mv2

1. RIP TIDE BY VANCE JOY
Week twenty-five
Component one – media
products, industries and
audiences

2. Rip Tide- Vance Joy
Vance Joy is an Australian singer-songwriter signed to Atlantic
records (a subsidiary of major label, Warner). His music can be
categorised as fitting into indie folk-pop genre.
Riptide was Vance Joy’s first single to be released in the USA,
following his debut EP, “God Loves You When You’re Dancing”. It
became a platinum selling single.
The video was directed by Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun and has
had nearly 100 million views on YouTube.
CONTEXT

3. VIEWING ONE

4. In order to explore Riptide, we shall first look at it through structuralist
perspectives, followed by exploring representational issues, and then
concluding with it’s use of intertextuality

5. However, the question
we essentially will
always be answering,
is…

6. How does this video
create meaning for its
audience?

7. Structuralist approaches: binary oppositions
⚫Structuralism focusses on the underlying
meanings in signs and symbols. It is closely
related to language and how we use language to
perceive the world.
⚫Claude Levi Strauss argued that we all make sense of
the world through binary oppositions. This is to
say we can only understand something through what
it is not.

8. binary oppositions
⚫Look out the window. It’s day. But how do you know
it’s day?
⚫Bart Simpson is really naughty. But how do we know
he’s really naughty?
⚫Psycho is set in an isolated motel. But how do we
know it’s isolated?
⚫The killer jumps out of the cupboard in [every
slasher film ever] and it’s very loud! But how do we
know it’s very loud?

9. binary oppositions
⚫Day ---------------------- Night
⚫Bart (naughty) --------------- Lisa (good)
⚫City (crowded) --------------- Motel (isolated)
⚫Loud --------------------- Quiet
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s
come up with as many as possible!

10. More examples
Friends
The Breakfast
Club
The Terminator
Inside Out

11. Why do producers use
binary oppositions?
(2 minutes)

12. Why binary oppositions?
⚫They make things easy for the audience. We know
who the nerd is in [every teen movie] because the
cheerleaders laugh at him as he walks past.
⚫They can be funny for the audience. Think about
how many comedy shows have mismatched
couples!
⚫They make things easy for the producer. More
time can be spent on driving a narrative forward!
⚫They make ideas more intense. A horror film is
particularly scary when the evil and bloodshed
contrasts with an upbeat opening.

13. VIEWING TWO

14. Riptide and the
representation
of women

15. Riptide- Vance Joy
Vance Joy is an Australian singer-songwriter signed to Atlantic
records (a subsidiary of major label, Warner). His music can be
categorised as fitting into indie folk-pop genre.
Riptide was Vance Joy’s first single to be released in the USA,
following his debut EP, “God Loves You When You’re Dancing”. It
became a platinum selling single.
The video was directed by Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun and has
had nearly 100 million views on YouTube.
CONTEXT

16. Define the following
terms
Male Gaze
Scopophillia
Voyeurism
Sexualisation
Objectification

17. Key theory 8 – feminist theory –
Liesbet Van Zoonen
⚫Men's bodies and women’s bodies are encoded in
completely different ways in media products,
constructed through media language.
⚫Additionally, women’s bodies are used a spectacle
to sell media products. Therefore there is an
assumption that the audience is always, without
exception, a heterosexual man.

18. Task: Screen shot every time a woman is
represented in the music video.
What does this reveal about the representation of
women?
Do you think the video is reinforcing patriarchal
world view of women or subverting and
challenging the objectification of women?

19. Women in the video are repeatedly presented as
an object to be watched:
In one shot a woman with her back to the camera undresses out
of her swimming costume and there are a number of instances
where we see disembodied, isolated sections of women’s bodies
such as bare feet running away or feminine hands being dragged
out of shot.

20. • Framing
• Makeup
• Performance
• Hegemonic notions of beauty

21. As we repeatedly return to this character she becomes
increasingly disheveled, her makeup smudges and her
expression becomes more and more vacant as she
sings “the words wrong”.
Does this video challenge or reinforce
representations of gender?

