Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory focuses mainly on visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Her studies are based on how women are viewed as sexual objects initially in Hollywood films. This concept of women as sexual objects is also evident in media texts today including music videos and film. Mulvey's research focuses on women as sexual objects and how they are placed in media texts to be enjoyed and objectified by men. This occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may focus on the curves of a woman's body, putting the viewer in the eyes of a male. However, it is only the male gaze theory if these curves are highlighted with specific conventions such as slow motion, deliberate camera movements and cut-aways.
The above theory identified by Laura Mulvey does not apply well to the music video I have chosen to analyse. This is due to the absence of females in the video, and the fact that the women/young girls that are included are either portrayed equally to the young boys that are alongside them. Mulvey, using this theory, would argue that the absence of female figures in this music video is due to the fact that women were not seen as important in education in the late 70’s, when this music video was first released. This would be easily linked to Tim O’Sullivan’s theory that a music video highlights the ideologies of societies at the time of a music videos production.
An example of how women are shown as less important than men in Pink Floyd’s 1979 hit ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ would be that a female is never seen in a shot on her own, and always has a man or young boy by her side, it may be argued that this is because the women are being portrayed through their stereotype of being more vulnerable and less knowledgeable than the men. As well as never being in a shot on their own, women are generally in the foreground while the male dominates the shot, as seen when the teachers are walking down the corridor in one of the first shots. This adds weight to the argument that women are of less importance and links to Tim O' Sullivan's theory of a music video highlighting and embracing the values within their society at the time. The idea that the women are portrayed equally is shown in the shots that we see the children walking along conveyor belt as if they were being hoarded like cattle. In these shots there are an equal amount of males and females and they are also all under the same low key lighting that shadows their faces. This indicates that they are all equally unimportant to the teachers and other adults in this video and so for this area of the video specifically, Mulvey’s theory would not apply.
However, it could be applied well when looking at the teachers in this clip rather than the children. This is because it highlights that female teachers were not as well represented as male teachers during the time that this music video was produced. There is not a single shot where the audience can see a female on her own, as there is always a man in the background – whereas we see a lot of men in shots by themselves, for example the male teacher who mocks their male student for writing poetry. Also, the first people we are introduced to in this video are male, which suggests to the audience instantly that this music video is going to be male dominated and allows us to apply Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze.
Richard Dyer developed the idea that the viewer’s perception of its stars, and that publicity materials and reviews determine the way that audiences experience a media text. With this idea in mind, Dyer analysed critics writing, magazines, advertising and the films themselves to explore the significance of stardom. He said that stars are commodities that a produced by institutions and not real people. They are constructed, as any other aspect of fiction is, using a range of materials and methods e.g. advertising, magazines and featuring in films and music product. Dyer states that icons and celebrities are constructed by institutions for financial gain and target one specific audience/group of people to make profit. Stars create a persona that is desirable to a target audience but is not actually a true representation of themselves. It is a constructed identity and ideology to make society want to consume them. His theory is spilt into three sections:
1. Audiences and Institutions
2. Ideologies and Culture
3. Characters and Personality
In audiences and institutions, stars are made for money purposes alone. Increasing the brand identity benefits the institution, as they become a household name and therefore increases the chances of sales in all of the media platforms they are in. The institution then models the artist around the target audience they choose. Hegemony means that stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes to promote a certain ideology and this is also what makes them a ‘star’ by having such a powerful influence over an audience. Some fans may attempt to replicate the star in their appearance and behaviour. But this could also have a negative impact as some stars are often heavy drinkers and drug abusers. For example, in the 60’s and 70’s there was an increase of illegal sales of cannabis due to The Beatles being so open about using it. An audience interest in their values as a star increases their ‘star quality’ and it is through conveying beliefs, ideas and opinions outside music that performers help create their star character to their fans. A star may start a fashion trend, with masses of fans copying their hairstyle and clothing. Stars benefit from cultural discourse for example, via their Twitter feed. Now more than ever before, social networks give pop stars the opportunity to establish their own values outside their music.
Ideologies and culture explains that stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes that promote a certain ideology about themselves as an artist and what they want an audience to see what they believe in. By having dominant, desirable ideologies it allows the audience to see their star qualities and make them more desirable. Conveying their beliefs and opinions outside of music and film helps a celebrity create a star persona.
Dyer states that stars provide audiences with ‘ideas of what people are supposed to be like’ and because of this audiences feel the need to conform to these constructions. A star creates a character based on themselves and what they feel the audience want to consume, they promote an image that they feel is desirable for an audience. For stars to be an established artist or brand and to make an audience want to carry on consuming them, a tactic used by institutions is to create an image or motif that is recurring.
