Timed Essay Question 2

 

Explain how media language in music video incorporates viewpoints and ideologies. Refer to one of the music videos you have studied to support your answer.

In this essay I will explain how media language such as camera angles, mise-en-scene, sound and editing in the music video, Burn the Witch by Radiohead incorporates viewpoints and ideologies. The music video suggests that white middle class people don’t deal with problems any better than how they’re use to – it implies that the video is about being trapped in this conservative/traditional ideology is dangerous. Represented is a certain social group stuck in the mentality of past generations and haven’t moved on.

The narrative of the music video subtly follows Todorov’s narrative theory. The Equilibrium shows the village getting ready for an unsuspecting inspector to visit. The disruption being the various pagan rituals happening around the village disguised in flowers and colours. By the time the inspector comes to this realisation he is being sent up to the wooden man. The villages resolution is to burn the inspector in the man. The final equilibrium is shown right at the very end when the inspector is seen escaping the village and the burning man.

In the music video for Burn the Witch, most scenes are long shots and establishing shots to set the scene and set the atmosphere of this village. However low angles and high angles are used when showing the inspector in comparison to the village people to represent the power the village people have and the inspectors lack thereof. For example, the camera angles start off low as the inspector looks at each section and then he pans upwards to the horror created by the village. He looks at the lovely flowers before looking up and realising it’s decorating the gallows; this implies that with this ideology there are plenty horrors hidden beneath the surface. The gallows, the ducking stool, and the painting of the red cross on someone’s door like they did during the Great Plague, are all nods to old medieval traditions, which implies that this ideology is dangerous and outdated.

The video has many bright colours throughout this small middle class, village, fitting the traditional ideology as the village lacks diversity and has a man in charge, creating this idea that it is the ‘perfect’ and ideal place to be, there are no minorities and no problems which implies that the two are connected. The bright colours also suggest that this is a positive ideology on the surface, despite the dark parts of the village such as the gallows, the animal sacrifice, and pagan rituals. The lighting is also bright and creates a positive atmosphere which again contrasts the dark and grim Pagan rituals. The end scene shows the village standing proudly around a wooden man that they trap the inspector in and set on fire as part of a sacrificial ritual, this is an intertextual reference to the 1973 The Wicker man. This film is about a Christian detective going to an island to investigate some disappearances, the island is inhabited by a community of pagans who believe their sacrificial pagan rituals is the reason for their farming success, at the end of the film the detective is burned inside the wicker man and falls victim to these sacrifices.    

The people themselves are props as they are made of felt and look like toys, which implies that the issues and stereotypes are started and lie within the people in power and just like toys or puppets society just follows their lead or are controlled by them. This idea links to the cultivation theory, the media and people in power sell their beliefs and ideologies and we as a passive audience cultivate these views after repeated exposure to them. The animation style of this model village is a reference to the Trumptonshire trilogy in the late 1960’s. This show was made to teach children about community values for the ideal society and pushed the western ideology. It is believed that this style was used to reference the idea that many people do not agree with anything outside this ideology. The costumes are old fashioned and look to be from between the 1800-1900s. They are colourful whereas the inspectors are boring and plain, which suggests that he does not share the same ideologies as the people of the village, he is seen as an outsider.

I believe the video is trying to represent the danger of the viewpoints of the majority (White, middle class, middle aged) and is challenging the dominant ideology. These are the people with the most power in society and they are the ones who create and reinforce stereotypes through the media that society, the passive audience, is injected with and over a long period of time the exposure to these stereotypes means that the audience cultivate these same views. The media has the power to push certain viewpoints and ideologies and can do this without responsibility over the events that follow, this is because the ideology they are pushing is supported and followed by those in power. The Burn the Witch music video represents society as very traditional and set in its ways. Unwilling to accept anyone who is a minority or “different” and that as a society we refuse to help minorities and instead see them as a problem we must get rid of, much like how the village seeks to get rid of the inspector.

In conclusion I think that the Burn the Witch music video has used media language to represent the traditional white, middle class ideology as dangerous and evil. It also implies that traditional views are very much still a part of our society and it has prevented us from evolving and moving on. The video uses intertextual references, mise-en scene, camera angles etc. to incorporate this ideology and viewpoint.