The document discusses several theories related to genre, narrative, representation, and the male gaze and applies them to analyze the music video for the song "Up All Night" by Blink 182. It finds that the video does not fully follow Todorov's narrative theory of five stages and there are no opposing sides per Levi Strauss' conflict theory. However, it does present stereotypical representations of teenagers as violent and destructive. The male gaze theory is also not apparent as genders are portrayed equally.

1. Theories
Roberto Troisi

2. Genre
• Jason Mittell’s theory is that industries use genre to sell products to
audiences. He says media producers use familiar conventions and codes
that often reference their audience knowledge of society and other media
texts.
• The video for Blink 182’s ‘Up All Night’ uses similar conventions as other
videos.
• For example the pace of the cuts between shots is fast.
• It also shows teenagers destroying things in a street and trashing the
houses like a riot.

3. • Christian Metz argued that genres go through a typical cycle of change as
time goes on.
• When comparing the video for ‘Up All Night’ with the video for ‘Josie’, also
by Blink 182, we can see some similarities and some differences in the
conventions.
• Both videos use a fast pace of cuts and transitions between scenes, and
both are about life for teenagers.
• The video for ‘Josie’ features a lot of comedic scenes and is based around
them, however ‘Up All Night’ has no comedy in it which shows that the
genre has evolved into more serious themes over the years.

4. Narrative
• Todorov’s theory has 5 stages:
1. Equilibrium or Normality
2. Disruption of equilibrium
3. Recognition of disruption
4. Attempt to repair disruption (can be repeated till success)
5. Return to equilibrium or normality
• The video of ‘Up All Night’ does not follow this theory and instead just
features one stage of teenagers trashing a house.
• Levi Strauss’ theory states that there is always a conflict or opposition
between two sides or people
• There are no real opposing sides in the video, however you do see a short
section at the end of the video where the teenagers are in two
groups, running at eachother.

5. Representation
• Stereotypes:
• The video shows teenagers as violent and destructive.
• It shows them not caring about other people’s property.
• The males seem to be the more violent ones whilst the females are just
having fun and being drunk.

6. The Male Gaze
• Laura Mulvey states that the dominant view is male and that women are
displayed for the male gaze.
• This is not apparent in this music video as it just shows teenagers being
violent and shows the different genders as equal.