The document discusses several theories related to music videos and their narratives, stereotypes, and gender representations. It analyzes the music video for "Howler – Back of Your Neck" using theories by Mittell about genre conventions, Metz about typical genre cycles, and O'Sullivan about stereotypes commonly portrayed in bands. It also examines the gender representations and masculine point of view in "Mr. Brightside" based on theories by Mulvey.

1. Theories – Narrative -
Gender
Throughout the history of film making man and woman have
written up theories giving their take on how films should look and
what characteristics make the best type of movies.
I will be looking at a number of different theories at one in
particular music video. I will also be looking stereotypes, genders
and how genre affects the music video itself.
The music video Im going to be talking about is Howler – Back of
your neck. The video was directed Robert Semmer where we see
clips of the band performing and also home video clips taken by
the band. The band our signed to Rough Trade Records and this
year have become a huge success within the indie rock scene
internationally.

2. Jason Mittell - Genre
 Jason Mittell (2001) argues that industries use genre to sell products
to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions
that very often audience knowledge of society and other media texts.
 I feel this statement can be linked to most music genres in particular
genres such as hip-hop and rap. In the case of my genre I have
chosen Indie Rock, I feel this statement is relatable to the genre I
have chosen because throughout history of music videos in this genre
a great deal of the time you see the same conventions repeating
themselves has directors known this is what appeals to the audience.
For example the video I have chosen Howler – Back Of Your Neck
shows the same typical conventions of the band playing live and
random clips of the band. I feel this type of video has worked so well
over the years is because fans like to see how well the band can play
live and also fans are very interested in the members of the band not
just the music.

3. Metz - Narrative
 Metz argued that genres go through a typical cycle during their lifetime of
changes.
 The videos I have looked are ‘The Strokes – Someday’ created in 2002 and I
will be comparing it to ‘Howler – Back Of Your Neck’. All though one
song/video is ten years older than the other it isn’t particularly that clear. Each
video is based around the idea of different clips of the band in everyday
situations we also see clips of the strokes on a gameshow. We see a number
of clips of the band performing. Both videos do follow Metz statement as the
concept is very similar and hasn’t changed over such a long period of time.
 There are ofcourse come differences such as the quality of recording, within
The Strokes video it is clear the video quality was a lot less than modern day
recordings. Also within the howler the video the band are much more looking
towards the camera engaging with the audience, but in The Strokes video the
band act as if the cameras aren’t there showing a more natural appearance.

4. Todrov - Narrative
 Todrovs theory applies to some not all music videos. I have chosen the music video by Arctic Monkeys
called Leave Before The lights Come on. Tordrov states that there are five different stages of a movie.
 1. Equilibrium or Normality – We see a man casually working down a road care free.
 2. Disruption of the equilibrium – A woman is standing on a rooftop as if she is going to jump. The man
realises this.
 3.Recognition of the disruption – The man then stops the woman from jumping.
 4. Attempt to repair the disruption – The man buys the weoman Coffee and she thanks him and starts
to become too intense.
 5. Return to equilibrium of normality – The woman now runs back to the rooftop and the man is
walking like he once was.
 As you can see Todrovs theory worked with the Arctic Monkeys video although as it’s such a strange
video concept it didn’t work as well as more mainstream videos. Within Todovs third and fourth stage
the narrative didn’t exactly follow word for word, this is because the narrative wasn’t a normal
predictable plot we would have through when beginning to what the video.

5. Levi Straus - Narravtive
 The video I have chosen is The Killers – Mr Brightside. Levi
Straus Binary Theory is all about two opposing people or
groups who are fighting against each other (physically or not
physical).
 With in this video we see Brandon (lead singer) appose the
other dominate male in the video. Both men want this girl,
Brandon wants that girl as he clearly loves her but the other
man wants her to pimp her out. The video consists of
Brandon singing to the girl but she is always doing what the
other man wants.
 This video clearly has the binary theory within it from the
competition between the two opposing males.

6. Stereotypes
 O’Sullivan et al (1998) – Details that a stereotype is a label that
involves a process of categorisation and evaluation.
 “We can call stereotypes shorthand to narratives because such
simplistic representations define our understanding od media texts
– e.g we know who is good and who is evil.
 In the video ‘Howler – Back of your neck’ we see a number of
stereotypes which are associated with the genre and people who
enjoy listening the genre. We see some of the band members
smoking, a big stereotype is that people who are in bands smoke.
He also see the band and friends drinking, this is another big
stereotype that people in bands drink a lot of the time.

7. Gender
 In the Mr Brightside video gender is used to show how
males are mescaline and females are feminine. For
example the two men seem to be fighting over one girl
showing that men have control and automatically can
decide between them who will be being seeing her with
even asking her. The girl is also shown in an sexual
way as a clip shows her flashing her bum. I feel this
video represents more of society view on gender not
how gender is represented within the Indie Rock genre.
I feel on a whole gender isn’t a great deal affected
within the genre.

8. Mulvey
 Laura Mulvey argues that the dominant point of view is masculine.
The female body is displayed for male gaze in order to provide
erotic pleasure for the male. Women are therefore objectified by
the camera lens and whatever gender the spectator/audience is
positioned accept the masculine POV.
 In the Mr Brighside video I looked at I feel that the lead female
actress was objectified to a point. She was scene as someone
who didn’t have control and someone who was forced to do what a
man told her to do. From an audience view it was shown in the
eyes on male this is most probably because the main target
audience is for males. In the video we also see the emotion of the
lead female this helps woman relate to her which would go against
Mulveys option.