This theory cannot be directly applied to this specific music video, as the artists are not part of it. This could be argued that they are not in the video as they find the narrative that goes along with their song and the lyrics more important than featuring in it themselves and therefore shows their audience that they are not "constructed" by their institution through their appearance and type of band their record label wants them to be. However, it could be argued that Dyer’s star theory applies to the band outside of this music video as they generally adhere to the conventions and audience expectations of a typical psychedelic rock band which means that they are moulded by their target audience and by their institution to look and act in a way that would attract the right consumers for their products. Although, Pink Floyd do not follow all conventions of a psychedelic rock band as bands within this genre are generally known for taking drugs and drinking a lot of alcohol, whereas Pink Floyd were completely clean of drugs after their first big hit, with the exception of Syd Barrett only casually experimenting with acid, and hadn’t even tried whiskey until Janis Joplin passed them some during a
tour in 1967.
As a group, Pink Floyd have created a brand name and therefore follow Richard Dyer’s idea of characters and personality within the star theory as they have a motif that is recurring within each f their products, which is their band name logo that never changes and continuously uses the same font.
A stereotype within media is defined as a representation that is made about an individual or group of people based on the way they present themselves. It is associating appearances with groups of people and making assumptions about their personalities. Tessa Perkins identifies such assumptions and states that stereotypes are not always negative, not always about minority groups or the less powerful, can be held about one's own group, are not rigid or unchanging and are not always false.
People assume that stereotypes are aimed at and targeted towards the less powerful but this is not always the case, we can make assumptions and stereotypes about upper class minorities in the same way they would make assumptions about lower class people. They can be held about our own groups too, for example collectively as a representation of people we are based as a group within Wyke College, within out our groups we stereotypes people, even though they belong to the same institution and hold the same ideologies as a whole, within the group we stereotype based on our assumptions. People hold stereotypes of a group of people, meaning that they believe them to be true, or not. This can lead to negative behaviour or wrong assumptions. This is because someone may be holding a stereotype of a group and therefore his/her behaviour towards that group may change and their actions can be predicted. For example, older generations are led to believe that the younger generations (i.e. teenagers) are bad influences and are out looking for trouble, this would then mean that their attitude towards teenagers would be negative and as a result of this they may try to avoid any contact with them.
In Pink Floyd's video for Another Brick in the Wall, Tessa Perkins theory of stereotypes applies massively. The teachers in this video can be considered stereotypes because of how they look in the way they are dressed and their mannerisms (how they are presenting themselves). The first teacher we see can be seen as a stereotypically teacher/head teacher as he is dressed in black robes and therefore looks very professional. He also looks extremely strict from the way he presents himself as he is waving a cain around and shouting - this is very stereotypical of a traditional head teacher rather than a modern head teacher and therefore is being a representative of teachers during the period that this music video was made.
In this shot we can see the head teacher stood in the centre between two rows of marching students and is highlighted by most of the light in the shot. This helps the audience to perceive him as the most important figure in the shot, this is then emphasised by the fact that he is using most of the light and taking up the majority of the space in the shot. Also, the students are wearing pig masks which could be used as a way of telling the consumer that the teacher is more important in his role because they have taken the students identities away from them. It also indicates that they are being hoarded in the same way as animals.
a) Inferred events
b) Explicitly shown events
c) Non-diegetic material
"Narrative theory suggests that we are able to comprehend and enjoy fictional Media stories because they are organised in a way that reflects the patterns and structures of our 'real lives'. The pattern of events in media stories reflect the chronology of real life as well as the causality "action triggers reaction: each step has an effect which in turn becomes a new cause"
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The story: Story (fabula): consists 'of all the events in a narrative, both explicitly presented and inferred' - Bordwell and Thompson (2004)
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The Plot: Plot (syuzhet): 'everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us: in other words those highly selected parts of the story which the narrative puts before us' - Bordwell and Thompson (2004)
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The Narrative: Narrative: (narration) describes how a story is told, how the material is selected and arranged in order to achieve particular effects on the audience: linear or non-linear (episodic, flash-back etc ) Bordwell and Thompson (2004)
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Structuralism: A belief that there is structure in all things – that items within a certain paradigm (a class of elements with similarities) follow specific patterns
Bordwell and Thompsons theory applies to Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall' in the way that it
The narrative within Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall shows, at first, teachers dominating over their students. The head teacher in this music video is shown as extremely strict and has a dialogue part in this music video where he is shown picking on one student for paying more attention to poetry than his lesson, trying to embarras him. The audience, in this part of the video, is made to sympathise with the students as they are being treated as if they are animals. Which is shown when they are being treated like cattle on the conveyer belt later on in the same video once the chorus begins.
