Vance Joy- Riptide

Vance Joy- Riptide (2013)

  • Music videos as a postmodern medium...
    • Post modern is seen as after what we have at the moment. It is more of a theory that we can use for things. It is impossible to define it, as it is an anti theory theory.
    • 'Style over substance' it looks nice so who cares about anything else.
    • Emphasises surface readings over deeper analysis. 
    • Distrust of form, convention and establishment conventions.
    • Breaking the fourth wall is a form of postmodernism, which is when the actor breaks character and speaks to the audience.                                                                           
Riptide
  • The genre of the song is Indie Pop. 
  • The gradual smearing of the singing lady's makeup can connote her gradually going insane from the repetition of being taken to the darkness. Or it could be the women slowly dying in the riptide as she has a lump in her throat 'suffocating' and her makeup is coming off in the water.
  • the beat was matched exactly almost all of the montage as each clip related to the lyrics being sung. e.g the cowboy running from the south, symbolic of dual personalities, afraid of what he has become.
  • General theme and narrative- montage of shots suggest themes of drowning, dying and death.
  • Alternative theme and narrative- an unpredictable and deliberately misleading montage of shots
  • Deliberately invites polysemic interpretations.
  • Emotional response- cold, confusing.
  • Intertextuality- the mise-en-scene suggested the conventions of a western film, therefore functions as a referential code, which in response creates audience appeal as only certain audiences will understand the reference.
  • Additionally, the mid shots of the seance and the mise-en-scene of the Ouija board is referential of horror cinema, in particular 70's horror films.
  • The mid-shot of the letter dated August 1974 anchors into a particular time period, because its cool.
  • Mid long shot of feet being dragged under the bed, low angled, low key blue/purple lighting which connotes darkness, misery and threat.
  • It completely denies the audience a response.
  • The video contains some voyeurism in the mid shot of the women taking off her swimming costume. high angled shot of a blonde young women taking it off. It positions the audience as the sick human being that is perving on women conforming to Elizabeth Van Zoonen's male gaze theory.

Context
  • Vance Joy was born in Australia.
  • He is signed to Atlantic Records (a subsidiary of major-label warner).
  • It an indie-folk-pop genre.
  • Riptide was Vance Joy's first single to be realised in the UK.
  • It went platinum as over 1 million copies were sold.   

Define the following terms...
  • Objectification- The process in which the producer dehumanises a person, and make them appear on the same level as an object.
  • Male Gaze- The assumption that every media product is created for an heterosexual male audience and to please them.
  • Sexualisation- The process of only valuing someone for their sexual appeal.
  • Voyeurism- Is taking pleasure by watching someone without them knowing.
  • Scopophillia- The love of watching, it is another word for voyeurism.




































Interpretation of a single image
  • The mise-en-scene of the red colour of her top red, symbolising either anger, danger, or love, passion.
  • It is a mid shot, with her centred in the middle, connoting that she has importance in the overall music video. And is the main attraction for the audience, mostly the heterosexual male audience, conforming to Elizabeth Van Zoonen's male gaze theory.
  • The mise-en-scene of the ocean infers that she is free and out in the open.
  • The high angle mid shot suggests a voyeuristic intent, we are positioned as the voyeur, the creep.
  • She is looking out into the ocean connoting adventure.
  • Her costume is exotic and exciting, inferring that her trip is as well.
  • Shallow depth shot, she is the main focus, everything else is blurred out.
  • It is shot with a zoom lense, we are standing far away, positions the audience in an scopopphilliac way.
  • It is natural lighting to make her look very natural and pretty.
  •  

  • One invasive ideology that is presented here, is that women are vulnerable. Which is a very stereotypical view on women.
  • This video uses a lot of intertextuality, such as the stereotypical damsel in distress, horror films, etc. They are mainly displayed as the damsel in distress, as they are all nearly in scenes that convey they are in distress.
  • The women are seen as individual and powerful in some seems, mainly when they take on stereotypical manly traits, arguing that you have to be like a man to gain success and power, for example her smoking and looking through the binoculars.
  • Yet in every scene t is as though the women are companied by a man, inferring that women cant  be independent. 
  • All of the scenes of women's feet, do not show any emotions of the women, there fore objectifying them.
  • The music video is very contradicting, as it shows some women as weak and some as powerful, however they are only powerful because they take on hegemonic manly traits.
  • We could make the argument that this video is criticising the representation of women.
Interpretation of a single image
  • She looks like ta stereotypical tall lean model.
  • She looks glamorous; more mature, red lip. sparkly dress, jewelled earrings, spotlights.
  • She has a very long face, with very propionate cheekbones.
  • She has tied back hair, therefore making her  face the main attraction, nothing is hidden behind her hair.
  • Her lips are a dark cherry red, suggests that she is solitary and mysterious. 
  • Close up shot, where we as the audience are positioned right to the side of her, very closely, we are far to close to her face for comfort, no one should be this close to a performer.
  • The fact that she is not looking at the camera (not as us) infers that we are be voyeuristic even more as she may not know we are there, way too close for comfort.
  • There is no specific anchorage of ideology in this video, people have to make their own sense of the video.
  • Her lip syncing gets worse and worse throughout the song, matching the lyrics
  • The gradual makeup being smeared and messed up throughout the video infers a huge theme of violence in the video, and is incredibly creepy.
































































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