22. Along with the representations of women the music video also
presents a number of scenes that offer images of violence, such
as a female hand being stabbed by a knife and a gun being
pointed off screen. The lip-synching woman also clutches at her
own neck and we see what seems to be blood over her hand.

23. Feminist theory - bell hooks
• Feminism is a struggle to
end patriarchal
hegemony and the
domination of women
• Feminism is not a
lifestyle choice: it is a
political commitment
• Race, class and gender
all determine the extent
to which individuals re
exploited and oppressed

24. Is the video objectifying
women in an ironic or
knowing way
OR is it
instead feeding into the
oppression of women
in a patriarchal society?
Male Gaze
Scopophilia
Voyeurism
SexualisationObjectification

25. ⚫Irony: the expression of one's
meaning by using language that
normally signifies the opposite,
typically for humorous or
emphatic effect - Google
dictionary :O

26. How does the video to Riptide encode feminist
ideology?
⚫ Presents a mocking parody of sexism in music videos – C/U
“how to photograph girls” – connotes that women are purely
present to be looked at by a heterosexual male audience
⚫ Many shots of women in stereotypical male clothing. Low
angle M/S of woman holding arms in a gesture that connotes
power
⚫ M/S of blonde woman bound in MES of tight ropes connotes
the restrictions that women face in society, and is critical of
the notion of women as a ‘weaker sex’ – connotative of ‘being
tied down’ with maternal responsibilities etc
⚫ Video lacks anchorage which forces audience to make own
assumptions, simultaneously providing sexual gratification for
male heterosexual audience, but also consistently informs the
audience that scopophilia is creepy and not OK

27. How does the video to Riptide encode
feminist ideology?
◼ Ironic representation of patriarchal hegemony – M/S man
standing in front of woman with torch in exaggerated pose and
situation – graveyard
◼ Sexualised images utilised as referential codes – significant
amount of film references draws attention to the negative
representation of women in cinema
◼ C/U woman singing – connotations of rebellion and agency
◼ Music video lacks anchorage, forcing the audience to make own
assumptions about the representations of women
◼ M/S gagged woman escaping from ropes lacks sexualised
elements, and is presented purely as upsetting and challenging
to the heterosexual male audience
◼ Ultimately the video is highly polysemic and most of all
SUBVERSIVE of the hegemonic ideological perspectives
normally seen in music videos

28. Discuss the representation of
women in the music video
Riptide by Vance Joy.
Make reference to key terms
and media language. Male Gaze
Scopophilia
Voyeurism
Sexualisation
Objectification
CONCLUSION

29. Consider how the combination of elements of media language influences
meaning and intertextuality:
Montage editing is used in an overt way - a wide range of contrasting
shots juxtaposed (often through hard jump cuts) to convey a large
amount of information:
The editing together of seemingly disparate images invites audience
interpretation – we are given the opportunity to make our own
judgments and
The music video for the most part rejects a clearly defined narrative.
There are some short coherent narrative sequences (such as the scene
where the girl goes missing in the graveyard) but for the most part the
sequences deliberately lack narrative coherence. – non-linear

30. Intertextuality
Where one media product makes reference to
another media product

31. Suspiria
Dario Argento, 1977

32. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tobe Hooper 1974

33. Un Chien Andalou
Luis Bunuel, 1929

34. ◼Suspiria (1979) re-release trailer
https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=5Y0EEqtWrJI

35. Paradigmatic features
of the horror film -
Suspiria
◼ Props – knives, noose, gloved hands, barbed wire
◼ Weak and vulnerable female protagonist – damsel
in distress archetype
◼ Colour scheme – vibrant primary colours – red and
blue filters, highly typical of 70’s European horror
◼ Soundtrack – use of suspenseful non-diegetic
sound, diegetic female screaming
◼ Violent male antagonist
◼ Iconographic features such as cherry red blood
◼ Retro – fashion, particularly 70’s, muted colours

36. Paradigmatic features of the horror film -
Suspiria
◼Non-diegetic soundtrack cuts out,
functioning as a proairetic code, signposting
the upcoming violence
◼M/S of girl hanging, low key lighting
◼C/U woman being stabbed with knife
◼Suspenseful framing of female protagonist
standing in corner of room
◼Consistent vulnerability of women emphsised
through their body language and physically
frail

37. The iconography
heavily references
the horror genre.

38. Surrealism
What does this
refer to?
When did this
movement begin?
https://youtu.be/o7xTjeLG5SM?t=137
Un Chien Andalou (1929 Bunuel/Dal)
How does Rip Tide make reference to surrealism and avant
garde cinema?