However, one part of the video has fast-paced non-continuity editing to show the cause and effect of the head teachers behaviour. The audience see that he actually has repressed feelings that are being taken out on his students due to the way he is treated by his wife at home. Also, when looking at the mise-en-scene within the shots of him eating tea at home, there is a photography of the Queen which is placed directly above the teachers head, which is used to signify that he is under control by both the state and his wife and gives his attitude in the classroom a reason and as an audience we begin to sympathise with him too.
One of the record's novelties was its use of children from St Winifred's School choir to sing in a Cockney accent the memorable hook, 'We don't need no education', the final word sounding like 'edukashun'. If that were not enough to confirm the worst suspicions of those who thought educational standards had never been lower, the hook used a double negative and teachers were exhorted to' 'leave them kids alone'. This, its ungrammatical construction aside, was little more than child centred educators like A. S. Neill had been saying for years. Similarly, the sentiment, 'We don't need no thought control' was not all that far away from what contemporary theorists' like Althusser were saying about schooling under capitalism. The appeal for, 'No dark sarcasm in the classroom' was mild compared to Lennon's representation of teacher behaviour and resonates more with Chuck Berry's 'mean' looking teacher. In the song's chorus,
All in all it's just
another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just
another brick in the wall.
The brick metaphor in this video can be read as a reference to a bureaucratically organized schooling that produces uniform citizens to take their place in the labour market/system of social relations. As a description of English education with its much vaunted variety it is rather inaccurate but it is, after all, how for many pupils the way the school system is experienced. Paradoxically the growth of central regulation has made that experience more likely now than when the song was first released.
Sven Carlsson's theory is that binary oppositions drive the narration of the music video forward, e.g black and white theme. Also that there are two main types of music video; performance and conceptual. Performance clips where the video mainly shows an artist (or artists) singing and/or dancing. Conceptual clips are where something else is shown during the song's duration which may have symbolism or an artistic meaning.
There are three main types of performance clips: song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance. A way of telling if a clip is performance is that the artist(s) is likely to be shown in more than one setting.
In one type of performance, the performer is not a performer anymore, he or she is a materialization of the commercial exhibitionist. He or she is a monger of their own body image, selling everything to be in the spotlight – selling voice, face, lifestyle, records, and so on. This commercial exhibitionist wants success and tries to evoke the charisma of stardom and sexuality, he or she wishes to embody dreams of celebrity, to be an icon, the center of procreative wishes.
Another type of performance in the music video universe is that of the televised bard. He or she is a modern bard singing banal lyrics using television as a medium. The televised bard is a singing storyteller who uses actual on-screen images instead of inner, personal images. Sometimes the televised bard acts in the story – sometimes he or she is far away and inserted images help him or her tell the story. The greatest televised bards create audio-visual poetry. They transform the banal story of the lyrics employing on-screen images to create a story about life and death. Too often, however, the televised bards only contemplates her or his own greatness and unfulfilled wishes.
The third type of performer is the electronic shaman. Sometimes the shaman is invisible and it is only her or his voice and rhythm that anchor the visuals. He or she often shifts between multiple shapes. At one moment the electronic shaman animates dead objects or have a two-dimensional alter egos (as in cartoon comics), seconds later he or she is shifting through time and so on. The electronic shaman is our guide on a spiritual journey through blipping images and magical attributes. And the electronic shaman promises that there is a hidden meaning in everything; he or she promises that we live in a magical, mythical reality. The electronic shaman’s voice and rhythm form the life-line that connects images and sound simultaneously creating new experiences and associations for those involved in the conscious-streaming journey outside time and space. The electronic shaman's performance, and the other two types of performance, can be seen in Cher's music video Believe (1998)
If a music video clip is most appropriately understood as a short silent movie to a musical background, it is a narrative clip. A narrative clip contains a visual story that is easy to follow. A pure narrative clip contains no lip-synchronized singing.
In this music video, any theory that suggests that the artist is trying to materialise through their music is irrelevant as in this music video alone, the artist is not shown and therefore suggests that the messages that the music and the video that goes along with it are a lot more important. They could be considered a television bard as they are using on-screen images instead of personal images in order to tell a story to the audience. However, as this song is also off a film and some of the film being included in the music video it can be understood by the audience as a short movie to a musical background, and therefore be a narrative clip. This is because it contains a visual story that is quite easily followed and contains very little lip-synchronised singing (the only synchronised singing being the boys in the choir that sing directly to the camera).
