Riptide

(Missed last lesson - Emily sent notes)

The women in the video are always running away from something or looking in fear/vulnerable, it can be assumed that they are running away from men that are following or stalking them.

- dehumanising women and making them look like dolls (objectifying them)

- Some kind of surgery procedure - altering her image to make herself look better and fit in society possibly

- looks in fear of someone, something

- looks like a doll - links to idea women are meant to look perfect. 

- dark background makes it gloomy and depressed connoting she is surrounded by darkness in her life (low key lighting)

- mid shot of women. 

- low angle shot makes her look powerful

- looks as if she is being watched through the leaves - voyeurism 

- hiding her face with the binoculars suggesting she doesn't want to be seen - hiding away from the world - reinforcing the idea that she is being stalked and watched. 

- she is vulnerable and scared - being observant.

Riptide lacks anchorage and is polysemic - video to riptide is similar to Adbusters - asks us a lot of questions but never gives us the answers (don't need to say how they are alike in the exam!!!!)

Riptide is bizarre, creepy and can promote word and mouth advertising as the video seems so unrelated to the song = contrapuntal (sound that doesn't match with the visuals)

One ideological perspective of this video is that women are weak and vulnerable = example of a stereotype - reflects the ideology of the producer = VIDEO IS SEXIST                            

The other reason for the video presenting this idea could be in order to shock people and to make them go out and buy the song. 

Bad things are happening in this video to women for other peoples pleasure - sadistic  - asking the audience to take pleasure of the women being tortured.

- when she is escaping and running it shows that she is strong and powerful 

- she is looking down onto people = more powerful and important and connoting that she is the dominant person in this situation 

- gesture of the women is like a statue = bringing out the problem that women are used to sell media products.

- Low angle shows she is powerful - pose like a statue could be a reference to objectification. This gesture could draw reference to women being used to sell media products 

There are several contradictory and even positive representations of women in this video:

- Mid shot of women freeing from ropes

- Low angle shot of the woman on the balcony - contradictory of power

- Mid shot of of women in graveyard with low key, natural lighting connoting darkness, misery, destruction - women are presented as 

- Mid shot of Women in dark room with makeup running down her face - shown this shot to show how women don't always have to look perfect

- Mid shot zooming P.O.V shot of women removing swimming costume is critical of sexualisation of women in music videos and highly critical of representation of body types. 

Many shots put the audience into an uncomfortable mode of address 

- Second beach shot of mid shot of women smoking and turns to look at the audience and a direct mode of address and positions the target audience as the danger and threatening figure.

- master shot of women singing and slowly loosing her makeup between shots - deliberate lack of anchorage and an unanswered hermeneutic code puts the audience on edge. Models lack of movement is particularly stagment - might be injured and could be forced to do something over and over again = torture and nightmare that is causing her to bleed.  The model is submerged in absolute darkness and connotative of misery. Symbolic code of blood = danger, death, dying.  This shot could be making reference to how women are treated in the entertainment industry. 

Suspiria: 

- close up shot of womens face 

- screaming very loudly

- colourful dreamlike quality but binary oppositional to what actually happens

- women being chased, attacked and grabbed (happens in riptide)

- highly emotive use of colour (colour corresponds to emotion) - when leaving the airport there is a red light instantly connoting danger, fear and death.

Use of cowboy iconography (in riptide) might be a reference to a fistful of dollars

Reminds us of pulp fiction or tarentinto movie - washed out colours, briefcase in riptide

Balcony scene might be a reference to Romeo and Juliet 

Grand Budapest Hotel = bright colours etc.  

Riptide doesn't fit any year/time in the past 


We are positioned uncomfortably close to the women in the video e.g when the women escapes we are positioned to look at her hosteria.
Riptide comes up in component 1. We will be asked to compare it to something.