the center of attention. Nothing particularly good or important is done (no ending of poverty or recognition of human solidarity or struggle against oppression) - other than a kind of carnival-like interruption of the normal school day. But hey - carnivalesque interruption of the school day (with those in power approving us but in their offices) is actually, as Lil Mama states later, "like wow".

4. What else do you notice that's interesting? Look for internal contradictions, aspects of the message that resonate with other messages from the pop culture, points that connect to your own perspective, etc. Analyze squared.
The dumb little ending "It wasn't the lip gloss it was you all along." Like Dumbo's feather and 10 other little revelation tropes (the ending scene in the film version of "the Natural") we are taught that the fetish we identify with isn't the real source of our power. This is the opposite of, for instance, the story of Samson.

In the context of "becoming cool" the message here is that the expensive product allows you to access the real power inside of you - the product is just a necessary "prop" but you are really the star. But that still leaves a big role for the expensive product - Lil Mama can "upgrade you" - but remember that L'Oreal isn't the real deal, its you that matters.

This is not interesting. This is the main line of advertising which both flatters our specialness and attacks our insecurity - the main message of advertising is that "our product can help you access your innate wonderfulness". So "My Lip Gloss" is simply a commercial hip hop fantasy that replicates corporate make-up commercials. The lack of any critical "edge" is made even more clear by the fact that in "My Lip Gloss" the mother is sympathetic and wise and the Dean is full of praise and wants to imitate the protagonist. So even the authority figures are conspiring to support the extraordinariness of the teen. This extraordinariness, then, can't be a rebellion against the established authority figures, but it can be a party in the lunch room. Which probably won't pose much danger to capitalism.

One other quick interesting point was that the video showed the protagnist and all her teen friends faces on the (macintosh) computer screens. That's today - facebook, myspace, etc. But then they say, "No music" and the scene abruptly breaks to the "real" images of the teen and her circle and she's spitting rhymes to just hand claps. This distinction between the "virtual" and "real" in a video which is actually itself faked and virtual, is kind of weird. The distinction "fake" and "real" is of course what the "Lip Gloss" thing is about - and maybe the confusion between the two is what "cool" is about.

Finally there is something weird going on with the emphases in "I be rubbing it" but I'll leave that to others to analyze.