Riptide

Riptide - Vance Joy


Context:

  • Riptide is 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 Gorum and has had nearly 100 million views on youtube.
  • Vance Joy is an Australian singer and songwriter signed to Atlantic records (a subsidiary of major label, warner). His music can be categorised as fitting into indie, folk, pop genres.
  • Indie is short for independent.
  • it is classed as indie yet it's not because it's signed with the subsidiary warner brothers. 

Music video analysis:
  • The singer is not shown on camera, atypical. We are just shown shots of places, things or other people. 
  • Ukulele in background
  • Some of the shots are creepy and dark, like the woman being dragged away, tied up and stabbing a hand. This is very unconventional.
  • There are many hermeneutic codes within the video, bot none of them are solved which is frustrating for the audience. 
  • The subtitles used within the chorus of the song are mocking the lyrics as they are being spelt wring, usually music videos don't have subtitles. 

The question we will have to answer in the exam is:
How does this video create meaning for the audience?



Structuralist Approaches: binary oppositions
  • structuralism focuses 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.

Reasons why binary oppositions are used:
  • To grab your attention
  • More dramatic
  • They can be funny
  • Emphasises one side so we know who to side with
  • Helps anchorage
  • Makes it interesting
  • Makes it easy for the producer to make

Binary oppositions can also be called diametric oppositions

Binary oppositions in the music video:
  • Day and night
  • Light and dark
  • Sleeping and running
  • Inside and outside
  • Life and death
  • Luxury and decay
  • Male and female
  • Australia and America
  • Left and right
  • Violence and calm

This video is highly polysemic. 
One of the main themes is representation of women


Objectification = referring to someone as if they are an object.

Male Gaze = the assumption that the audience are always heterosexual men, every product by default is made for heterosexual men. 

Sexualisation = representing someone as only being sexual.

Voyeurism = looking into someone's life (without them knowing) and taking pleasure by it. 

Scopophillia = the love of looking at someone

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