riptide

Question 1

product context

Answer 1

• Vance Joy is an Australian singer-songwriter signed to Atlantic records

Question 2

economic context

Answer 2

• The low budget, unique style of the music video could either be an artistic decision or an economic one
• Later Vance Joy music videos such as “Georgia” make use of larger budgets, special effects and elaborate, coherent narratives.
• Funding could be discussed in relation to music video where bands might start out with small low budget productions which increase in scope and budget as they gain popularity and fans.

Question 3

How media language influences meaning and intertextuality:

Answer 3

• Montage editing is used in an overt way to convey a large amount of information:

o E.g., the sequence where a male and a female suddenly turn their heads to look at something off-screen and the next shot shows a seemingly unrelated pile of dollar bills- audience are asked to make connections

o Many of these cuts also have a clear link to the lyrics themselves which can explore the visual metaphors and possible significance of these edits in relation to the lyrics

• The music video for the most part rejects a clearly defined narrative. There are some short coherent narrative sequences (such as the scene where the girl goes missing in the graveyard) but for the most part the sequences deliberately lack narrative coherence

Question 4

codes & conventions

Answer 4

• Ways in which the music video seems to defy or subvert music video conventions:

o The deliberate way the lyrics are interpreted in this music video might be subverting this convention:
o The opening line “I was scared of dentists and the dark” is interpreted explicitly with a shot of a female looking “scared” with a metallic contraption in her mouth that suggests she is in a dentist’s chair and followed by a shot of a light swinging in a darkened room

• The music video seems to explicitly reference feature films:

o The video frequently references the Western and Thriller genres but most notably uses Horror genre iconography, e.g., females repeatedly dragged off screen by unseen forces and a character going missing in a dark graveyard.

Question 5

The significance of challenging and/or subverting genre conventions:

Answer 5

• Riptide is relatively unusual both as a music video and specifically as a text within the indie folk genre in terms of its style, rejection of narrative and lack of spectacle or special effects.
• Might have been designed to confer a sense of uniqueness or intrigue to the band.

Question 6

theory
semiotics, barthes

Answer 6

• For example the pile of dollar bills which accompanies the line “Oh, all my friends are turning green”.
• by discussing the connotations of the colour green in relation to both money and envy - this could be said to have achieved Barthes’ status of myth through a process of naturalisation which might allow for complicated readings of the image.
• This example of polysemy could be interpreted in a variety of ways e.g. is it implying that friends (possibly in other bands) have “sold out” by giving into money? Or might instead these friends be turning green with envy at the success of Vance Joy?

Question 7

theory
genre neale

Answer 7

• the indie folk music video genre is dominated by repetition (low-fi videos with bands playing instruments etc.) however also offers variation

Question 8

How media representations convey values, attitudes, and beliefs about the world:

Answer 8

• Women in the video are repeatedly presented as an object to be watched:

o In one shot a woman with her back to the camera undresses out of her swimming costume
o We see isolated sections of women’s bodies such as bare feet running away, or feminine hands being dragged out of shot.

o Explore the lip-synch sections where a woman sings the lyrics of the song into a microphone. At first, she has immaculate make-up and is framed and lit in a flattering way arguably conforming to social norms of beauty and glamour associated with mainstream media texts. As we repeatedly return to this character she becomes increasingly dishevelled, her make-up smudges and her expression becomes more and more vacant as she sings “the words wrong” (this could challenge gender representation in music video and how it sits with the other representations of women in the video.)

o the music video also presents a number of scenes that offer images of violence, such as a female hand being stabbed by a knife and a gun being pointed off screen. The lip-synching woman also clutches at her own neck, and we see what seems to be blood over her hand. ( which may be trivialising or normalising violence.)

Question 9

theory
identity, gauntlett

Answer 9

• explore complex and diverse representations in the music video - his concept of the pick and mix seems particularly relevant to the style of the video which constructs a range of different stimuli that the audience are invited to interpret.
• The video rejects singular, straightforward messages and instead invites a variety of different responses and interpretations.

Question 10

theory
feminist, hooks

Answer 10

• Is the video objectifying women in an ironic or knowing way or is it instead feeding into the oppression of women in a patriarchal society?
• Use hooks’ position that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/ patriarchal oppression to ask whether the video is part of that struggle or part of the oppression.