Class Notes

Why are music videos postmodern?
  • They break boundaries (avant-guard)
  • They mix high and low culture
  • Combination of media happening together
    • film
    • fashion
    • tv commercials
  • Anti-realism, hyper reality - Baudrilliard (no grounding)
  • Grand narrative (not real) - no story
  • Very intertextual - musically, pop cultrally
  • Pastiche - look back nostalgically on previous music videos traditonal
  • "music videos create a schizopohrenic abandonment of rational, liberal discourse which creates a nihilitic (belief in nothing) amoral universe of representation" - Andrew Goodwin
  • a music video is essentially a commercial consumerism - comerical benefit - selling to consumers
  • fragmentation of identity
  • different signifiers to challenge meaning "an image culture, an implosion of information a hyper realism" - Baudrilliard
  • Representation of race/gender

Keywords for Narrative in Music Videos:


  • Narrative: The way a story or tale is told so that the elements are structured and organised in such a way that it makes sense to the audience. It has also been described as how events are unified in time and space
  • Protagonist: The leading character or a major character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.
  • Antagonist: A person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary.
  • Climax/Crescendo: When something is growing louder and more intense. 
  • Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - New Equilibrium: Todorov's theory - story begins and everything is balanced and then something happens and then there is a resolution and a new equilibrium begins. 
  • Enigma Code:  Drives narrative by an unanswered question
  • Proairetic/Action code: Drives narrative through anticipation of an action's resolution 
  • Linear: a sequential narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end-in that order.
  • Non-linear: where events are portrayed, for example out of chronological order. 
  • Circular: a circular narrative is a narrative that has certain plot points repeated. 
  • Parallel narrative: a parallel narrative is two narrated parts of a story set in the same place and same time.
  • Convergent narrative: 
  • Interweaving narrative: 
  • Impressionist narrative:
  • Flashbacks: A scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story.
  • Flash forwards: a transition to a later event or scene that interrupts the normal chronological development.
  • Real time: The actual time during which a process or event occurs
  • Reversal: A change to an opposite direction, position, or course of action.
  • Dream sequences: a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. 
  • Repetition: The action of repeating something.
  • Different characters POV:
  • Ellipsis: The omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or be understood from contextual clues.
  • Pre-figuring of events that have not yet taken place:


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