Theories

Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze TheoryIn my video I have not purposely portrayed my female characters in a sexual way, breaking the conventions found in many music videos, instead having a female protagonist who’s emotions are reflected throughout the story. This goes against Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory as she states that women are portrayed in sexual manners in music videos in order to attract the attention of men. Instead of doing this I have hoped to keep focus on my narrative and attract the attention of fans of my genre of music as opposed to using this theory to attract attention. This theory can apply to all genres of music, however, it is more common in chat music which my song would not be meaning that it is not completely unconventional that a music video of my genre would not feature it.

Stuart Hall Reception Theory• Stuart Hall’s theory suggests that the producers fill their products with their

own messages and values. According to this theory I have filled my video with a message that I wanted to get across to my audience, that being the pain someone feels after a loss. An audience also reacts to my video creating their own values;

• Dominant – The video would be read in the way that I intended it to be, someone who has lost their father and is using alcohol as a distraction from the pain she feels from loosing her father. Also the intended overall message of the video portraying the effect loss can have on someone's life could be a reception people have to my video.

• Negotiated – Someone could read the meanings I aimed to get across but they could not relate to the message or care about that message.

• Oppositional – The audience could ignore the message I intended to get across and instead focus on the fact that the video is portraying a teenage drinking which would be seen as negative by some people due to the age of my actress.

Uses and Gratifications TheoryMy video could also be seen to fit into the uses and gratifications theory as it could be used as a form of escapism from peoples own personal problems. People can also relate to the problems my protagonist is facing in the video and are wanting to forget about their own problems and because of my videos basis it can be used to gratify this desire. However, other than this my video does not fulfill any of the other areas of this theory. It doesn’t fulfill the need of surveillance as my video doesn’t feature anything about what’s happening in the world at this time. I also doesn’t fulfill the personal identity need as my video is more about what my character is going through than what my characters personal identity. Finally my video doesn’t specifically fulfill the desire of personal relationship as due to the short nature of my video my which doesn’t allow time for my character to create a relationship with the audience. However, people could relate to my characters struggles meaning they could form a relationship with my character.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory could be applied to my video as some people could see it as injecting the idea that teen drinking is okay and acceptable in society. Due to my main characters alcoholism in my video, my target audience of teenagers could see drinking as the correct thing to do after a loss or even see it as something to do on a regular basis. However, I believe because of how I have portrayed it in my video many people would not see drinking being portrayed for fun but rather being related to the pain of my main character. However, this could also have negative impacts on society, injecting the idea that drinking as a distraction from pain is acceptable.

Genre Theory• Jason Mitchell states that genres are used to sell products to the audience

through the similar codes and conventions that are found throughout the genres. My video features the theme of loss and alcoholism which would attract people who enjoy things such as sad movies as they would feel an emotional connection to my character and the things she is going through whereas someone who doesn’t enjoy this genre would not form a connection with my character.

• Rick Altman states that genre offers an audience a set of pleasures, these being emotional pleasers, visceral pleasers and intellectual pleasures. My video would fit into the emotional pleasures category as the content is intended to pull an emotional response from the audience, hoping to cause them to feel for my character and what she is going through.

• My music video also features a few of the themes that are seen in media featuring a youthful character, intended for a youthful audience. These include; teen angst, rebellion and nostalgia (for her loss of innocence after the death of her father). This helps my video aim towards my target audience as it causes a connection with what they may be going through.

Narrative Theory• Tim O’Sullivan argues that every media text tells some kind of story and

that the stories are a way of telling stories about ourselves as a society. This can be related to my video as it details a girl who has lost a loved one, something which many people can identify with and everyone will go through at some time. When creating my video I was attempting to create a narrative that both reflected the lyrics of the song as well as create a narrative my audience would be able to understand and relate to.

• When creating my music video I knew it was important for me that my music video match the lyrics of the song in order to keep a continuity between the two and also because I noticed it to be conventional in my genre that the two do. Some of the things I did to make sure this happened was introducing the idea of alcohol acting as the cough syrup of my piece. Due to the meaning of the song is the cough syrup being a distraction, alcohol fit this role as it makes it easier to get through a loss which is something I wanted to portray in my piece.

Narrative Theory• Tzvetan Todorov’s theory that there’s five stages to a story is not

followed in my video, instead my video starts in stage 4 with the disruption of the protagonists father dying having taken place before the events of the video and the protagonist having recognized this and started drinking because of it. My video can also be seen to have remained in this stage throughout its entirety as there is not a new stage of equilibrium created by the end of the video with the protagonist still in the same state she was before leaving it to the audiences interstation of what happens after the video.

• Broadwell and Thompson state that there is a difference between the Fabula (story) and the Syuzhet (plot) with the Fabula being all the events that we can see and infer and the plot being all we can see in front of us. In my video the Fabula is that the protagonists father has died and she has become an alcoholic to distract herself from the pain she is feeling. The Syuzhet is all we can see in the video, my protagonist going downhill until she shows her true emotions at the end of the video.

Narrative Theory• Vladimir Propp’s theory of character roles can be applied somewhat to

my music video but not all of the roles have been featured with only two characters appearing throughout my music video as well as the artist who I believe would not fit into any of these roles because of their lack of involvement in the narrative. My protagonist would be seen as the hero who is searching for something with what she’s searching for a distraction from the pain she is feeling and in the end moving on after her fathers death. The person who tries to talk to her when she is walking down the street can be seen as the helper, trying to provide help to my protagonist.

• Kate Domille’s theory that every story fits into one of eight narrative types can be attributed to my music video, with it fitting into the Orpheus category which is about the journey after the loss of a loved one. My video tells the story someone after they have lost their father and the journey that person has gone through after that loss.