Week 7: Visual Narrative & the Media

Why is narrative important when shaping a visual image to the audience?

Narrative refers to the concept of storytelling which involves the sequence of events, characters, time and location. Narrative can be found in any media forms, from literature to film and advertising. In this journal entry, I shall use a music video to analyse its narrative and explain its importance in conveying visual messages.  

From the video that I had chosen, the narratives I derived from the story are based on the English translation of the song, the video, reviews and comments of the music video. I tend to agree of the assumption that two sisters are in fact the same person where the portrayal of blind person and white represents the inner self of the woman, whereby the mature woman connotes her outer side, thus fitting Levi’s Strauss theory of Binary Opposition. The characters/mimesis in the video however, are not played by the artists themselves and therefore the focalization is emphasized on their story narrated by the singers. 

The narrative structure of this video begins with a glimpse of the ending and only after the brief hint did the story begins according to Aristotle’s narrative structure. The scenario starts off with a blind girl who is struggling to come out from the bathtub coinciding with repetition of the words ‘’It hurt’s” and at the side, a woman is sitting on the floor, seems regretting of what she has done to her. Assuming the two girls are the same person, the whole video represents the struggle over innocence and womanhood (Subi, Seoulbeats) whereby the blind girl in white is the connotation of purity while the makeup symbolizes adulthood and maturity. According to Barthes, the symbolic code helps to engage the audience. The mise en scene is also useful for viewers to construct meaning, for instance, red lighting used to describe the mature woman’s grief and dull colour throughout the video represents melancholy. 

The narrative of the story is based on the reality of human beings; when we’re teenagers, we want to experience what it’s like to be an adult, sometimes we’re simply searching for own identity and vice versa. This is represented by the blind girl in the video who looks up to the woman, trying on makeup, and most of all, wants to be in love which can be seen when she caresses the man. The woman in turn, frustrated with the young girl and let her egoistic side ruled her feelings and actions. The reason for this is because she doesn’t want her to come into her womanhood which is highlighted in the scene where the mature woman forces the young girl to wash off the makeup. The conflict in the end made her realize that the she’s the one who should washes off her face which is depicted by the connotation of ‘cleansing cream’ and instead be someone who she really is.

The narrative analysis of music video above shows how different elements of narrative are used to create a meaningful story via visual images to entertain the audience. On the other hand, one must take into account the limitation of narrative in music videos due to the short duration time. Furthermore, Steven Archer advocates that sometimes the plot in music videos only coincide with a portion of the song lyrics.

References: 

Mediaknowall. (n.d). Introduction to Narrative. Retrieved from: http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/keyconceptsgcse/keycon.php?page!D=narrative

Subi. (2011). Cleansing Cream: The Innocent Girl and The Mature Woman. Retrieved from: http://seoulbeats.com/2011/11/cleansing-cream-the-innocent-girl-and-the-mature-woman/

Music Video Narrative. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/ksomel/music-video-narrative