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)
The idea of Narrative Theory can be very relevant when referring to music videos, as many tend to fall into a certain theory. 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. Kernels are the features of the music video that are vital to ensure the song and video make sense. Without Kernels, the whole thing would be irrelevant and no message would be put across. Alternatively, the satellites in a music video are the features that are not essential and could be removed with no impact to the story. They are used for embellishment and therefore can be adapted. 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 the video are small things like the outfits the band members are wearing. Their outfit choice doesn’t make much difference to the message and therefore is a satellite.
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 story line. Instead the video is simple and every figure in the video is either a member of the band or a singer. They are aiming to portray the message that Common wants to get across about the issues surrounding racial injustice in the USA. Racism is still, to this day, a huge problem throughout the world. Black people are treated unfairly and Common aims to address this issue in his song. Jacques Lacan talks about the mirror stage of child development. He says ‘we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not.’ This theory can link to Commons Letter to the Free because Common wants the audience to take something away from his message and to learn more about racism. Even thought the music video is not giving a clear story line, it does send a message. Because the video is set in a prison, this gives a poignant and eary feel to the video which helps to send a message.
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). Letter to the free does show however, that a tripartite structure is not always necessary when creating a narrative in order to send a message.