Tim O' Sullivan argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story. Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures.
Narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions, or conventions, and that is important to be aware of how these constructions are put together.
Communication Flow
Another Brick in the Wall was released in 1979, and in this year following the 1979 General Election, the Conservative Party regained power under Margaret Thatcher. In the early period it made two main changes:
- New Vocationalism was expanded (Labour had made some small efforts beforehand, but the Conservatives expanded it considerably). This was seen as an effort to reduce the high youth unemployment, which was regarded as one of the causes of the sporadic rioting at the end of the seventies. The Youth Opportunities Programme was the main scheme, offered to 16 to 18 year olds. It had been introduced in 1978 under the Labour government of James Callaghan, was expanded in 1980 under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and ran until 1983 when it was replaced by the Youth Training Scheme.
- The Assisted Places Scheme was introduced in 1980, whereby gifted children who could not afford to go to fee-paying schools would be given free places in those schools if they could pass the school's entrance exam.
Also, since the 1979 revolution, women have struggled to regain lost rights and win a larger role in society, despite a regime unfriendly to women’s issues.
This music video is used to show the problems in both society in the late 70's and the problems within education. In the video, women have a distinct lack of presence which only displays them as being less important. Also, the women in this music video never have a shot by themselves and are always with a male which adds weight to the argument that they are much less important than the male roles in Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. It also demonstrates the style in which people dressed back in the 70's and the attitudes/values that they had. Therefore, Tim O'Sullivan's theory that culture and society is shown through music videos is very relevant to the video I am analysing.
Todorov's narrative structure theory suggests that all narratives follow the same pattern or path. In this structure there are three areas that a film or narrative of any type must follow:
1. The Equilibrium
This is generally at the beginning of the narrative when the storyline and the characters are content and everything is as it should be. The narrative seems 'normal'.
2. The Disruption
This is the second stage of the narrative structure, when the plot will feature a problem that effects the characters and will disrupt the happiness and normality of the story.
3. The Realisation
This is the area of the plot when the characters finally realise that there is a problem and the narrative spirals out of control.
4. Restored Order
The fourth stage of the narrative structure is when the characters attempt to repair the damage and restore the problem.
5. Re-Equilibrium
The final part is when the problem has been thoroughly resolved and normality resumes.
Todorov's narrative structure theory directly relates to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. This is because each stage can be shown in the music video. For example, the first stage of this video (the equilibrium) would be when the teachers and students are in the school and the day begins as normal, with the expected school bell signifying the start of lessons. We are then shown a teacher teaching in one of his lessons and punishes a student for not paying attention. These are the aspects of school-life that people would expect to find, especially in the decade that this music video was produced as in 1979, the punishment that the student is given was still acceptable.
The second stage of todorov's theory in relation to Pink Floyd's music video, unusually begins during the first stage in a fast-paced parallel editing as we see the head teacher of the school being dominated by his wife. This would be a disruption in his life and therefore in the music video too and it is also the reason behind the way he treats his students because of repressed emotions. The main area of the disruption would be when we first see the students from the school getting treated like animals and having them not have identities by making them wear pigs masks.
The realisation of the music video would be when the students begin to fight back. They take their pigs masks off and start flipping over the tables in their classrooms and burning the school. This is a huge realisation that they have been getting treated as if they were animals and were ending it.
The restored order is the one stage that seems absent out of this theory in relation to this video as there is no attempt at restoring order, however the last stage is shown through the close-up of the young student we saw at the beginning of the video which, I think, is being used to show that everything we saw was something he was thinking about and not what was actually happening and therefore we return to the original equilibrium.
Pam Cook (1985) suggested that the standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:
- Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution
- A high degree of narrative closure
- A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence
Another Brick in the Wall relates to this theory as it portrays an example of cause and effect. This is because the teachers behaviour towards his students has a direct link to their behaviour towards the end of the music video. It also has closure within the video as in the end of the music video the audience see that the story that had been told was something the young boy was thinking about and not actually happening. It also has a fictional world incorporated into the music video, such as the factory setting with the large conveyer belts carrying the students stood in pigs masks - it is obvious that this is not realistic and therefore fictional and used in order to convey a message rather than display the obvious to the audience instantly.
Reception theory is one that refers to an active audience theory which sees the audience as being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than passive consumers. The idea is that individuals interpret texts in different ways. It demonstrates the even though one message is sent out, that not one understanding is received.
