How Useful are ideas about narrative in analysing music videos? Refer to Close study products “Ghost Town” and “Letter to the Free” in your answer. [12 marks] 

Narrative theories are useful for analysing music videos because they act as stories designed around the music that are featured in the videos. Music videos usually contain a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, or equilibrium, disruption, and new equilibrium as it is described in Todorov’s theory of tripartite narrative structure. Todorov’s theory shows the way a narrative usually plays out with something that disrupts the equilibrium the story started with which causes conflict that the protagonist and other characters must deal with to reintroduce a new equilibrium in which the characters return to normalcy. The music video for “Letter to the free” by Common follows this narrative structure where at the start of the video a mysterious black shape is interned in prison, representing the mass incarceration of minorities in the USA, but as the video progresses and the disruption of institutional racism is fought against, the black shape is now shown outside, representing it’s obtainment of freedom. However, the world is presented as inverted, showing either that this is an event that is not occurring in real life but is more of a dream because the conflict has not been dealt with yet, or that the shape has indeed gained freedom but it’s struggle is not over because of the racism that it has to deal with from other people instead of institutions, suggesting that a new equilibrium has not yet been reached, subverting the traditional narrative structure. The narrative is relevant to the music video because it is a protest song against institutional racism that is present in the USA and the narrative shows the effects of these systems on black people in the USA today. 

Another narrative theory is Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary opposites which posits that narratives are based around binary oppositions because of how they allow for the audience to connect with the story as well as allowing the creator of the story to frame events and justify viewpoints. From this, the dominant ideologies of societies were formed, and narratives can be viewed as either reactionary (supporting or adhering to the dominant ideology) or radical (opposing or questioning the dominant ideology). The music video for the specials’ song “Ghost Town” is a radical narrative that presents a sense of fear for the future of Britain during the 1980’s, a period of unrest and poverty in the country. The music video presents this by showing binary opposites of the reality observable at the time, with empty streets and lonely roads of a usually bustling city showing how the disruption to the equilibrium of life could lead to a far worse new equilibrium of loneliness and doom. 

Vladimir Propp proposed the idea that stories often use similar stock characters like the hero, villain, victim and others to provide familiar narrative structures. This is because stories have evolved from folk tales that often-featured similar characters such as heroes who fought against evil (also incorporating the theory of binary oppositions). These stock characters can be seen in Common’s “Letter to the Free” music video with the minorities portraying the victim, oppressed by the villain of systemic racism and the prison that they are trapped inside. The heroes are presented as the same minority population that also receives aid from the helper, which is people like Common, featured raising awareness of the systemic racism with his music. While Letter to the Free sticks to a traditional storytelling formula by using stock characters, Ghost Town’s music video is more abstract and does not show many characters which makes it harder to apply Propp’s character types and function theory. The villain can be seen as the disruption to the equilibrium that is causing the streets to be emptied and lonely, while the hero is unclear, as the band in the video do not “fight” the villain or attempt to stop it, adding to the uneasiness and fear present in the video and song. 

Narrative structures can also be subverted or altered by a narrative not conforming to the overall structural theories of how stories are constructed. For example, since most films, music videos and TV shows do not play out in real time, elements of the story are taken out, employing elision or ellipsis. This can be seen in Ghost Town, as the band’s entire journey is not displayed, but instead the audience are shown a sort of highlight reel of the band driving through different parts of empty streets and performing to the camera. This is done to cut out segments of time in the video that would consist of the audience waiting in real time. Flashbacks and flash-forwards are similar –they jump backwards or forwards in time to break the linear sequence often before then returning to the main linear narrative. The Letter to the free music video portrays two parallel narratives of both the mysterious black box and common along with others performing music in otherwise empty prison cells which run simultaneous to each other. This alters Freytag’s pyramid, a visual representation of the beginning, middle and end narrative structure by introducing another story that is switched between during the video. This is similar to the film memento, which executes this same parallel narrative structure also. In these cases, instead of Freytag’s pyramid being represented as a pyramid with a low stake start with an inciting incident, a climax in the middle, followed by a denouement that leads to the new equilibrium, it can be represented as a sort of fish hook, with two narratives playing parallel two each other which both lead to the same climax.   

These music video shows that narrative theory can be applied to music videos and that narrative theory is a useful way of analysing music videos in a media context. Music like Letter to the Free and Ghost Town comment on current social and political issues and their videos add narrative to this commentary that allows the audience to further connect to the songs and the messages they convey. For audiences without knowledge of the social and political contexts, the music videos can provide information through their narrative to the audience. Also, narrative theories are useful to apply to any narrative medium to better understand it and it’s context, and music videos are no different, as they often contain narratives that either follow or subvert narrative theories.