Theory

Content:
1. Male vs. Female Gaze
2. Gender Performativity and Representation
3. Goodwin - 6 features of music videos
4. Todorov - 5 point narratives
5. Vernallis - less narrative
6. Stuart Hall - reception theory and intertextuality
7. Gramsci - hegemony
8. Simon Firth

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1. Male vs. Female Gaze

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2. Gender Performativity and Representation

I looked at Almond Eyes and Club Paradise by Novaa, Aem's main musical influence, and found these points to be relevant:

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3. Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin Theorised in his book Dancing in the Distraction Factory(1992) that there were 6 key concepts to any music video:

1. Music video demonstrates genre characteristics
2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. Relationship between music and visuals (illustrative, amplifying or contradictory)
4. Demands of the record label requiring close-ups of the artist and/or recurring motifs
5. Frequent reference to a notion of looking, particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
6. Intertextual references

In The 1975 - Robbers, all 6 components are seen.



Plot Synopsis: A young man (played by The 1975’s lead singer) and his girlfriend are the focus, the video, which follows their relationship through various scenes as they team up in a small town and rob a shop, partaking in recreational drug and alcohol use with their friends along the way.



1. Genre Characteristics

The 1975 are an indie rock band and there are many signifiers of this throughout the video:

• Representation of the artist as ‘edgy’ (tattoos, drugs, working class backgrounds, boots, leather jacket, ripped jeans)

• Natural locations are used for filming (a diner, streets, a hotel room), as these are cheaper and more accessible

• Recreational drug and alcohol use in public locations

• connotes a sense of rebelliousness, stereotypical of the indie genre
•  Low-key or no lighting (naturalistic) is used, as the music video is filmed in the day
• Some performance is used, though as part of the narrative, showing the lead singers skill as a showman, and in one shot the lead singer is shown teaching his girlfriend to play guitar
• A look connoting individuality and uniqueness (long hair, clothing) - more under point 4

2. Relationship between lyrics and visuals

The lyrics are relevant to the narrative of the music video, so no disjuncture is created, instead there is amplification and illustration.

‘Her balaclava is starting to chafe’ references the bandanas the couple wear when they rob the shop



‘One more line’ - the woman is doing a line of drugs



‘If you never shoot you’ll never know’ is heard when the lead singer is holding the gun



‘Now shoot him if its what you’re worth’ is heard before the music fades out to hear the sound of a gunshot from within the shop

‘We’re driving past my old school’ as the lead singer and his friend are driving away from the crime scene

‘She says ‘babe, you look so cool’’ - in the scene in the diner the girl gives her boyfriend a note with the same words written on them




3. Relationship between music and visuals

• The lead singer of the band is seen lip-synching, amplifying the vocals
• Cutting to the beat
• Short, fast cuts as the pace increases
• The music fades out for 20 seconds as the couple enters the shop, so that the shouting and gunshots can be heard to (diegetic sound), which increases suspense

4. Demands of the record label requiring close-ups of the artist and/or recurring motifs

• There are many close-ups of the lead singer (Matt Healey), as he is the frontman of the band

• No attention is drawn to other members of the band, as the lead singer is the most famous
• The lead singer is seen taking drugs, drinking, and wearing ripped black skinny jeans and a leather jacket - part of his image and recurring motif (of when this music video came out several years ago, the band's motif has evolved since)

5. Frequent Reference to a notion of looking, particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

• Both the male and female bodies are framed voyeuristically,
• both the male and female gaze theory may be applied

• In the scene where the lead singer is performing, the microphone is held against his girlfriend’s mouth, creating a phallic image

• The use of the gun, which is only ever seen in the lead singer's hand, never his girlfriend's makes for an interesting point on guns and masculinity, be it a toxic relationship, and also a phallic object, although a point is made on this in the video, as initially he is seen playing with it, and later is shot. The band has made note on regretting including the gun, as they are now notoriously anti-gun.

6. Intertextual references

The music video concept is based off of the film True Romance(1993), directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, and the plot follows the story of an Elvis fanatic and a prostitute, who kill the prostitute’s pimp and steal a case of cocaine, and end up on the run.
The plot of the Robbers video is similar, and many shots very directly reference scenes in
the film, and the letterbox format of the music video also makes it look like a film

Side by side shots of True Romance and Robbers to show the references

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4. Todorov

Todorov argued that all narratives follow a 5 point structure:

1. Equilibrium
2. Disruption of equilibrium
3. Recognition of disruption
4. Attempt to reinstate old equilibrium/repair equilibrium
5. New equilibrium

This is general difficult to find in the music video format as it is a smaller medium than traditional storytelling or film, however some music videos to have some form of narrative, however in some it is difficult to pin-point exact structures, as a lot of it is polysemic. Some music videos it can be seen it are:

Seafret - Oceans - (singer-songwriter/pop, 2015)

