Narrative Theory

Summary Of Goodwin's Music Video theory:

I would summaries Goodwin's theory by he looks at a video to see the meaning behind it. His theory suggest you should look and analysis all the details of a music video as in some way, shape or form it has meaning behind it and relates to the lyrics the artist is saying on screen. This can be done through visual effects or the choreography on screen by said artist or even dancers in the video if dancers are there.

I can apply this theory to one of my chosen music video Eminem's Real Slim Shady. 

In this video you see through the combination of his lyrics and visuals on screen the meaning behind his song for example in the chorus he always references one of his stage names "Slim Shady" and says "Can the real Slim Shady please stand up" as he says this multiple times he is in a room full of people dressed exactly like him even with the same bleach blonde hair and as he says this he is often the focus on the camera as the camera uses a combination of a low angle shot with  mid close up with Eminem's face at the centre and this implies meaning as it represents Eminem's person belief that no one should try to copy or be like other people as you should just be who you are. Goodwin's theory applies well here as you can see through the visual effects and whats happening in the video the meaning behind it and see what the narrative is. 

This is very typical narrative of the rap genre as rap music videos tend to have an Abstract narratives as there is no start and finish to the music video that what is happening on screen is all over the place whilst also showing an Advertising Narrative as the star is typically the spotlight and main focus of the music video and this narrative is also very common within the genre and often appears with the abstract narrative and this is shown clearly in 'Real Slim Shady' and shots and cuts often go back to the same scenes with nothing actually happening showing there is no real narrative. This conforms to Lyotard's theory as he doesn't believe in meta narratives so a traditional story. 

From my studies I have learned that there are 3 different types of narrative within music videos: 

• Advertising (Showing off star and their image) 
• Abstract (There is no clear narrative)
• Chronological (There is a clear start to finish narrative) 

Above is the music video to Eminem's song 'Stan' which subverts Lyotard's postmodernist theory against meta narratives as Stan has a clear chronological meta-narrative within it and doesn't have a main focus of the rapper in fact barley contains any shots containing him meaning it doesn't conform to a typical advertising narrative as he is not the focus or publicizing himself and as there is a clear story which is about an obsessed fan wanting to be like Eminem but ends up destroying his life and everything around him and ends with Eminem rapping whilst writing a letter to 'Stan' and is the only part of the music video which actually focuses on him. Compared to most music videos in the genre, this is unusual, as most music videos are abstract and conform to Lyotard's theory.

After studying narrative theory I have become very interest in the work of Eminem and how his lyrics and music videos subvert your typical advertising and abstract narrative and he focus a lot on a chronological narrative which tell you clear stories whilst trying to communicate a moral message which is also subversive of the genre at the time. Eminem still contains elements of the other narrative as he still is the focus of the majority of his music videos and some of his music videos such as the real slim shady do contain elements of an abstract narrative as there is random moments and no clear start to finish. As a result, Eminem was ground breaking, because he exploited the genre in new ways.

Summary 

As a result of this research i am interested in making a video which subvert's Lyotard's theory of metanarratives and proves that you can have one main story and a chronological element to the music video whilst also having elements of the abstract narrative expected from the editing style of a music video.