‘Teenage’ video analysisMy Chemical Romance existing music video analysis.

• Contrasting the stereotype of teenagers to the ludicrous idea of fearing them, in the song “Teenagers,” the band “My Chemical Romance” utilizes an interesting rhyme scheme, an ironic tone, and personal points of view to portray the absurd phobia of teenagers.

• As the title suggests, the track ‘Teenagers’ by My Chemical Romance, both in lyrics and video, is centred around the adolescent demographic. A highly stylized group in all aspects, including the colouration of album colours coordinated with costume in live performances and merchandise, the video for the single ‘Teenagers’ differs little from the trend, with black and bold red featured front and foremost.

• The entirety of the video is set within a high-school environment, a dark concert hall, retaining the familiar colour palette. On opening, the red drapes hang as a backdrop to the band on the stage, dressed head to toe in black uniform which is an conventional aspect within the mise-en-scene and the genre of rock. The band members are accompanied by a cheer-leading squad, the unmissable contrasting feature from the portrayed squad and an orthodox team being that they each individually wear World War II esque gas masks later on within the video. From this specific item of mise-en-scene, suggests many connotations. The purpose of a Gas mask is to prevent suffocation, the word “suffocating” often used throughout media to represent feelings of repression, of being crowded or the sense that a decision or decisions that ought to be one's own to make are in another’s hands, representing this social trend of “conforming to authority” and lack of freedom.

•   Throughout the song “Teenagers,” an enrapturing rhyme scheme is present in nearly every single line. The last words of each line rhyme with each other to produce an ‘aabb scheme’. The repetitive rhyming allows the song to flow more smoothly and provide a rhythm for when the song is sung. For instance, “They’re gunna clean up your looks, with all the lies in the books to make a citizen out of you” and “the boys and girls in the click, the awful names that will stick, you’re never gunna fit in much kid” flows smoothly and with a steady beat, allowing the song to have more of an impact when it is sung. As the repetitive rhythm causes the song to be more enjoyable and flow easier, it allows for the song to be more memorable. By becoming more memorable and enjoyable, the song is able to evoke more emotion from the listeners, and allows the meaning of the song to have more of an greater impact.

• Following suit, the ironic tone throughout the song allows the audience to realize how ludicrous it is to fear a specific age group/demographic. The band mocks themselves throughout the song, characterizing themselves as people fearful of “teenagers.” Instances of mockery and irony include “they’re gunna clean up your looks with all work they gunna give you a smirk,” “teenagers scare the living sh!t out of me, they couldn’t care less as long as someone’ll bleed, so darken your clothes or strike a violent pose, Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me!” These instances point out some of the typical fears that people supposedly have regarding teenagers, characterizing them as a whole. This is where the notion of stereotypes are evident.

• The fears include that they will lie through their teeth, carry weapons on their presence, do drugs and are excessively violent. They would do anything to get what they want, and the only way to stop them is to blend in or become just as violently powerful. This is a stereotypical representation of teenagers and through exaggeration and irony, My Chemical Romance is able to portray nonsensical it is to judge a whole group of people by a few outlying individuals.

As the title suggests, the track Teenagers by My Chemical Romance, both in lyrics and video, is centred around the adolescent demographic. A highly stylized group in all aspects, including the colouration of album colours coordinated with costumes in live performances and merchandise, the video for the single Teenagers differs little from the trend, with

black and bold red featured front and foremo                               st.

As the title suggests, the track Teenagers by My Chemical Romance, both in lyrics and video, is centred around the adolescent demographic. A highly stylized group in all aspects, including the colouration of album colours coordinated with costumes in live performances and merchandise, the video for the single Teenagers differs little from the trend, with

black and bold red featured front and foremo                               st. The theme of rebellion against a predestined existence are commonly expressed throughout teenager-orientated media, as they have been for decades since the existence of the anarchical punk movements, even dating back to the active of the Edelweiss Pirates in the late 1930’s.

The most common connotation of the phrase “youth-culture” is individuality, or rather a unified sense of self opposed to one aspect of the adult world or the other, whether it be the opinion of a parent on an adolescent’s fashion sense or their taste in music- animosity towards any form of dictation is the heart of the matter.

This theory is strengthened through the mise-en-scene, as the video progresses, as the masked cheerleaders take up police batons, incorporated into their dance routine. The police force are yet another trope villain portrayed throughout the media in teen-targeted productions, upholding order and retaining a formulaic structure, therefore this constructs a polysemyous message within the music video and denotes the social trend of “conforming to authority”.

This specific music video is interesting when looking at stereotypical and representational expectations. The cheerleader countenance itself is a high-school cliché throughout the media – representatives of what’s presumed to be an exclusive club for the popular and pretty, an interesting contrast to the alternative style of music. This is identified as a binary opposition, as the two contrasting representations are completely opposite from one another.

The lyrics to the song essentially captures the heart of this iconography –”They’re gunna clean up your looks, with all the lies in the book, to make a citizen out of you. Because they sleep with a gun, and keep an eye on your son, so they can watch all the things you do.”“They’re” are in this case representatives of parents, teachers and adults in general. The lyric “to make a citizen out of you” clearly denotes the theme of conformity, as “Keep an eye on you son” denotes the big-brother system of control and regulation, all too commonly portrayed as particularly offensive to adolescents. This is where the notion of social theme and Blumler and Katz theory of “escapism” is evident in reference to the audience.

As the video progresses, a congregation of black-clad teenagers, presumed to be pupils, swarm the auditorium.Initially apprehensive, the situation escalates to a riotous mosh pit, followed by the eventual raiding of the stage itself in which the band are humorously disarmed from their instruments and trampled.

This brawl is initiated as the aforementioned red-drapes drop behind the band members, revealing the image of a nuclear mushroom cloud, referring to the iconography to that of the gas masks. The phrase “to go nuclear” is often translated to define drastic actions, or to describe a course of action resulting from being pushed to the metaphorical edge and having to react excessively in order to reclaim hypothetical lost land.

By using personal points of view and forcing the listeners/audience into the song and actions within it, the messages within the song carry a deeper meaning and cause the listeners to further understand how it is wrong to carry prejudice.            As the listeners are forced into the persona of a teenage victim, they are forced to feel the effects of prejudice. This allows them to understand how it is wrong, and to act against carrying prejudice in the future. Regardless that a few teenagers rest outside the norm, the majority of teenagers could care less about violence and revenge, and are therefore not “another cog in the murder machine.”