How useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to the close study products “Ghost Town” and “Letter To The Free” in your answer.

Narrative theory plays a big part in the music videos “Ghost Town” and “Letter To the Free” as both videos allow the audience to engage and understand the storylines throughout them. It is also important that the audience can understand what the videos are trying to convey, hence the narrative’s importance. 

Common’s “Letter To The Free” focuses on racism and the downfall of the prison system. The video displays the artist in an abandoned prison with other black musicians. This video particularly links with Props theory, which includes the idea of stock characters. Common can be seen as the hero in this video, as he is raising awareness to large racial issues still badly occurring today. The prison system can be viewed as the villain, leaving the audience to decide what to support and making them feel apart of the video itself. 

In the music video “Ghost Town”, the band members are shown driving through a run down city. The audience is made to feel apart of this video due to this specific action, as it is though the audience are being made aware of the damaged surroundings while the band are. This video links with Todorov’s theory – with a beginning, middle and end. The audience and band are passing through the ruined city and by the end are driving along empty roads.