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. (9 marks)

Narrative theory is a structuralist approach to a story which focuses on a video or story having a clear beginning middle and end. There can be different forms of narrative theory and lots of different people have different views on what the theory consists of. The theory can be very useful when analysing music videos, as some aspects of the theory can be relatable to the story being told in the video. In general, music videos aim to either tell a story or make a point. In the case of the music videos for ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Letter to the Free’, the videos do not necessarily link with Todrov’s tripartite narrative structure and don’t have a clear beginning middle and end, however, they do link with some aspects of narrative theory. 

In ‘Ghost Town’, the main aim of both the song and the video, were to express the problems that were happening in society in the early 1980’s during Margret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. Although the video doesn’t have a clear beginning middle and end, it does include Kernels and Satellites. The kernels of this video are the panoramic shots of the city and its empty and desolate streets. Without this scenery and gloomy feel, the images would not match up with the lyrics of the song. The lyrics ‘this town is looking like a ghost town’ wouldn’t make sense with a shot of the streets bustling with people, therefore, the kernel in this video is the empty streets. The satellites in this video are small things like the outfits the band members are wearing. 

On the other hand, in Common’s ‘Letter to the Free’, there is very few examples of narrative structure in the music video, as there is no clear storyline or chronological order. Every figure in the video is either a member of the band or a singer, aiming to portray the message that Common wants to get across about the issues surrounding racial injustice in the USA. Because of these factors, I would argue that narrative structure has not been useful in this music video as no theorists’ ideas are present within this video.

To conclude, in some ways it is possible to link narrative theory to music videos, as in general, those videos aim to tell some sort of story, and often do follow Todrov’s tripartite structure with a clear beginning, middle and end, however this is not always the case and sometimes there is no clear structure (like Letter to the Free).