1. Equilibrium: the established equilibrium is that the main character is isolated form the world, her mum is out late working and she is alone in her house. We discover she is bullied in school, so not only is she isolated, but it is others who isolate her (shown through the mis-en-scene/costuming of "loser" written on her back)
   
2. Disruption: She discovers that when she is wearing her younger self's super hero outfit she has super powers
   
3. Recognition of disruption: when she is getting bullied in the park, she uses her powers to scare the bullies away
   
4. Attempt to reinstate old equilibrium: after being upset at her hypocritical behaviour (justified as it may be interpreted) she runs home back to her equilibrium of isolation
   
   via GIPHY
5. New equilibrium: she finds that her mum is home, and she is no longer isolated
   

Alt J - Breezeblocks - (alternative, 2013)
This example took a completely non-linear approach to narrative, with the video being filmed entirely in reverse order, and all the shots being reversed too, and parts of the beginning and end being shown throughout.
Fans have since reversed the video show that it shows in actual order (and example of User-Generated Content), and it is unclear whether Todorov's theory is meant to apply to the actual video, or the fan videos

1. Equilibrium: a woman is dead in a bath tub, with a concrete block on her, with a man with a wedding ring crying at her side. She is clearly not wearing a ring, suggesting that she committed suicide (perhaps she is his wife and she discovered he was cheating and removed the ring?)
   
   via GIPHY
2. Disruption: We see him attacking her, and discover he killed her. This is then disrupted again when we see her attacking him, and it is suggested that perhaps she isn't entirely innocent
   
   via GIPHY
3. Recognition of disruption: we see the woman sneak up behind him with a knife, and it is acknowledge by the audience that she is actually the perpetrator
   
   via GIPHY
4. Attempt to reinstate equilibrium: this is difficult to pin down, but I think it must be when the woman in the wardrobe is revealed to be his wife (the close-up of the ring) and he tries to console her
   
   via GIPHY
5. New equilibrium: He appears to be a good husband, coming home to his wife, but the audience knows that he is cheating on his wife, but the woman he's cheating on her with is going to try and kill him
   
   via GIPHY

This one was quite complicated, and doesn't really fall easily into Todorov's theory, as is common for music video, though many do have lose plots, often non-linear.

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5. Vernallis

Vernallis, on the other hand argued that we can obtain no more visual information than we might derive from a single narrative painting, that music videos are only a suggestion of a story.
This was backed up by Steve Archer, who suggested that music videos only focus on a fragment of the lyrics.

I think this makes more sense, as from the examples I've looked at, it is difficult to exactly pinpoint the Todorov 5 point structure.

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6. Stuart Hall

Reception theory

It was suggested by Stuart Hall that a producer encodes specific meaning into a text, and the audience decodes it (preferably) in the way the creator intended. If the audience does not decode the text in the way intended, their reading is not inherently wrong - different audiences react differently based on who they are.

Some audiences may not be able to decode some texts based on things like cultural background, gender, age etc.

Different audiences pick up on different levels of reading:

• Preferred reading
• the audience is able to understand the text in the way the creator intended
• Negotiated reading
• the audience is able to understand some of the text, but not all of it
• Oppositional reading
• the audience rejects the intended meaning and creates their own, maybe because they disagree with the content, or they are not able to understand the text (it is not accessible to them)

If a text has multiple possible meanings, it is polysemic

The way in which I am applying this is through the intertextual references to the cult film Heathers and the more well-known Alice in Wonderland.

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7. Counter-Hegemony

Gramsci was a 1930's Italian Marxist who argues that the ways in which the elite bourgeoisie dominates wealth and power is not only through legislative and physical force, but through culture, by distributing hegemonic ideologies and representations, leading to wider cultural acceptance of what is being propagated. However, as this is inherently unstable, it can be challenged by counter-hegemonic texts, such as mine strives to be.

As I have included counter-typical representations of Sexuality and gender (the gender-bent Heathers characters) the music video could be argued to be counter-hegemonic. As it is produced with a micro-budget independently, it is not a product of the elite (The Big Six). As covered in other posts this would affect the ability to effectively distribute the video to a wide audience, so the product would likely appeal to a niche target audience.
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8. Simon Firth


Simon Firth argued that there are 3 types of music video:
Performance
Narrative
Conceptual.

As Indie rock focuses on having high levels of authenticity, music videos are often skill-based, meaning a lot of the footage used is performance, with close-ups and extreme close-ups of instruments being played and lip-synching, for example The Killers - Somebody Told Me is entirely performance, as is The Last Shadow Puppets - Standing Next to Me, a group signed to the independent record company Domino Records, and on the official YouTube page of The Smiths, many of the official music videos are live recordings of The Smiths performing at concerts( Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, What Difference Does it Make, Panic, The Boy With the Thorn in his Side, Shoplifters of the World Unite and Sheila Take a Bow).

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