39. Representation in 30 seconds
What is it, and why should
we care?

40. Representation constructs reality
● Explore this statement. What are its
implications?
● In what ways can socio-historical context
effect the ways in which groups are
represented?

41. How to talk about representation
1. Who is being represented?
2. How is the representation constructed
through media language?
3. What ideological perspective or
message is constructed?
4. How does this ideological perspective
impact the group being represented?

42. Manuel Alvarado: racial stereotypes
and their functions
Pitied
Dangerous
Exotic
Humorous

43. Othering
The process of viewing someone or something who is not
the same as different and threatening. Someone who is
not ‘the same’ but is represented or perceived as being
‘different. Since from a hegemonic perspective many
media products assume the audience to be white, straight
men, examples of groups who are routinely othered
include young people, black people, gay people, and
women. Horror films in particular often play off the threat
of the other, and the antagonist will often be an allegorical
representation of a marginalised group.

44. Stuart Hall - representation theory
● Stereotypes are formed from a widely held
belief about a certain group of people. These
are repeated textually and subsequently
cultivated ideologically. This has the potential
to become a self fulfilling prophecy.
● Stereotypes are reinforced by those in
positions of power, and create strongly
enforced hierarchies. Additionally stereotypes
come about when there is imbalance of power

45. Paul Gilroy - postcolonial theory
• Postcolonialism is the study of the impact that being under
direct rule has had on former colonies. For example, despite being
a tiny island, Britain colonised and declared ownership of many
countries, including India and Australia.
• These ideas and attitudes continue to shape contemporary
attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era
• These postcolonial attitudes have constructed racial hierarchies
in our society, where, for example, white people are by and large
given more positive and important roles than BME people
• Media producers are also guilty of using binary oppositions to
reinforce BME people and characters as 'others'

46. Exploring the
representation of
ethnic minorities in
music videos

47. WARNIN

48. City Girls - Twerk ft. Cardi B (2019)
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QryoOF5j
Ebc
● What are the key representations in this video?
● What choices has the producer made in
representing these groups?
● What connotative aspects encode
representational meaning?
● Who is the target audience for this video (think
carefully)?

53. Lil Pump - "Gucci Gang“ (2017)
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66H
VQ
● What are the key representations in this video?
● What choices has the producer made in
representing these groups?
● What connotative aspects encode
representational meaning?
● Who is the target audience for this video (think
carefully)?

57. 6ix 9ine - Billy
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJjsm6CVsG8
● What are the key representations in this video?
● What choices has the producer made in
representing these groups?
● What connotative aspects encode
representational meaning?
● Who is the target audience for this video (think
carefully)?

61. Formation and
themes of
conflict

62. Formation – Beyoncé (2016)
◼ Formation, lead single for the album Lemonade, was
released the day before Beyoncé performed at the Super
Bowl final in February 2016. The Formation music video,
directed by Melina Matsoukas, was released with the song.
◼ This music video has won numerous awards including a
Clio Award for Innovation and Creative Excellence in a
Music Video at the 2016 awards, and has been nominated
in the music video category at the 59th Grammy Awards.
◼ The video is set against the backdrop of the flooding in
New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and the
associated racial tension in America, and also draws
historical parallels with references to racism and slavery.

63. Formation – Beyoncé (2016)
◼In what ways are the themes of conflict
encoded in this video?
◼What are the functions and purposes of this
music video?
◼What groups are represented in this music
video? Are these representations typical or
subversive?

69. Media language Examples Analysis- why
is it used?
Effect on audience
Camera angles
Editing
Mise-en-scene :
lighting
Mise-en-scene :
props and costume
Mise-en-scene :
performance
Binary oppositions