The video fits several narrative theories: 1) It follows a cause-and-effect chain of events over time, with a protagonist, villains who antagonize her, and heroes who help her. 2) It depicts the villains laughing at the protagonist, establishing them as antagonists, while the protagonist acts anxiously as the "damsel in distress." 3) It begins with the protagonist's equilibrium practicing alone, is disrupted when the villains target her, and is repaired when the heroes help her compete.

1. Narrative Music Video Analysis – Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice’s ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’ follows the conventions of a narrative music video because
it presents a chain of events in a cause- effect relationship occurring in time (Bordwell and
Thompson). Because it’s classed as a narrative video, it fits into many narrative theories.
An example of a theory which this video fits to is Vladimir Propp’s theory that there’s a
limited number of character types that share a function and when an audience reads a
media text, it deploys its knowledge of these character types in order to decode the
meaning of the text. In this video, the villains are depicted as the other dancers in the
competition through various close ups of the girls physically pointing and laughing at the
protagonist of the video. There’s a wide shot of four of the other dance competitors stood
staring at the camera with arms folded and negative body language/facial expressions.
Other wide shots show other dancers shaking their heads at her and physically turning
away. The negativity of their body language labels them as the villains because it shows
them acting antagonistically towards the main character. The protagonist is represented as
the princess of the story as she gets into trouble and can only be ‘saved’ with the help of
heroes. She is shown almost as a ‘damsel in distress’ character due to the hand held camera
shot of her isolated and sat on her own with body language that suggests she’s possibly
weak and through a close up of her hands. The close up of her hands shows her acting
restless which has connotations of being anxious or generally not ok. At this point, the
heroes of the video enter. The first time we see their faces, it’s from a low angles camera
shot which suggests they have power within the story. Here, as well as other moments in
the video, we also see elements of a postmodern narrative where the characters are shown
to have self-reflexivity due to the playfulness of the men dressing up as women in order to
enter the dance competition themselves. They then go on to help the princess to achieve
her goal of performing in the competition.
The video also fits to Tsetan Todorov’s theory on the structure of a music video (1969). The
video begins with the equilibrium of the protagonist practising for the dance competition on
her own, shown through various close ups. This then leads to a disruption of equilibrium
when she enters the venue and the villains of the story act negatively towards her shown
through wide shots of negative body language aimed at the protagonist. This then leads to a
hand held camera shot of the protagonist sat alone with close ups to allude to her anxiety
and upset at the situation which could be seen as recognition of the disruption. The heroes
enter here and the low angle shot of them labels them as holding power which they then
use to attempt to repair the damage caused. This leads to them competing in the dance
competition with her which satisfies her goal and creates new equilibrium.
Claude Levi-Strauss examinedhowstoriesunconsciouslyreflectthe values,beliefsandmythsof a
culture.These are usuallyexpressedinthe formof binaryoppositions. There isconflictbetweenthe
protagonistandthe dance competitors inthe story.The dance competitorsare representedasbad
due to theirnegative bodylanguage andthe exclusionof the protagonist,whilstthe protagonistis

2. representedasgood.The factthat she beatstheminthe dance competitionsatisfiesacommon
value insocietyof the binaryoppositesof goodandbadwhere goodconquersbad.
Overall,thismusicvideosatisfiesanumberof narrative theoriesandpresents ‘awayof organising
spatial andtemporal eventsintoacause-effectchainof eventswithabeginning,middleandend
that embodiesajudgementabout the nature of events’ (EdwardBranigan- 1992).