Stuart Hall specifically claimed that media texts go through stages of encoding and decoding. This theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer and that the text contains certain ideologies of the people who created it. Decoding is when an audience views the text and interprets their own ideologies into the text. Not all audiences will respond in the same way, and in some cases, not how the producer intended. An example of this could be artist Miley Cyrus and her world famous video 'We Can't Stop'. The video was produced by the producer to make audiences forget about the Hannah Montana era and create a new and reinvented Miley Cyrus. However, when it was decoded by the audience, the reaction was that she had turned 'slutty' and 'disgraceful' in most peoples views, but again, not all of the audience will interpret the video in that way.
When a producer creates a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that they want to convey to a mass audience, which is referred to as a 'preferred reading'. Sometimes the producer can encode a message that is not correctly understood by an audience, making the message noneffective.
In Hall's theory, he identified three different types of audiences decoding of texts:
- Dominant or Preferred
- Negotiated
- Oppositional
Dominant or Preferred is how the producer wants the audience to view the media text and they agree with the message it is conveying. Negotiated is a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings, as the audience can understand and agree with the texts in the way that the producer had hoped, but disagrees with other areas that they have their own views on. Oppositional would be when an audience completely rejects the encoded meaning and creates their own meaning for the text, fully disagreeing with the message that is being submitted.
In order to understand why audiences decode music videos in the way that they do, numerous factors need to be taken into consideration. This is because certain things can change a way someone perceives a text, for example: life experiences, their mood at the time of viewing, age, culture, beliefs and gender.
In terms of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall, the preferred or dominant reading would be that the educational system is degrading and leads to students losing interest and rebelling. It also highlights the way students are treated while they are in school and triggers emotions for the audience which enables them to sympathise with the students. However, some people may argue (negotiated reading) that the way they are treated has a direct link to the teachers life outside of education which is shown through the head teachers wife telling him what to do at the dinner table. A possible oppositional reading would be if the audience reject the idea of the educational system being that bad and have their own views on it.
The Uses & Gratifications theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer instead of the message itself by asking what people do with media, rather than what media does to people. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive, but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. The approach suggests that people use media to fulfil specific gratifications and would then imply that the media compete against other forms of information sources for viewer's gratification.
This theory follows a basic model as it is audience-centred. When an audience actively seek out media, they are typically seeking it in order to gratify a need. For example, in social situations, people may feel more confident and knowledgable when they have specific facts and stories from the media to add to conversation. By seeking out media, a person fulfils a need to be informed. Social situations and psychological characteristics motivate the need for media, which motivates certain expectations of that media. This expectation leads one to be exposed to media that would seemingly fit expectations, leading to an ultimate gratification.
It is suggested that this theory has to fulfil one of the following when an audience choose a form of media:
- Identify: being able to recognise the product or person in front of them, role models that reflect similar values to theirs, and aspirations to be someone else.
- Educate: Being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
- Entertain: What an audience is consuming should give enjoyment and also some form of 'escapism' enabling them to forget worries temporarily.
- Social Interaction: the ability for media products to product a topic of conversation between other people, sparks debates.
In relation to Another Brick in the Wall, I personally believe that this music video was created in order to both educate and entertain. This is because the audience are being shown another side of the educational system that they may not have even considered in the past and so they are learning that sometimes students rebel because of other factors, but it also shows younger audiences - for example, students, that the way they are treated is because of something other than their general attitude and therefore asks them to look deeper. It is also there to entertain audiences as it is a music video and so if it wasn't entertaining then people wouldn't be interested in watching it or buying the song.
The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.
Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:
- The fast rise and popularisation of radio and television
- The emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda
- The Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children, and
- Hitler's monopolisation of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party
The theory suggests that the mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response. Both images used to express this theory (a bullet and a needle) suggest a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver.
The classic example of the application of the Magic Bullet Theory was illustrated on October 30, 1938 when Orson Welles and the newly formed Mercury Theater group broadcasted their radio edition of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." On the eve of Halloween, radio programming was interrupted with a "news bulletin" for the first time. What the audience heard was that Martians had begun an invasion of Earth in a place called Grover's Mill, New Jersey. It became known as the "Panic Broadcast" and changed broadcast history, social psychology, civil defence and set a standard for provocative entertainment. Approximately 12 million people in the United States heard the broadcast and about one million of those actually believed that a serious alien invasion was underway. A wave of mass hysteria disrupted households, interrupted religious services, caused traffic jams and clogged communication systems. People fled their city homes to seek shelter in more rural areas, raided grocery stores and began to ration food. The nation was in a state of chaos, and this broadcast was the cause of it.
