Monday 19 March 2012

And Another...

Apply theories of narrative to ONE of your coursework productions

I will apply theories to my advanced portfolio music video, as I believe it both supports and refutes many narrative theorists ideas and interpretations.

The music video uses Levi-Strauss' idea of binary oposites in narratives. It does this firstly by opposing day with the night. This opposition is clearly used to amplify the lyrics and title of the song 'one night in October'. Secondly, as part of the 'disjuncture' throughout the video, water has been used where the members of the band are seen to be having a good time, which fits the tempo of the music and the happy mood the song sets. This is then binary opposed with the dry land, and there is a strong use of irony in the fact that despite the band are on dry land, they are stood in a boat, and when they are in the water, they are all fully clothed. The third and final binary opposition I have pulled out of this particular video is the use of the girl member in the band which contrasts the name of the band: 'The Skeleton Boys'. This sort of binary opposition is quite conventional of postmodernism as it is a source of rebellion against modernist values.


The music video could be seen as using Todorov's theory of a three-part narrative structure. This is where the narrative of the video is split into: equilibrium, disruption of equilibrium and then new equilibrium. I believe that the music video uses the idea of this theory as at the beginning we see the band together in the barn area performing instruments together and having fun. This is then disrupted, mainly through the use of disjuncture with things such as the Benny Hill style banana and monkey chase. And then towards the end of the song we see the band all together for one last time before they all finish playing their instruments and leaving the room.


However, the music video refutes the idea of Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. As the band are called 'The Skeleton Boys', the female character had to be dressed up as quite boy-like so to not stand out so much in a male band. This is significant as Laura Mulvey argues women are objectified in videos and films so that people see them in a voyeuristic manner and this is certainly not the case in this video as the female is made to wear clothes that are more suited to a male.


The music video could be seen as using Roland Barthes' theory of different codes in the text. In this instance, the video could be seen as using cultural codes, mainly through the use of disjuncture as this ensures there is no real narrative in the video. However, the video does use amplification in some scenes, such as the 'Carlisle' signage, but this is the minority of the video, the majority uses irrelevant and random scenes which do not link to the lyrics, like Andrew Goodwin suggests. The audience may see the cultural codes as not really having a plot, but merely showing them the indie culture, but some people may interpret this video as completely ignoring Barthes' theory as the video is too irrelevant to the lyrics.


In conclusion, I think that this music video could be interpreted to use many of the theories that theorists have suggested, but I believe the most apparent in this case is idea of binary opposites, as this seems to be specifically focused on to create an ironic, postmodern piece of work.

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